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On this episode of DTB’s “Gear Masters”, Brett “Bat” Carruthers, bassist of the darkwave band, The Birthday Massacre, shows off the gear that he uses onstage, while on the Dark Winter Tour with Lord of the Lost and Wednesday 13. The Birthday Massacre is currently supporting their newest album, Pathways.

PLAY THE SAME GEAR:
Raapt Custom Instruments Electric Bass - https://www.raaptinstruments.com/
MJS Custom Bass Pickups - https://mjscustompickups.com/
D’Addario EXL160BT Balanced Tension Bass Strings (.050-.120) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/1GrJ9a
Pedaltrain Metro 20 Pedalboard - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/VOm7Oa
JHS Whitey Tighty Mini FET Compressor Pedal - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/X4Y744
Boss OC-3 Super Octave Pedal - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/WOq7OG
Abominable Electronics Hail Satan Deluxe Overdrive - https://www.abominablepedals.com/products/hail-satan-deluxe
Abominable Electronics Wicked Garden Chorus - https://www.abominablepedals.com/products/wicked-garden
Red Panda Bitmap Bitcrusher / Fuzz - https://www.redpandalab.com/products/bitmap
Tech 21 SansAmp RBI Bass Preamp - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/yZ2YZv
Wounded Paw Bass Amplifier Head - https://www.woundedpawaudio.ca/
Gallien-Krueger Neo 412 Bass Cabinet - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/4aPXdM
InTune Guitar Picks (1.0 mm) - https://intunegp.com/

VIDEO INFO:
Film Date - January 31, 2026
Location - Concord Music Hall in Chicago, IL

KEEP UP WITH THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE:
Facebook - https://facebook.com/TheBirthdayMassacre
Instagram - https://instagram.com/thebirthdaymassacre
Twitter - https://twitter.com/TBMassacre

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VIDEO SUMMARY:
00:00 Introduction
00:37 Skip Intro
01:13 Bass Guitar
03:37 Pedalboard
05:40 Amp & Cabinet
07:03 Picks

ABOUT DIGITAL TOUR BUS:
Digital Tour Bus is your backstage pass to your favorite touring artists! With daily video releases, we cover all genres, and have had the pleasure of featuring the likes of Matchbox Twenty, Twenty One Pilots, Megadeth, MGK, Papa Roach, AJR, Pierce The Veil, Simple Plan, A Day to Remember, and thousands of others over the past 15 years. "Bus Invaders" takes you inside an artist's home on the road, "Cooking at 65mph" showcases the culinary skills of artists on tour, "Gear Masters" unveils the equipment musicians use on stage, and "Stage Threads" dives into the meaning and inspiration behind the clothing artists wear during their performances.

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Transcript
00:00it's the perfect goth bass tone it it can't be beat in my opinion kind of has
00:05a mix of a Jaguar with a Rickenbacker I love these tiny tuners now that don't
00:10take up a lot of room it's great
00:37hey I'm Brett or bat from the birthday massacre I play bass we're out on the
00:42road right now on the dark winter tour with Wednesday 13 and Lord of the Lost so
00:48this is our Chicago date we're about I don't know nine or ten shows in so things
00:55are finally feeling good feeling confident everything's running really
00:59well and the tour has been great so far the bands are amazing and yeah this is
01:04the second US tour we've done for our Pathways album which came out earlier in
01:112025 all right so this bass is a custom bass that was made for me by a good
01:19friend named Randy he lives in Orillia Ontario Canada his company's called
01:25rat instruments so this is a design that actually a drummer in another band that
01:32I play with called the primitive evolution he helped me design this I think he was
01:38calling it the Beretta was the original idea behind it you know something new
01:43something fresh kind of has a mix of a Jaguar with a Rickenbacker total mix up and
01:50then for the pickups these are custom pickups by MJS from Mississauga Ontario Canada as well
01:58and Smitty's set me up with a really interesting tone that's reminiscent of the
02:06like 70s SG basses and those old like Gibson road basses so I'm kind of keeping everything cranked
02:16these are both just jacked it gives this really cool like mid-range boost and punch so I'm just
02:22running it straight up I play in D standard tuning just because I find it easier when
02:28we're doing some of the bouncy disco kind of stuff that I can move around like that for
02:34D'Addario strings there it's the balanced tension I think it's the EXL 160 BT if I'm not mistaken that
02:44might be right but it's a 120 on top so I can drop it down to see if I need
02:49to do drop C stuff and it
02:50keeps the tension really nice this base is also a long scale base so it's a 35 inch scale on
02:59it
03:00which makes it just tighter when you're playing that low drop stuff it's a little longer it took
03:07me a while to get used to it with my short arms but yeah this base has been great I
03:12love it it
03:13sounds good it feels good stays in tune it's just a beautiful work of art starting to get really worn
03:20in here the the pick base stuff but it's exactly the finish I wanted it and to degrade like that
03:29that was like the idea behind it first part of the change the tuner easy nice and tiny I love
03:36these
03:36tiny tuners now that don't take up a lot of room it's great then this is the whitey tighty by
03:44JHS
03:46not just your compressor sort of emulates like a FET compressor I think so I'm just blending it in 50
03:5350 just to give it a little bit more sustain on the held notes and juice up the signal a
03:59little bit
03:59before I hit my overdrive and then I use the the super octave OC3 there's a track where like the
04:09breakdown in stars and satellites it goes down to like a low B but rather than have another base I
04:15use the
04:15super octave to kick in for that part to drop and blend in an octave so it's got a double
04:21octaver effect
04:22on it and then this is one of my favorite pedal companies it's called Abominable Electronics he's
04:30got this OCD oppressive cult destroyer he calls it it's perfect a bass overdrive in my opinion I love
04:39this pedal so much on bass and guitar as well actually but it's got like a clean blend so you
04:45can you know keep keep the integrity of the bass and then add a little bit of dirt so that's
04:51like my
04:51mid-range dirty pedal then this one's called the wicked garden it's also by Abominable I use this one
05:00solely for its one knob course on this pedal and to me it's like it's the perfect goth bass tone
05:07it it
05:08can't be beat in my opinion very simple just one knob it's perfect and then for like really fuzzed out
05:16long sustained stuff I'm using the red panda bitmap just to completely annihilate the signal and again
05:24it's got a mix on it so you can bring in some of your real bass tone but then the
05:28big crusher cranked
05:30all the way up it just creates this wicked fuzz that breaks up in this awesome way and it's gates
05:36all the noise though so I really love this too for like big fuzzy moments the next step is the
05:42RBI by
05:44sans amp it's an older one love the sans amp bass driver very similar to that pedal but this is
05:51the
05:51rack unit build RBI unit and that's just like the stuff that sans amp did with their like their EQ
05:59curve it just scoops it out in the perfect ways and just to me it makes everything sound better from
06:06your distortions everything it just cleans up the mids makes it real nice and then I'm going into this
06:13wounded paw from Toronto as well a local Toronto maker he started making these bass amps like five or
06:20six years ago or yeah I just love them he's onto a new model now can't remember what the new
06:27ones
06:27are called but wounded paw it's on his website and it's got like this great multi-band overdrive section
06:37so you can sort of choose the frequency you want choose if you want it distorted or not and dial
06:42it in
06:43that way so that's just my last sort of sculpting before it heads to the old gk neo 412 this
06:50thing's a
06:50beast it's been around for like 20 20 years now and it's just a road hog yeah well my pick
06:59right
06:59now I get to these are actually uh my wife Stephanie's bass picks uh I didn't have time to get
07:07custom ones
07:07for a birthday massacre so I've been using her picks um they're by in tune guitar picks and they're
07:14millimeter thick so I like that I've gotten used to like the dry kind of tortex style uh feel and
07:22the
07:22big size for a bass pick I find it makes it a little more comfortable a little less fatiguing uh
07:28than like
07:29a smaller regular guitar pick I think everyone who helped me create this rig and you know like from
07:36rap randy at wrapped and smitty at mjs the the bass tone wouldn't be what it is without those guys
07:42and
07:43all these pedal companies are great and I love this like era of boutique pedals and people making
07:48really specific stuff it's really exciting especially like with the amp from wounded paw and like you can
07:54get so specific it's really exciting to me um right now birthday massacre we're gonna finish up this
08:01tour and then we're back in the studio so there'll be another record on the way and uh check out
08:06our
08:06website birthdaymassacre.com and uh check out those dates if we're coming to your town
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