Peter Hook is one of those musical icons for me. My musical brain was developed in high school listening to bands like Joy Division and New Order. At the time, I didn’t know what impact it would have for me now, but it’s quite significant. Peter Hook is a strange bass player – meaning, not typical. He focused on melodies. He played high on the neck, and his ability to create those iconic bass ‘hooks’ is really.. unmatched.
When I think of Joy Division or New Order, there are a lot of pieces to consider, but the bass.. the bass is such a magical part of the equation.
I saw that he did a little interview with Reverb.com talking about his gear. So I was extremely interested in this video..
After watching the video there were a few things I wanted to point out. One of the biggest things to understand about his tone, is his chorus pedal that he talked about. He uses the Electro-Harmonix Clone Theory. Now, EHX makes new ones, but the one to get, if you can find it/afford it, is the vintage unit with the mounted power cord. That’s the magic. Also, for those of you that are interested in the tone, you’ll probably need to work out a substitute for the Shergold Marathon bass that he plays. It’s a Bass VI (not 6 string bass – have fun going down that rabbit hole). There are plenty of alternatives out there.
I also thought it was interesting he talked about the volume, from going loud in the early days to small in the late 80s/90s with New Order and how (in my opinion) that sucked.
Did you also notice that he referred to Barney (Bernard Sumner) as the guitarist and lead singer.. and not by name? I guess things are still hot in that relationship.
Let me know what you think by commenting below.
Leave a Reply