Moving in Effect(ive) circles...

[SimonK]

So I play guitar and bass, and certainly from a guitar perspective view compression, delay, chorus, a few drives and recently the awesome FreqOut as essential for almost every time I play. For acoustic I like some compression & chorus. But the truth is I play gigs on bass far more than guitar, so naturally have wanted bass effects. But the more I try bass effects the less I seem to use them, finding that compression plus various EQ shaping options seem the most useful once the band starts to play.

 

This week I put my envelope filter and octaver back on the bass board determined to use them, but again after one practice swapped them out for the Hartke bass attack because of the two tonal options - a warmer mild crunch & the pre-shape that seems to just work better in a band setting. Generally I plug in, fiddle with the amp/pre-amp to get the 90% of the time sound (hence having a couple options as even in the same room things just change), use the Bass EQ for slap, chorus for fretless and very occasionally big muff when things get crazy, but nothing else seems needed.

 

I then see some of the awesome pedal boards on here and start wondering what I am missing - what do people use their effects for beyond getting a solid basic sound?

 

 

[lidl e]

Im having a lazy sunday with the family out, so I'll answer in my usual lengthy way.

 

I use my boards for many applications, live shows, recording, inspiration, fun, re-creation of existing sounds, but the overall basic reason, when you get down to it, is to change the sound of your bass.

 

I use a lot of effects and always have. 

 

I find when listening to some smaller band's demos they have the same bass tone through out the album.  That is boring and uncreative to me and everything starts to sound samey.  

 

I can dial in different tones depending on the mood of the song. Heavy fast tune, throw a bit of distortion,  70s groove type, a bit of OD. Want some atmosphere, throw on a bit of chorus and reverb. Want to fill out a three piece? Pop on an octave pedal. Covering 70s tunes? Nowadays the easiest way is a digital synth pedal. Or use a bunch of analog pedals in combination to recreate.

 

In my current band the guy used to do everything himself, so there is a lot of synth bass. I use my C4 to copy those sounds. 

 

I use my pedalboard on every gig and i can get pretty much any bass sound in a small footprint quickly and easily. 

 

I dont really use delay much live,  but i find it the most inspiring effect when writing riffs.

 

And, most importantly of all, it's just plain fun! There is nothing better than getting in a room and making crazy noises just for fun. I dont need an audience, just a drummer, a good amp and my effects boards! No guitarist necessary!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 3 by lidl e

[lidl e]

so, again an indulgence, but i just took five minutes and di a quick run through my gig board to show you some of the sounds i would use. 

 

Some of them you might think sound totally awful, but through a massive amp with a killer dummer behind you, these all sound unreal and SO much fun.

 

Don't judge the playing! i'm just messing around with no drumbeat or warming up.

 

I mess around with the Deep Freeze at the very end and that just starts to sound insane

 

@mike f

i probably should have opened up the tone knob a bit!

 

I threw the rig up on the dining table. Wife waint be happy when she comes in!

 

Edited March 3 by lidl e

[SimonK]

Cool - thanks - I liked the fuzz at the beginning (16 seconds) which isn't far from the big muff sound I sometimes use (my reference is normally the Bass fuzz from Ben Fold's Kate). But the other sounds do you actually use them in gigs - I kind of imagine some sort of psychedelic trance type thing if you do...

 

...I will see if I have a moment to record some of the different tones I get out of my board, although as mentioned they are better described as different EQ curves rather than effects...

 

PS love the reverse headstock on the p!

Edited March 3 by SimonK

[lidl e]

13 minutes ago, SimonK said:

Cool - thanks - I liked the fuzz at the beginning (16 seconds) which isn't far from the big muff sound I sometimes use (my reference is normally the Bass fuzz from Ben Fold's Kate). But the other sounds do you actually use them in gigs - I kind of imagine some sort of psychedelic trance type thing if you do...

 

...I will see if I have a moment to record some of the different tones I get out of my board, although as mentioned they are better described as different EQ curves rather than effects...

 

PS love the reverse headstock on the p!

I do! Excpet for the deep freeze at the end there and that one weird synthy thing with the notes stepping id use all those at shows.

 

Here's two songs id use heavy effects.  The first is synth bass that i recreate with a C4 live.

 

The second is recorded with my big board there and we are throwing everything at it for fun. Especially the pigtronix 

 

 

TBF, the clean tone on the second track sounds better than everything else.

 

 

 

Edited March 3 by lidl e

[SimonK]

Right - quick guitar loop on a Digitech Trio (to get drums) straight into audacity, but these are the similarish sounds I get from my board, all of which are usable but not ever so exciting (apologies for the dodgy bass playing - monitoring was a bit of an issue!).

 

1 - Just compressor (which stayed on for the rest)

2 - Hartke shape at 280ish

3 - Hartke shape + pre

4 - Big Muff

5 - Slap with Boss GEB7

6 - Chorus

 

(Stingray Bass, 3EQ set flat)

Edited March 3 by SimonK

[MrDinsdale]

I have a similar thing where I just seem to gravitate towards drives. I’d pick up modulation and time based stuff and never used it. Now I have the Boss GT1000core which can satisfy any modulation, delays, looping and reverbs etc then some preamps and drives that I love.

 

While I don’t really use anything more exotic for band stuff it’s really great to have all those effects at your fingertips incase you do want to go off the beaten track and experiment. 

[SimonK]

49 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

I have a similar thing where I just seem to gravitate towards drives. I’d pick up modulation and time based stuff and never used it. Now I have the Boss GT1000core which can satisfy any modulation, delays, looping and reverbs etc then some preamps and drives that I love.

 

While I don’t really use anything more exotic for band stuff it’s really great to have all those effects at your fingertips incase you do want to go off the beaten track and experiment. 

That's a lot of filth on the bass - sounds great in isolation but do you find you disappear into the mix live? The big muff sound I have above is about as much drive I can put on it while still cutting through.

[MrDinsdale]

20 minutes ago, SimonK said:

That's a lot of filth on the bass - sounds great in isolation but do you find you disappear into the mix live? The big muff sound I have above is about as much drive I can put on it while still cutting through.

No issues up until the OxEAE Fuzz which is kind of untested. The Halberd and Dagger are perfect, loads of snarl but never really looses the bottom. I push the mids quite a bit too which helps.