Falling out of love with my effects board

[DwaynieAD]

I run a very simple effects board Optostomp > Octabass > VT bass > Big Muff Pi

Optostomp and VT are always on for tone shaping. Octabass and Muff are situational.

My cat shredded my daisy chain and I was left high and dry so I did some EQ tweaking and ended up with a bass sound that sat in the mix so well I was getting compliments from my band mates on how great it sounded when normally they ignore more.

I played out with no effects Saturday night and was loving the sound I was getting and also received tons of compliments from the audience on my bass tone. The other bass players were talking of jealousy over my tone.

So now I'm seriously contemplating a sell off as I need to fund a back up bass anyway.

So has this happened to anyone else? fell out of love with their pedal chain?

[cheapbasslovin]

It's not that uncommon. Everyone likes a change. I expect you will find your way back to effects, although with slightly different usage than you have now.

[I am Soma]

somedays i wish i would fall out of love with effects. i run two pedtrain pros full of pedals and they are spendy lol

[MCS4]

I've never been much of a fan of "always on" pedals, since I generally find that a more pure, uncolored bass tone tends to sit better in the mix with the music I play. I still love effects but tend to use them situationally.

It may be that you can do away with one or more of the comp and the VT, and just keep those things you want to kick on for special moments. FWIW, my preamp (BMAX) has a built in compressor using the same circuit as the Optostomp, and I find that it doesn't intrude on my tone so long as I keep the level very low.

[BigBassBob]

I, for one, always make sure that my base tone is as pleasing as possible before bringing pedals into the equation.

If you follow that mantra, you may find yourself growing to warm to your board once more

[DwaynieAD]

everytime i hear this song i want to keep my fuzz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89gQusZcwBA

in fact i just started a thread about it.

[gmarcus]

Try running the Big Muff Pi into the VTbass.........there is some kind of magic in that order.

and

Yes sometimes I just want to ditch all the effects and run straight into the amp, then I come to that special spot where I want to kick in some dirt and its not there.............and back to the pedal board. I guess it depends on the music that you are playing. I can see using no effects in a blues or reggae band or even classic rock covers (although some fuzz is good here)

[gregmon79]

I run a board with 8 pedals on it. Soon to be a custom built board with 10 to 12 on that one replacing what I have now. I've been effects hungry for a few months now and GAS attacks have had me going broke very quickly. It's some have stated, I'd really miss them if they were gone. But I like the way my sounds plugged straight into my head so I'll probably go the way of sans effects someday. Big it ain't gonna be any time soon. There's only a couple effects I run all the time but most of them are used seldomly. The band I'm in now let's me open up my imagination as far as effects go so I run with it. But if I couldn't use effects all the time, I could go without. Although, the last pedal I just got, I don't think I'd ever want to play without it again. It's going to be part of my sound for as long as I can play. I think anyway.

[Bakkster_Man]

Originally Posted by gmarcus

Try running the Big Muff Pi into the VTbass.........there is some kind of magic in that order.

Agreed, IMO the tone of a Big Muff is too harsh without some form of speaker sim (or an actual amp that rolls off the highs) after it.

Dwaynie, it's also possible that you just need to tweak your settings. Sometimes you can get so caught up in the stuff at your feet you forget about what's in your hands. Other times you turn one dial too many and lose your natural tone, and if the natural tone is excellent you may just need to go back to square one and rebuild your settings to get an enhancement out of it.

I recently went through one of those phases, kept tweaking settings, got a new bass, ignored the settings, then rebuilt them to keep what was great about the dry tone of my bass. YMMV, maybe a bass is what you need instead. But if you're happy, leave it alone for now. No sense giving yourself GAS if you're content