Geddy Lee

Geddy Lee is the bassist of Rush, and for most of his career his stage rig has looked nothing like a conventional bass setup. Since the Test for Echo tour in 1996 he has performed without onstage amps and speakers, favoring major household appliances instead, with washing machines and on occasion rotisserie chickens standing in so the backline did not look too empty¹². His actual tone has come from an intricate system of off-stage gear built around Tech 21 SansAmp preamps³.

Along the way, Lee evolved a signature overdriven tone that MusicRadar calls "easy to recognise but tricky to describe in words, so it's just as well they invented YouTube"⁴. Since 2017 that tone has an official hardware form: a family of Geddy Lee Signature SansAmps he designed with Tech 21, starting with the GED-2112 rackmount and running through pedal, desktop and limited edition versions⁵⁶.

No amps on stage since 1996

The defining fact of Lee's rig is what is not there. In 1996, on the Test for Echo tour, he stopped touring with amps and cabs altogether¹⁴. MusicRadar describes the decision as "not only ahead of the curve but also totally prophetic of the DI-centric era in which we find ourselves"⁴.

Instead of a backline, Lee relied on an intricate system of off-stage gear, which included the SansAmp RBI and/or the SansAmp RPM³. The household appliances onstage were scenery rather than sound sources: MusicRadar notes he was famously an early adopter of Tech 21's analog gear and "would have washing machines, and on occasion, rotisserie chickens, onstage lest Rush's backline look too empty"². For a player building a bass pedalboard today, Lee's approach is the direct-feed model taken to its conclusion: the preamp and DI do the amp's job, and the PA does the rest.

SansAmp RBI and RPM in the rig

From 2001 until the development of his own signature rack, Lee's off-stage system was built on two Tech 21 rack units: the SansAmp RBI and the SansAmp RPM¹⁸.

The SansAmp RBI is a rackmount bass preamp and direct box that Tech 21 describes as "a pumped-up, expanded version of our popular SansAmp Bass Driver DI pedal"⁹. Its rear panel carries a 1/4-inch input and an XLR output with selectable levels⁹, plus a footswitch input and output⁸. Its controls break down as follows⁸:

The SansAmp RPM is a single-space rackmount model adapted from Tech 21's SansAmp Acoustic DI pedal, with the addition of a Drive control, redesigned as an expanded multi-instrument tool¹⁰. In Lee's rig it was the source of his edgy crunch: he describes his long-time approach to bass tone as a deep clean tone coupled with an edgy crunch he gets from the SansAmp RPM¹¹¹.

That quote is the key to the whole signature line: the clean and crunchy halves of his old two-unit rig, folded into a single box.

The Tech 21 GED-2112 signature SansAmp

After the R40 tour, Lee wanted to streamline his gear for new projects and partnered with Tech 21 to design a signature SansAmp, the GED-2112¹²³. Guitar World dates the partnership to 2017 and describes the result as a signature 1U rack-mountable SansAmp⁵. Tech 21 says the unit distills a boatload of Lee's equipment into a single rackspace¹³, and Premier Guitar's reviewer notes that Lee "happens to be a fan of SansAmp technology, and through a collaboration with Tech 21, the GED-2112 Geddy Lee Signature SansAmp was born"¹⁴.

Bass Musician Magazine's review of the rack unit explains its internal structure: the first preamp is the Drive section, modeled after the SansAmp RPM¹⁵. That is the edgy-crunch half of Lee's quote above, in dedicated hardware.

The signature line at a glance

The GED-2112 was later distilled into a pedal format and then re-launched as the limited edition MP40 for the 40th anniversary of Moving Pictures⁵. The full line, as Tech 21 and the press describe it⁶¹⁶:

All five share the same color scheme and graphics¹², and Tech 21 says that no matter which one a player chooses, "each offers Geddy's core sound and the versatility for many different styles"¹²¹⁹.

The YYZ pedal and the MP40

The YYZ, announced in February 2019, is a downsized version of Lee's signature rackmount SansAmp¹⁷. Guitar.com called it a streamlined iteration of the GED-2112 rackmount unit²⁰. The MP40 Limited Edition, launched in December 2021, is based on the original YYZ pedal and celebrates the 40th anniversary of Moving Pictures³¹⁹. It is all-analog and builds on the YYZ with a brand-new selectable Boost stomp switch that provides a 12dB presence boost for increased top-end distortion³.

The DI-2112

The DI-2112 is, in MusicPlayers.com reviewer Kel Pilshaw's words, "a fraternal twin to the GED-2112 rack-mount bass preamp, but in a compact, tabletop or large pedalboard format"¹⁸. Its rear panel is generous for a unit its size:

• A dedicated tuner out
• Separate Drive and Deep outputs over both quarter-inch and XLR
• All four outputs usable at the same time¹⁸

The YYZ Shape-shifter and Schmegilka

The YYZ Shape-shifter, announced in October 2022, is an all-analog pedal that builds on the original YYZ with a selectable Boost stomp switch providing a 12dB presence boost for increased top-end distortion⁶. MusicRadar notes it matches Lee's signature rack-mounted and floor units from Tech 21 in appearance, but is in fact the return of the MP40². Its headline feature carries Lee's own name for it: the Schmegilka button.

Tech 21's own materials give the same description in Lee's words²¹. The button is the Shape-shifter control, and Lee has not defined it more precisely than that.

How to get Geddy Lee's bass tone

Lee's tone has two halves. The first is the instrument: Performer Mag's Chris Devine writes, "Whether it's his Rickenbacker 4001 or 1972 J-bass, one note and you know it's him"⁷. The second is the preamp chain: a deep clean tone coupled with an edgy crunch, the combination Lee got from the SansAmp RBI and RPM and later from the GED-2112 and its offshoots¹¹¹.

For a player chasing that sound today, the practical route runs through the signature line. Each Geddy Lee Signature SansAmp offers his core sound plus the versatility for many different styles, in Tech 21's words¹¹²¹, whether in rack, pedal or desktop form. The Drive section in these units is modeled after the SansAmp RPM¹⁵, which is where the crunch half of the equation lives. From there it is a matter of format: the rackmount GED-2112 for a fixed rig, the YYZ or Shape-shifter for a pedalboard, the DI-2112 for a desk or a large board with multiple outputs¹⁸.

A note on the broader picture: Lee's tone is a preamp and overdrive tone generated without a stage amp at all, which is why the SansAmp, a preamp and DI with speaker simulation built in, sits at the center of it rather than at the edge³⁹. Players comparing circuits will find the same core design across the whole signature line, in the formats above.

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