The Used’s Jepha - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 573

Hey guys, what's up? Jeff from The Used. I'm here to show you some of my gear, which is very exciting. We're going to go to my favorite thing that I've ever purchased in my entire life. This is my Federa. ------- perfect bass. Perfect. Let's see, it's an Emperor II Elite. So it's an Emperor II Elite. This is a very fancy, fancy, fancy, fancy ass bass. Mahogany wood, flame maple, three-piece maple neck. I was going to get rosewood, but I got this Pal Faro, which is kind of a mix between the two tones, which I kind of prefer. Holly So holly might be one of my favorite woods, so it looks like it would be shell or something, but it is definitely wood through that. You can tell even the F on top is half holly. This is a very nice bass, man. So the best thing about this bass, obviously this big horn up here helps the low end resonate through the B, which is really cool. I'm tuned regular too, so it's just I don't have to think too much, you know. Also, I got a drop tune on here just in case I wanted to hit a low A bomb for something, which is nice. So actually, one good thing is these are Garrison style pickups too, so it's kind of a little bit more in, so it's like, you know, like jazz style, but a little bit closer in, so it gets a better tone. I think it's closer, actually. I'm kind of an idiot. It's just the placement is a lot better, so we'll use that. Yeah, so dialing it in, we started, so this is, it's got an active passive switch, and it has a singular double coil, so if I wanted to do more like a jazz or like a, you know, a little bit beefier, I can do both. I usually keep it on both because I like the extra low end from all of it, and we used to do, we used to do active and did some like high mids with some kind of like tone row back a little bit, so it kind of like punched more, but honestly, I'm a sucker for like, I don't really like digital. I like analog. I like everything kind of old school sounding, so more so now, everything I'm doing is all passive. I just think it sounds, it feels better for me to play passive, you know, like the brights aren't as bright and the lows aren't as low, so it kind of makes a little more round tone to me, which I really love more than anything, so basically everything is flat now. The only thing I use is the tone knob, and the tone knob is all the way down. Sometimes during the set, like I'll kind of roll it in if I want a little bit extra like, you know, a little bit extra presence or whatnot. If I'm using overdrive too, I'll dial it up sometimes quite a bit depending, or actually sometimes the opposite too. If the tone's really aggressive, I'll kind of roll it back. I used to fiddle with my mids during the show, which would **** the sound guy up, so that's a big problem, but now I just, it was bad too. Now I just **** with the tone knob a little bit, just giving extra girth and whatnot. That's about it. This is honestly, oh yeah, strings. I use Pure Blue DR strings. These are, I've used DR for probably 20 plus years now, like I love DR, but these are my favorite actual DR strings, like the Pure Blues. It feels like, it almost feel like they're worn in already, but they still are bright, and they last like forever, like the bright tone lasts. I'm not just kissing their ass right now, because I like the people there. I really actually love these strings, man. Yeah, those are great. I think I'm 125. Is it 130? 130 now, that's right. Yeah, so 130 is 45. It's like kind of basic, which is really nice with the low too, especially since I do that drop A sometimes. I'll drop it, so it's kind of like a drop tuning stuff, which is really nice. It still holds very steady, right? It still holds steady. This is a 35 inch scale too, which is actually helps with the low end, and the low B, and the low A if I want to, so it all kind of works together with this big horn up here too, and it helps cover me, so I can kind of hide a little bit more, you know what I mean? So I'm kind of an introvert, so this really helps me, you know, and yes, I play it really high. I know, it's very high. So this is the heaviest thing on earth. Like I said before, this bass is, it's mahogany. Mahogany is like super heavy, which is really nice on the back, so the addition of something else I really wanted was this. It's called a backbeat, okay, and it's sort of like, well, it is like drummers have a butt kicker. It's a butt kicker pretty much for bass, so it hangs on my back, and it rumbles semi in the frequency of what I'm trying to play, you know, so if you're playing like a cement stage or something, and you can't feel your cabs, which is kind of a bummer, this helps me feel like I'm hitting the note, or if I can't hear myself, it helps me feel like I'm actually playing and not just, you know, touching the strings, which every little, for me, I'm, like I said, I'm like analog, and I like to feel things, and I want things to be there, and I want to exist and stuff, and so for me, any kind of presence that holds me into the reality of actually playing really helps me out, and so this thing has been like a ******* blessing to have for me, you know, but it does add an extra five pounds, so I'm looking at like a 110 pound bass right here, which is really nice, but it makes it all worth it for me. So basically, I use this for everything. I don't change basses. I transpose everything, because we have a bunch of different tunings. I just stick with the one bass, because I like, like I said, I don't change the tunings, because I like, I like the action the way it is. I like the tension the way it is. I don't like playing, I will, I mean, I do the drop on this, and that, you know, change the tension a little bit, but as a whole, I don't really like changing that. I like to keep it as it is, so I can feel it as it's supposed to be, and kind of get into it, but I do have other basses that I use occasionally. Before I, so it took me two years to get this bass, which is a long time. This is Buckeye Burl, which is very fancy, fancy wood. I picked this out. It took me forever to get this, too, because it takes, it takes about two years to get one of these built, right? You put like a deposit down, and then you tell them all the specs you want, and they kind of go over it, and make sure it fits the vibe of what you want to do. Like, I really appreciate these guys, but for the top here, this Buckeye, I had a Buckeye, different Buckeye picked out, and I just kept switching between them, and then like, I would say like a month before it was ready to be started to build, he sent me a right here. I was like, are you ******* kidding me? Like, that's it. I got so excited about it, because I felt like I've been waiting for years to get like the perfect top, you know what I mean? And yeah, and that's it. I'm so happy with it. It looks just like my dog, which is even cooler. Yes, my dog looks just like that. I'll show you a picture later, but before this bass, I was using this Fidera, which is very nice, too. I can't give you the wood specs on this guy, but definitely the pal faro neck, too, which is nice. Looks like three-piece maple, and this one's a little fucked up, because I'm very clumsy, and I swear a lot, too. I'm sorry about that. It's a different body shape. It is not it is not an Emperor II. I can't remember what this one is exactly. It's been a while. This one's very similar, all the kind of the same specs. This, the difference between these two is this has a high and low, my new one has a high and low mid, and this one does not. This one just has a one mid, but same thing, active, passive, all the fun stuff, tone knob. Very, very similar. I don't think it's a Garrison style pickup. I think this is just regular. Yeah, see, it's regular jazz pickups on this one. See how the middle is twice? It's almost like an inch, inch and a half difference, which I like, because this one helps get that little bit low-end punch a little bit more. Yeah, very nice, very fun. Before I got this, or before I got this one, this was my favorite bass that I've ever owned, so it's nice to upgrade it to this. Here is, so I don't use any of these other basses. I'm just showing you for fun right now. This is an F bass that I custom built, too, which that's what these companies do. Same thing, mahogany, which is some of the best wood. I can't remember if this is maple. It looks like it. I kind of like jazz basses, too, a lot, so I like to get some specks of jazz going on. Kind of similar. This is a very fun neck. It is a, what is it called? PME, Pale Moon Ebony. I'm sure there's another name for it, but that's what they call it, PMEs, which is really fun. Kind of a brighter tone compared to this guy, which is still nice. I don't use this at all except for warming up, but my favorite drink in the world is matcha, and you can probably see that. That's why I picked this color, actually. Yes, it's true. I pick things based off things in my life. My dog, matcha. You got strings. You got this. I don't use picks, and I will never use picks. Here we go. This has evolved. Thanks to Connor. My tech, Connor, has really shaped out some of my tones, because I'm really bad at getting tones, because I overfocus and I overthink, and so I kind of screw things up. Here's my heads. Let's see if I can bend over, because I fucked my back up, man. Kidding. It's not that bad. Here's my heads right now. I switch stuff up a lot, but at the moment, this is what I'm using. I have a Trickfish. It's, let's see, Bulwark? Yeah. Bulwark 1000, I think. This is my favorite head that I've ever owned. I'm not going to lie. It is ******* awesome. I use Trickfish cabs, too. I have two 410s, which I usually have. Fuck. Before I switched to Trickfish, I was using Aguilar, and I had one 810 and one 412. I really like 12s a lot. That's the only thing that I changed up that I need to get back is a set of 412s. I think 12s kind of have the best overall tone for bass, but that's a different story. Anyway, I switched over to Trickfish, and I've never been happier, but also along that journey from switching from Aguilar to Trickfish, I was trying Orange out, and I do love this head, the OB 1500. It's a great head. I was using the Overdrive from it, for a long time, until I just semi-recently switched back to some other pedals that I used to use, the Darkglass pedals. I'm back into Darkglass again. I love Darkglass. They're great pedals. We'll talk about that in a second, but yes, I have this Orange OB 1500. I was running this through, well, I was supposed to be running this through 215s, overkill a little bit, and this was supposed to go through two 410s, but honestly, the 410s, the Trickfish 410s are loud enough and strong enough and ballsy enough that two 410s are more than enough on stage. They're just, they're incredible. Actually, one 410 is probably good enough on stage. That's how nice they are. I'm really a Trickfish fan. What I'm planning to do in the future actually is, sorry Orange, what I'm planning to do in the future is get another Trickfish head, probably the same one, although they do have a 3000 watt head that I'm really interested in. You can power three cabs with it, which is kind of exciting, but there's no room for it really, so I'll probably just get another one of these guys. Well, so what I do with this, what we do with this, is what Connor does with this, is so my Trickfish is pre, so all my pre sound comes out of this, and the Orange is post, so all my overdrives and everything come out of the Orange head, and so what that does basically for me, it gives me, well, I have three signals because I also have a direct signal, so I have all three going to front of house, so if he wants to blend my overdrive or my clean or my dirty tone together, or my, whatever you call it, DI tone, he can blend all three together according to whatever sounds better to him out front, you know, which is good for me too, because on stage then I can blend all three in my ears to make it sound how I want to sound on stage. Yeah, and so that leads back to my pedals now, so like I said, I used to use, what would you even call it? It's just the, yeah, the overdrive that comes with the Orange OB-1500, which used to be my main overdrive head for a minute there, until like I said, I went back to Darkglass, and these are actually my older Darkglass pedals, but at the moment I'm going through Microtubes X, which is the sick pedal, of course, and the Vintage Deluxe, because sometimes there's some songs where I want overkill overdrive, I want it to be disgusting and like dirty and just fuzzy and kind of hard to get, you know, understand what's happening, and then there's other songs that I just wanted to be gritty, you know, because we do only have one guitar player, so sometimes it's nice to kind of blend in with the guitar a little bit, and so that's why I mostly use these guys, and the rest of the stuff up here is mostly for fun. This is my favorite pedal I've ever owned in my entire life, the Electro-Harmonix Pog. I only use this at sound check to **** around, and actually I do, when I can throw it in the set, I throw it in the set, take it away, I play it on the bridge, you know, and that's only because I really want to use it as much as I can, so I force myself to try to find a way to use it. This is also fun too, the Q-Tron Electro-Harmonix pedal, same kind of thing, I grew up with a lot of funk, so it's really fun to have funky stuff, and then some too, some pressors up here, I forget, ISP and the MXR, and then the MXR is taking care of any extra buzz that the distortion pedals might create, which is nice, because I probably buzz a lot, I'm sure, especially with this guy, this guy's sometime was getting a lot of signal, maybe it was going through, it's getting a lot of outside signals and stuff, but not anymore, I don't buzz at all, thanks to that, and this is for tuning, which sometimes I need to do, and I don't realize it. This is the bass that looks like my best friend, okay, we'll show you that in a minute, okay, but I wanted to say thanks guys for checking all my gear out, thanks for checking my favorite bass in the world out, thanks for checking my favorite strings out, and my favorite ******* gear out, and it's so exciting, and hopefully you're coming to the show tonight, I know I am, we have a fall tour that just got announced, which is the second leg of the tour that we are currently on, it'd be awesome to see you there, if not, I will be there, check our website out, theuse.net, I'm on Instagram, come say hi, virtual Jeffa, that's me, yep, nerd, talk about nerdy ----, thanks guys, he's, yeah, he's part, well, he's Hawaiian, you can tell by his accent when you see him, but his body type, it's just, he's part German Shepherd, where the **** is a better picture of his funny body, sorry, let's get it, let's get it, let's get it, yeah, that's pretty good, okay, if you look close, yeah, homeboy is the exact, exact color, exact color, man, are you kidding me, even like the little orangey tan bits are in there, even some of the swirls, I mean, dude, get out of here, get out of here,