going psychadelic... need advice

[The Ethanator]

well, the band has decided to add more psychadelic elements to our music (psychadelic symphonic power metal). weve all been talking alot about it, and once we get back together were going to be using alot more effects. i dont necesarily mean ill be using a distortion and wah 24/7. i also do alot of experimental rock in my spare time. what i want to be able to do is take a clean bass sound and be able to draw a user into almost a trance-like state, be able to draw someone tripping into the most insane acid trip ever, but not add too much dirt at all. im just aiming for some relatively funky or trippy sounds. heres what i have in mind:

phaser - boss ph-3
flanger - boss bf-3
wah - ibanez weeping demon
delay - boss dd-3 or dd-7 (differences please?)
envelope filter - digitech bass synth wah

i already have an ibanez pd7 distortion and digitech bass multichorus. if anyone has expirience with any of these and can tell me the capabilities and when you use them, that would be great. thanks!

[Swift713]

Check out the Octavius Squeezer(synth pedal), or the Pigtronics EP-1(envelope phaser) and definitely get a delay.
Oh, and take a lot of mushrooms

[bongomania]

Delay, especially with modulation, and phaser set to a very deep and very slow cycle. IMO you can forget the wah and envelope filter altogether, they are not needed or great in this context. Flanger is debatable, it depends on the flanger. I would only go that route if you find a flanger that is particularly thick and "organic" sounding, and even then... not necessary. A nice smooth fuzz, like a germanium Fuzz Face clone, would suit nicely.

Basically a smooth fuzz and a delay with modulation will get you all the psychedelia you could ever want, and the addition of a deep slow phaser would be gravy.

[bigchiefbc]

+1 to delay, fuzz and phaser. Maybe reverb, and even a looper ... ?

[vegas532]

The good old Boss RV-3 is wonderful for trippy ambience.

[KarateKid25]

My vote nearly always goes to the Boss PS-3 in these threads. You can get some really trippy sounds out of that thing.

[nad]

Any delay that self-oscillates seems pretty mandatory. A nice phaser to go along with said delay will be the icing on this trippy cake.

Begin your journey with just a delay, as you might not need to go any further.

[bassteban]

it will help if you spell *psychedelic* correctly. Really helps w/the hallucinations.

[tomhanzo]

Originally Posted by KarateKid25

My vote nearly always goes to the Boss PS-3 in these threads. You can get some really trippy sounds out of that thing.

+10000

I have one and from the detune to the delay to the reverse pitch shift, you can get some ball tripping stuff. i wish i had 100 PS-3s to play at the same time.

[whoatherechunk]

boss ps3, reverb, analog delay, and a filter.

[standupright]

Originally Posted by The Ethanator

well, the band has decided to add more psychadelic elements to our music (psychadelic symphonic power metal). weve all been talking alot about it, and once we get back together were going to be using alot more effects. i dont necesarily mean ill be using a distortion and wah 24/7. i also do alot of experimental rock in my spare time. what i want to be able to do is take a clean bass sound and be able to draw a user into almost a trance-like state, be able to draw someone tripping into the most insane acid trip ever, but not add too much dirt at all. im just aiming for some relatively funky or trippy sounds. heres what i have in mind:

phaser - boss ph-3
flanger - boss bf-3
wah - ibanez weeping demon
delay - boss dd-3 or dd-7 (differences please?)
envelope filter - digitech bass synth wah

i already have an ibanez pd7 distortion and digitech bass multichorus. if anyone has expirience with any of these and can tell me the capabilities and when you use them, that would be great. thanks!

i understand where you are coming from completely....while i understand your approach to be able to do this instrumentally, by reading your post it seems more to me that you are interestend in the audience experience......look at the affects that you can apply through the pa...over to the entire band sound.....the impact is greater then trying to trip out your sound individually...as well as everyone else in the group.

[Mark Olson]

I play in a kind of psychedelic band, and even though you didn't want dirt, I highly recommend an Analogman Germanium Sun Face (Fuzz Face clone) or a Prescription Electronics Experience pedal. Both of those KILL on bass in this genre, in my experience. The octave fuzz on the Experience is simply SICK, even on bass, and the swell, well words can't describe. Other than that I try to use really warm analog effects. I got a really nice sound fitting this with, for example, an EHX Nano Small Stone phase shifter. That's a great pedal for you to look into too. For delay I use an MXR Carbon Copy, very warm and possibly trippy analog delay. Then if you get into the classics of psychedelic music, a lot of tremolo was used (Crimson and Clover, I am a Tangerine, Crystal Blue Persuasion, etc.) It wasn't necessarily used on bass, but can sound really cool on bass. Personally I use a Voodoo Lab Tremolo pedal. Sounds great, very amplike.

[pompompom]

I use this:


I miss my microsynth on this board though...

The blowtorch will be replaced by a Bass Big Muff or a Truly Beautiful Disaster.

[Toastfuzz]

I was trying out the Boss DD-7 in a shop the other day, I'm hoping to buy one after I get some Christmas $$$. It works very nicely on bass, as many have said in reviews the analog delay function is the best delay I've been able to find, and it also has 40 seconds of looper function on it, so you can play around with loops. Only drawback to the looper is you can't use the delay effects AND loop, its one or the other cuz it uses the same memory bank. But I would get the DD-7 over the DD-3, as the DD-3 is a straight delay, and DD-7 has delay, analog delay, modulation delay, looper, and you can work the settings to make it work as a chorus or a reverb. Kind of an accidental multi-effect all in one stomp box.

Heres a site with some video samples of a guitarist using it, if you can imagine what the bass equivilent sounds like:

http://www.roland.com/demos/en/i0067/index.html

[Grimoire]

Delay/Reverb, some deep modulation (phaser or flanger), and a bit of grit (fuzz) to bring out the modulation.
Psychedelic symphonic power metal? Interesting, any samples?

[jumbo_steelie]

Originally Posted by vegas532

The good old Boss RV-3 is wonderful for trippy ambience.

Best Ebay impulse buy I made. Haven't had a chance to explore it with the band yet, but it easy to get lost in...

[dannybuoy]

EHX Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai does delay and looping simultaneously, check out the video on their site.

[RCCollins]

dirt into phaser. all you need.

[4stringmangler]

Originally Posted by Mark Olson

I play in a kind of psychedelic band, and even though you didn't want dirt, I highly recommend an Analogman Germanium Sun Face (Fuzz Face clone) or a Prescription Electronics Experience pedal. Both of those KILL on bass in this genre, in my experience. The octave fuzz on the Experience is simply SICK, even on bass, and the swell, well words can't describe. Other than that I try to use really warm analog effects. I got a really nice sound fitting this with, for example, an EHX Nano Small Stone phase shifter. That's a great pedal for you to look into too. For delay I use an MXR Carbon Copy, very warm and possibly trippy analog delay. Then if you get into the classics of psychedelic music, a lot of tremolo was used (Crimson and Clover, I am a Tangerine, Crystal Blue Persuasion, etc.) It wasn't necessarily used on bass, but can sound really cool on bass. Personally I use a Voodoo Lab Tremolo pedal. Sounds great, very amplike.

what's the name of your band?

[RickenBoogie]

I'll +1 all the posts calling for analog delay, phaser, and fuzz. The very definition of trippy. Set the phaser to a very slow rate, feed the fuzz into that, to taste, and send all that into a Carbon Copy, which can also add more modulation to the repeats, and presto, trippy bass.