Cliff Williams, who has been a member of the famed Australian hard rock band AC/DC since 1977 will, at last, get his own signature bass. He is known for using Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay basses on AC/DC tours for many years now. This bass will be released in November and is an exact replica of Cliff’s original 1979 StingRay Bass. Hopefully, we can see this bass in the hands of Cliff soon on an AC/DC tour.
This bass will be limited to 26 instruments worldwide. The starting price for this bass will be a bit steep at $7,000.00.
Specs
- Body: 3 piece Poplar
- Scale: 34″ scale
- Finish: Nitro Faded Burst
- Color: Back in Burst
- Neck: Maple Neck
- Fingerboard: Maple
- Frets: 21
- Radius: 7.5″
- Tuners: Schaller BM
- Pickups: Custom Humbucking with 8 Elongated Alnico Magnets
- Electronics: Custom two-band active preamp
- Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass
The Story
Cliff first appeared on the “Powerage” album and the subsequent tour. He is known to produce steady, to-the-point bass lines that compliment Malcolm Young’s rhythm guitar parts really well. Cliff stated that ” I play the same thing in every song, for the most part… in AC/DC’s music, the song is more important than any individual’s bit in it”.
He understands well what is the bass player’s role in a hard rock band like AC/DC. He does not try to show off and just keeps the bass lines as simple as possible. He will not stand in the way of anyone’s part. Most of the time Cliff plays with a pick and uses only down picking to get that great rock bass sound out of his Ernie Ball Music Man bass.
Cliff is known for his Music Man basses but back in the day, he experimented with many different styles of basses. With his first appearance with the band, he used a Gibson Ripper which is seen in the “Let There Be Rock” music video. Other basses he used included a Fender Precision Bass, Fender Jazz Bass, Gibson Thunderbird Bass, and a Gibson EB-3 Bass to mention a few. To get his classic hard rock sound he uses Ampeg SVT 810E speakers with SVT-4PRO Head
The Future
In 2020 AC/DC confirmed that some of the band members from the classic lineup will rejoin the group. That includes lead singer Brian Jones (who left the band in 2016 because of hearing issues and was replaced by Axl Rose of Guns’n’Roses), drummer Phil Rudd and of course bass player Cliff Williams. They have been teasing new music on their Twitter account. We just hope we can hear a new album and maybe we can even go see them live on a new AC DC tour.
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