Effects chain question!!!!

jacobrownoly · #1 08-24-2009, 11:44 AM

Hi, just the other day I bought a brand new Jim Dunlop bass cry baby (the white one) and I have a question regarding how I can go about putting it in with a my Big Muff Pi distortion pedal.

Both pedals sound awesome when playing them alone but when I try and use them together it sound pretty bad and I am sure its because I don't know how to go about setting them up properly, can someone help me??

Do I have to use it with the FX send/return and can someone help me with this too??

Thanks for your time

Jack

bongomania · #2 08-24-2009, 11:56 AM

They both go in between your bass and your amp, not in the amp's loop. It doesn't matter which one of the two is first in line, and there are no "silver bullet" knob settings. Just try them with one first in line and then the other, and tweak the knobs each time until you get a sound you like. I'm not being patronizing or flip here either, what I've described is just "how it's done".

Bubba Ghanoosh · #3 08-24-2009, 12:00 PM

Like bongo said, there's no set rule.
But, here's a good starting point:
http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/fx-order.htm

3toes · #4 08-24-2009, 12:08 PM

You have to kind of think about it as like a logical progression... Do you want to add fuzz to a wah'd bass sound. Or do you want to add some wah to a fuzzed bass sound?

Just gotta try it both ways.

Higgins666 · #5 08-24-2009, 12:15 PM

Bongo's right, there really isn't a set way to set up your pedals. Out of interest, have you tried running the wah & muff the other way around to how you are at the moment? You may have just gotten the wrong wah for the sound you want.

RickenBoogie · #6 08-24-2009, 05:44 PM

Seeing as it's only 2 pedals, it shouldn't be too difficult trying them both ways. But for sure, use them in front of your amp, (in the instrument IN), not the effects loop.

Fendr1320 · #7 08-25-2009, 09:27 AM

There's no 'wrong' answer, but I always run my Dunlop bass wah before any of the distortions I use, and it gets me that vocal, sweeping, squawking thing that I'm looking for when I step on the wah. But that's what I'm looking for

Fendr1320 · #8 08-25-2009, 09:28 AM

and I'd run everything in front of your amp, so go bass>wah>fuzz>amp.

Just my 2 cents.

jacobrownoly · #9 08-25-2009, 04:47 PM

Thanks for the help guys, both the cry baby and the Big muff Pi sound great when on there own but I still cant get the sound that I am looking for which is a kind of Cliff Burton crazy sweeping wah effect (you know the one

)

You guys said run the wah first so I tried that and It sounded really bad which I thought was pretty odd, so then I tried it with the Bass > Big Muff > Wah > amp and it was alot better, but a still cant really get a tone that I am happy with, any suggestions

P.S when playing the cry baby bass alone with no distortion it sounds great but when I play up high I get a bit of nasty distortion at a certain point in the wah rocking process, dont know what thats all about, only seems to happen when I play high.

Thanks again

bongomania · #10 08-25-2009, 06:40 PM

A wah is a type of resonant filter, and what that means (speaking simplistically) is it is boosting a specific narrow frequency range while dropping the levels of everything outside that range. So when you wah up in the high end, your highs get boosted hugely. Your bass speaker cab is typically not designed to take a big spike in the highs, and will distort. It's also possible that the amp is distorting too, instrument amps can easily distort at certain frequency ranges which will differ from one amp to the next.

gregwatts2008 · #11 08-25-2009, 07:28 PM

What kind of bass are you playing? That may have something to do with it.

jacobrownoly · #12 08-26-2009, 05:25 AM

I have a Spector rebop 4, but it cant be anything to do with the bass because this is one of the best basses I have ever played.

People where saying to put wah first, but I think it sound closeser to the Cliff sound when you put the big muff first.

jacobrownoly · #13 08-26-2009, 09:00 AM

ok... so I have been experimenting alot more with the set up and I found that the best sound I have gotten so far is with the Wah NOW BEFORE the big muff so it goes (bass, wah, big muff, amp) and this seems to work quite well.

One more question tho, with the wah first in line the wah wah effect only really takes place when the big muff toggle switch is set to DRY, so it seems to only effect the dry tone with distortion but the wah doesnt really come through when the swith is set to "Normal" or "Bass boost" why is this????

The setting that I have at the minute I am quite happy with but I was just wonding why it seemed to only work well when mixed with my dry tone.

sorry for any confusion.

Thanks again.

bongomania · #14 08-26-2009, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jacobrownoly

I have a Spector rebop 4, but it cant be anything to do with the bass because this is one of the best basses I have ever played.

Quality is not the point, the point is that some basses have very high or very low output, which can make a big difference in how they sound/work with different pedals; also, importantly, some fuzzes and wahs don't interact well with active basses.