Essential Effect Pedals
 

What pedals do you guys think every bass player should have?
And whats your opinion on Bass players using Guitar Pedals
:eyebrow:

Ive heard a lot of people say, "bass players shouldnt use pedals" and so forth. Different strokes for different folks. In my opinion, I think, depending on what youre trying to go for, distortion/OD/fuzz, depending on your amp, a preamp/DI pedal like a SansAmp VT Bass or the BDDI, an octaver, delay and a chorus/flanger or both. I personally have all these. And a wha wha and or envelope filter.

As for the use of guitqr pedals used for bass, it really varies. Some guitar pedals actually react better to a bass frequency while others sound like crapola. I have a Boss bass chorus and I am actually thinking of replacing it for a Boss guitar chorus. Ive heard it "rings" a lot more. Honestly I dont dig the one I have that is designed FOR bass. Again, differetn strokes, different folks. I would like to see the feedback you get here. :bassist:

BTW
 

BTW, I happen to NOT be in that club that think bass players shouldnt use pedals obviously. I LOVE EFFECTS AND PEDALS!!! :hyper::hyper: :)

whether the pedal was designed for bass or not, usually has little to no bearing on my interest in it

I think bass players should use whatever pedals they want o, just so long they do not OVERuse them. Everything has its place and time,pedals included.

I don't think there is a pedal every bass player should have, unless you're going to count a tuner as an "effect pedal".

It's a completely personal artistic choice, there are no rules about when or when not to use effects. Personally I play in some bands where a boost pedal is all I would ever consider, and other bands would be difficult without my full board.

As for guitar pedals, I use some. If they sound good, they are good. Again, no real rules here, it depends much more on what you're looking to get out of using a pedal that determines whether it's right for you.

so ima say screw all these guys and their moral ambiguity/political correctness lol

honestly in my opinion i think every bassist should have some sort of modulation. although i love reverb and delay and they are my bread and butter, Rvrb/delay wont be that great for everyone. personally i think on a grand scale of usefulness i think every bassist should have atleast chorus i think it should be essential.


also i don't think i have a single pedal designed for bass soooooooooooo yeah.

Tuner

Essentials IMO:

Tuner
Compressor
DI w/EQ

A good cable and a good tuner.

What's the "best" compressor out there. Or one that is heavily used by a lot of people out there I'm thinking of picking one up eventually. And how is it utilized in your chain? I think I need a bigger board. GAS!!!

Great place to start (after a tuner) with something that you will use the most is one of the following Preamp/dirt boxes: Sans Amp Tech 21, MXR M-80, Xotic Preamp...

Next step chose the modulation that you want: Chorus, phaser, flanger.... tip: Don't waste your time and money on really cheap modulation, if you are going to do it then do it to a respectable degree to really TRY modulation. It's better to stick with step one then to try to get into modulation with a chincy budget. Not all good pedals cost a lot, but you don't want to make your decisions subject to a $40 budget either.

Maybe check out a Strymon Mobius as a good multi-effect for less cost than accumulating individual pedals...

The essentials? A tuner, but that doesn't have to be a pedal.

A great help and a big use to many players (especially tappers and slappers) would be the compressor.

Everything else is personal choice, and most are just lost in the mix anyways.

This is what I'd purchase in order:

Turbotuner
Digitech BSW
OneSpot
MXR Phase 90
Pedaltrain Mini
OC-2 / EBS Octabass
Some kind of OD / Dirt
A DI, SansAmp or MXR M-80

From there, the world is your oyster. Whatever that means.

You want to go here.
http://www.ovnilab.com/

I have the SansAmp BDDI and the VT bass. Those are compressors of sorts right??

I am a die hard tone freak. I have certain tones in my head that I want my bass/effect/rig to reproduce. The tones I like to get are like what these famous players get:

- Jack Bruce
- Chris Squire
- John Entwistle
- John Wetton
- Paul McCartney
- Tony Levin

That is a lot of different tones to get from the bass/effects/rig combination.

Well I have finally settled on this pedal board. Every time I swap out a pedal from this board it no longer sounds as good.



1 - First I run into an equalizer

2 - Then I split the signal into 4 parallel signals with a rolls mixer.

3 - I run one of the parallel lines into the Line6 bass pod where I model an acoustic 360 with a rat or big muff distortion pedal. I use this to get a retro growlly distorted sound. Or I also model an Ampeg fliptop with the Rat Distortion pedal. And I also Model an old Marshall amp. With the bass pod I can get a wide range of clean or dirty sounds and various effects and model different amps and speaker cabinets.

4 - The second parallel signal goes into a MXR bass di+. I use this pedal to get a clean modern sound. It also has a distortion button that can give a moderate to extreme amount of modern distortion.

5 - The third parallel signal goes into a Marshall Guv'nor. This gives me an old 60s marshall stack sound. This can go from a small amount of distortion to an over the top marshall sound. This effect can give you a the classic Jack Bruce Cream tone.

6 - The fourth parallel signal goes into a Tech21 VT Bass pedal. With this effect I get a slightly dirty Ampeg SVT bass amp sound with a tube like growl.

7 - Then I remix the 4 signals back together and run it into a bass amp, or pa, or studio mixer. Because the signals are parallel I can mix clean and overdriven sounds together and still get effect and a sound that punches through the mix.

I would like to do this but with only 2 parallels. How do you do this again?? Is this what they mean by A/B chains?

I don't think any pedals are really necessary, but it largely depends on what style of music you play and if you have any tricks that require effects. I usually run through a tuner, a volume pedal, delay/echo, chorus, and a Sansamp DI. I might add a fuzz or overdrive, and I'm toying with the idea of putting together a dubstep effects chain. But in most situations, I'm fine with just the tuner.

I'm a no-effects guy generally, but I'd say that if there was ONE bass effect that was the most useful across genres, I'd say some kind of modulation, most likely a chorus. I've heard chorus used on a bass guitar in funk, country, various rock, modern jazz and probably more that I can't think of at the moment. Second to a chorus, I'd probably say some kind of overdrive or a light fuzz. Probably a compressor too, depending on your style and what you're playing.