I get the sound by highly compressing my signal, passing it through a fuzz on a low distortion setting and then going into a mu-tron micro-tron 4. The key with the fuzz is to get a very low, gurgling, sound out of it. I got the best sound for this from a vexter wooly mammoth fuzz that I starved for power, usiang a dial on my power brick to turn it down to like 4.5 volts. Was a real swampy kind of sound. I’ve also had success with the Doom2 which is what I use now. However, the special sauce is in the envelope filter settings. You want some Q but not too much, and a slow decay. You want that wubby sound rather than the quacky, bright bubbly twangy sound. The filter alone, or the fuzz alone, will sound like complete crap, but together, tweaked properly, they can replicate the magic near 100%. I’ve gotten the sound out of a Source Audo C4, and also using an MXR M81. So I’m convinced most combos of envelope/fuzz can get someone close. You just have to play with the setting for a bit, dialing things back rather than up. I remember seeing the tab to this song in bass player mag back in 91 or 92. The accompanying article mentioned that flea had an old mutron with a dying battery and capturing the sound was pure serendipity. Lore? Legend? Truth? Who knows! But, for me too, this has been one of those lines that’s had a special place in my heart for many years.
