Good effects unit for metal?

[Metal5stringer]

Im looking for a good effects box for getting a super crisp yet clanky sounding bass line like the bassist from Korn. I love that floppy loose string sound he has and cant get close to it yet. I am using the Beringer Vamp and out of all the settings I have found one that comes close but it has alot of background noise. Any ideas?

[fenderhutz]

It's all amp and bass.

On your amp you have to do a very deep California Smile. Lows very high and mids down and highs are up as well. Those Ibanez active basses have a vari-mid control that also lets you kill those mids.

The problem with the V-AMP is that I don't think the mid cut truly cuts all of those frequencies out. A snare hit is around 4khz. A good kick is in the 60-100hz range. The reason I point this out is his low B hit/attack sounds like a rimshot mixed with a little kick drum. If you have a passive bass is may near impossible to get that sound. You need to cut just about everything from 700-800hz to 2.5-4khz.

Clank on.

It would help if you had your gear listed in your profile as well

[Swimming Bird]

+1 to cutting all mids. http://www.ibanez.com/bass/series.aspx?s=k5

Huh, it looks like they just remade the early 2000s era Soundgears in a different color with a different headstock. My old five string has the same pickups and electronics, but they discontinued that right after I bought mine...

Anyway, you'll probably want an EQ pedal OR find a light distortion that completely sucks your mids. I'd go with the EH Metal Muff, because it has the three band EQ and might let you get light enough distortion wise to just sound like a bass through a cranked amp. Actually, you should try the Pocket Metal Muff as well just to see if the mid cut switch is enough for you. I've played both and they were a lot of fun to mess around on.

Best of luck.

[bongomania]

Originally Posted by Metal5stringer

I am using the Beringer Vamp and out of all the settings I have found one that comes close but it has alot of background noise.

As the other guys said, it's all about boosting your highs and lows, and cutting mids. (Which incidentally sounds terrible IMO, especially in metal, but that's my problem not yours.) One likely reason that you're getting a lot of noise is because noise lives in the highs- turn up the highs, you turn up the noise. The only way around that is to use a rig which doesn't make much noise, and I'm afraid that costs more money than a Vamp.

[JanusZarate]

Echoing the others... it's all bass and amp. Cut the mids, boost the lows and highs.

I have a few questions for you:

- Are you playing pickstyle or fingerstyle?
- What is your bass?
- What is your amp?
- What kind of strings are you using? (Bright strings would be ideal... maybe a stainless steel string of some kind)
- How's your action? Low or high? (Action refers to how high the strings are from the frets... and it should be low for this sound)

If you want the "Korn" sound, forget about effects - those four questions should be your concern, as they all concern what makes that sound.

[Bassscholar]

Yea fieldy achieved bass player-dom with his own sound...Good luck emulating his tone.
I would suggest do as all the others said. I may be wrong,but He may downtune some to help achieve his clankness. I do not think using a V-amp will help you at all...good luck

[69nites]

yeah he tunes down 1 whole step