Zach Cooper Breaks Down the Big Tone Behind Coheed and Cambria

Zach Cooper met up with The Bass Nerds in Chicago while out on tour with Coheed and Cambria and gave us a look at the rig that’s been carrying the low end night after night. And yeah, it slaps.

He’s running a pair of Yamaha BBP34s. One’s loaded with classic Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders, but the other got a recent upgrade. After falling in love with a set of Fralins at home, Zach dropped some 5 percent overwound versions into the second bass. The result is all punch and midrange with a throwback 70s vibe that he clearly digs.

On the amp side, it’s Aguilar all the way. Two DB 751 heads and a set of 8x10s stage left and right deliver the kind of wall-shaking tone you’d expect from a Coheed show. The rig might be big, but it’s clean and straight to the point.

Then there’s the pedalboard, which is small but nasty. He’s got a Death By Audio Bass War fuzz, a Big Booty Judy from Back Burner that runs like a turbo RAT, and a 3Leaf Audio Octabvre MKIII for that syrupy low end. The whole board sits on stage with him. He’s tap dancing through fuzz, dirt, and octave in real time, and you can hear every knob turn in the set.

There are other details too. A GoPro mounted to his bass. A Hipshot drop tuner with a backstory tied to a mentor. A one-knob volume mod because he doesn’t need anything else. All of it adds up to a rig that’s tailored, road-tested, and totally dialed in.

Zach’s tone hits hard. It’s punchy, it’s dirty, it’s tight. It’s the kind of setup that does exactly what it needs to without overthinking it. Just the way we like it.