Do You Use Effects Pedals?

[wizzkidder]

Is it necessary to use effects pedals as a bass player? Or do you just dial in your rig the way you want and go for it. I've recently added a distortion pedal to my setup and I have it set to a minimal gain just to "dirty it up" a bit. I tape the gigs that our band (covers - classic rock) plays and I'm not so sure if It's really making that big of a difference in the sound. I recently did a post about getting my playing to cut through the mix and a lot of people came back with getting your midrange up on the EQ. This has worked real well for me but I'm not so sure about the pedal. FYI, I'm playing a Fender H1 Jazz with a GK 1001RB-II head and GK 410SBX-II cab.

Anyone have any tips or experiences to share about this?

Thanks!

[Kevin Hsieh]

this might be in the wrong section. try posting this in the Effects section of the Electric Bass Forum.
mostly everyone here plays clean haha. we're acoustic players

[John Wentzien]

I've been playing 35 years , and have tried it all... I finally went back to straight in the amp about 10 years ago..Just a jazz bass to an ampeg.. A lot of younger players use effects to mask poor technique ---and develop a "crutch" ... I found out even "true bypass" pedals still seem to rob your signal to the amp..But to each his own...

[wickeddoubler77]

I don't know that anything is "necessary", but I've always used pedals in my bass rig, going back almost 20 years now. The initial foray into pedals came as a result of hearing Cliff Burton's distorted wah tone on "Anesthesia/Pulling Teeth". From there, it just sort of developed naturally as I added chorus, compression, and eq pedals. I also play guitar & would always try out my guitar effects on bass just to see what would happen. One of the main things that using separate pedals taught me early on was the importance/concept of GAIN SCHEDULING, i.e. which order the pedals sounded best in, and what range of output (volume) produced the best signal-to-noise ratio. Over time, I began to look at effects as chef might view spices: You want to have a rack full of every spice under the sun, but you'll (probably) never use them all in the same dish. I changed my effects setup many times over the years, and also went through "purist" periods where I just plugged straight into my amp with the shortest possible cable & all controls set flat: "Dude, the sound is in my HANDS, not the GEAR." Well, the truth is that sometimes your hands won't make the sound you want, and you need to dig through your toolbox to find something that will get you where you want to go sonically. I recently sold nearly all my pedals to make funds available for a Line 6 POD XT live w/ bass expansion pack, and one of the biggest things I miss about my pedals is the modular nature of a pedalboard. The XT live is very cool, though, and if you have the means, do check one out. The pedals I kept include a Digitech Whammy, Sans Amp bass DI, and a Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz, which is totally bitchin'. The point of all this is simple: Use whatever you need to make the sound you want. Don't be influenced by anything other than your ears & your sense of what the song needs. And be sure to use good patch cables, otherwise the whole thing is a waste! Hope this was helpful...

[wizzkidder]

Originally Posted by Kevin Hsieh

this might be in the wrong section. try posting this in the Effects section of the Electric Bass Forum.
mostly everyone here plays clean haha. we're acoustic players

Sorry 'bout that. I'll make the switch.

[wizzkidder]

I reposted this thread to the effects section. Sorry about the mixup.

Cheers!

[Silversorcerer]

Wow, I slipped into the forum warp! Effects pedals? Nah, too glitchy and if you have a great sounding bass and a decent amp or even a reasonably good sounding bass and a fairly bogus amp, you'll sound better clean. About the only interesting effect I ever heard on a bass is on this old Mott the Hoople album "the Hoople" where they run the bass through an organ Leslie. Now that sounded cool, but only for about one tune. The tune is "Alice". Now lots of the old pros had some distortion on. Mostly natural and tube. Check Phil Lesh on Live Dead or Noel Redding.

Your effects box is your right hand technique, IMO. Anything else seems to muddy it up.