00:00We're playing D-Manufactured, so pretty extreme settings, so drive all the way to the max.
00:04Sorry, but you won't be able to find this in the store.
00:06Just a super bright, clean tone, cuts through walls of guitars.
00:30Hey, what's up, everybody?
00:39My name is Ricky Bonazza.
00:41I'm currently out here on tour with Fear Factory, filling in for Tony Campos on bass, and I'm
00:49happy to show you around my equipment and what I'm using out here on the D-Manufactured 30-year anniversary tour.
00:57All right, so this is the main X.
01:01It's a Fender Jazz Bass, the new series American Ultras, and Fender was super kind to do a special
01:11color for us, which, you know, with the matching headstock, so sorry, but you won't be able
01:18to find this in the store like this.
01:20Set up with EMG pickups.
01:25These are the X-series.
01:28Shout out to my friend Tommy at EMG for sending me those and always take good care of me.
01:34The beautiful thing about these pickups is they come with a very, very musical 2-bandy cue.
01:39So, basically, we've got treble and bass, and it just does something to the sound that's
01:46not abrasive, that's just very clean and very musical.
01:51So, you know, it's really cool depending on the strings, too.
01:54If, you know, like your strings started some kind of dull, you just crank the treble a little
02:00bit, or maybe you feel like you have to add a little bit more bass, you have this amazing
02:05bass knob right here.
02:10These are new strings, so I usually have it set to both at 12 o'clock with the bass treble
02:18slightly up.
02:21As you've seen before, it was like this because my strings were, you know, getting dead a little
02:26bit, so I cranked the highs a little bit more just to get that extra cut.
02:32And this is a tone knob, so you basically blend between these pickups.
02:37It's always in the center, too, and then just a regular volume control down here.
02:43I forgot this is really cool.
02:45It's a high-mass bridge by Fender.
02:47I think they were trying to emulate the badass bridges from back in the day.
02:52Cool.
02:53So with Fear Factory, there's two tunings, it's A-standard, B-standard.
02:58I'm playing everything in A-standard to avoid guitar changes.
03:04So it's just faster for me, you know, easier on the techs, and yeah, standard A-tuning.
03:11String-wise, I've been using these Pro Steels by D'Addario for, I don't know how long, but
03:17almost like, almost 20 years, so pretty much since I started playing bass, and just a super
03:25bright, clean tone, cuts through walls of guitars.
03:30It cuts pretty much through everything, very detailed sounding, and without compromising
03:35the low end.
03:35So, shout-out to my friend John Campaiola at D'Addario for always taking good care of
03:43me as well.
03:44Gauge-wise, we have the thickest at 135, 105, 85, 70, 50.
03:53With Fear Factory, I'm mainly using the first three strings, rarely go above, but for any
04:01other artist that I play with in heavy metal, I use 135s.
04:05It's the thickest gauge you can get for these Pro Steels in a set, from what I believe, and
04:11it just always worked great for me.
04:13And for Standard A, it's perfect.
04:17So, as a backup, we got this really beautiful bass made by the guys in Aristides, or Aristides.
04:25But we initially got this bass to do all the 8-string tunings, like the low F-sharps and
04:32the low E-tunings.
04:34So, we haven't got to that yet, so it's currently set to A Standard as well, and we're using it
04:41as a backup.
04:43What is really interesting about this bass is it's not made of wood.
04:47It's a very special material that these guys use, and it's, you know, you can see it right
04:52here too.
04:53It's, without a battery, basically, you charge it.
04:58Multi-scale, fan frets, 36-inch, so really, really, really good for drop F-sharp, drop E,
05:09drop F-sharp, drop F-sharp, all that kind of stuff.
05:23I use a 170 on the B-string, and a 145 on the E-string.
05:33Right now, it's all shifted, because we use it as a backup set in A Standard, so this is
05:38a 145, I believe this is a 110, 85, 75, 50.
05:48I might be wrong, but it's in that ballpark.
05:50All right, so as you can see, it's pretty straightforward with Fear Factory.
05:57Looks like a small pedal, but it's actually very, very versatile.
06:01It's made by my friends at Tech 21, and it's the new Sansev XP driver, which basically has
06:07two fully frequency-independent channels.
06:10So basically, you've got a clean channel, you've got a drive channel, and then you blend
06:14them in as you want.
06:16We're playing D-manufactured, so pretty extreme settings, so drive all the way to the max.
06:21Bass is pretty cranked up, too.
06:25But the blend is pretty much 50-50 with the distorted tone.
06:32What is really cool is that you can basically change the cutoff frequency, so you can blend
06:39in, you can basically distort more of the lower frequencies or more of the higher frequencies,
06:43so you can basically move it back and forth, depending how you want it set up.
06:49Really cool thing is this compressor that compresses the clean channel, so that's already built in,
06:56which is really cool.
06:57And yeah, again, different switches between clean drive, and you can have a mix of both
07:04set your frequencies and your blend.
07:07And that's pretty much it.
07:08We have a noise gate, which kills all the little noises in between, poly-tune, and then the
07:15Shure wireless.
07:18All the other guys are running MIDI, Dino's having all his sounds, and Milo does as well.
07:25With the bass, it's pretty straightforward, so there's one tone, there's one sound across
07:32the board.
07:33There's not really many sounds and switches on this run.
07:41So yeah, I think the pedals do an amazing job.
07:45And I want to give a shout out to my friends at Tech21, Dale and Tim, thank you so much for
07:50always helping me.
07:51Yeah.
07:52Thanks for watching.
07:53For all future Fear Factory dates, go to fearfactory.com, check out the social media.
07:57I want to give a personal shout out to all my sponsors, Tommy at EMG, John at D'Addario,
08:09Dale and Tim at Tech21.
08:11Thank you so much.
08:13If you want to follow me and come along on my journey, just find Ricky Bonazza on Instagram.
08:21You'll find all kinds of posts and stories about playing and gear and all kinds of stuff.
08:27So thanks so much for checking it out.
08:34You
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