How did you get into effects?
 

What the title says. How did you get into effects?

I started out with a compressor and tuner in a rack with my SVT3. At some point, I decided I wanted to start playing through an all tube set up and that I would be better off putting my rack gear on the floor. Once I did that, I kept adding more and more fun toys as I started to like dirtier and dirtier bass tones.

Trying to sound like Mel Schacher (Grand Funk), Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) and John Paul Jones (Zep). OD, phaser/flanger, and tremolo were the first effects I experimented with.

Envelope filter. It all started with envelope filters. Then octaver and flanger. Finally OD, then off the deep end into fuzz, delay, tremolo, and detune/chorus.

I started getting into effects as a guitarist. They were the best thing for my gear addiction since they're small, relatively cheap pieces of gear that can make a huge difference in your sound.
I'm not as hooked on acquiring new gear as I was, but they're still fun toys to get new sounds.

I liked the tones in Orion by Metallica and a salesguy sold me an ODB-3, then I bought a wah to make quack noises, stopped for a while, then I bought a bass big muff and it was all GAS from there buying pretty much one of each type of effect, fuzz, OD, flanger etc etc etc

I got interested in adding compression to my sound, came across an old Boss LM-2B in a local shop, and never looked back...

Started out with a Sonic Stomp discovered the TB classifieds and the rest is history.

I wanted a headphone amp and the best sounding one I found was a Zoom PFX. It was all downhill from there.

When i first started playing i would flip through musicians frined and notice that they didn't have very many effects for bass compared to what they had for guitar.

I think at the time all they were showing were the four boss pedals (OD, EQ, chorus and synth). i figured that if that was all the bass effects there were then it would be cool to have EVERY BASS EFFECT PEDAL MADE. So I started with the ODB3 since it was cheapest.

I was wrong. I have since learned my lesson. Those four pedals are not the only bass effects out there. But I do still think it would be cool to have EVERY EFFECT PEDAL MADE.

Significant moments:

a) Guitarist I played with a few projects ago had a mind blowing board. I'd always been exposed to effects, but this guy was doing things well outside the standard deviation.

b) Saw the Flaming Lips live for the first time. They were creating awesomeness and I wanted in.

Cliffs fuzz + wah
Geezer's wah in "NIB"
The phaser in "For the Love of Money"
Robert Sledge's muff
Novoselic's Rat in "Breed"
Justin from Tool
and a crapload more that I'm too lazy to type out

I had just started playing a bought a Zoom 9002. It's was cool. Kind of left effects untill I saw the SWR MOBass and got to know Mo. I bought the MiniMo Preamp. When I got on the road I started doing a lot of in-ear dates and didn't need an amp, so I built a pedal board based around the EBS MicroBass 2 and bought pedals for everything else. This is the setup I still run.

I sold the MiniMo but wish I hadn't. I still can't find anything that comes close to its synth tone. I could nail the "Tom Sawyer" tone. I have the schem for the MoBass circuit, but the IC used for the synth is obsolete. Bummer.

Bootsy Collins, Stuart Zender, and Dan Kurtz from the new deal got me interested. I had a few filters a fuzz and a multi effect for a while.

A few years back, I joined an electronica band where all of the bass parts were done on synths. I began buying pedals, trying to replicate the sounds, but instead decided to try to create my own thing based off of what I was hearing. It worked out well and now I get some side work from hip hop/dance producers who want synth tones performed by a legit bassist.

I have a lot of pedals but each was acquired with a specific tone goal in mind.

I was once a "purist" and didn't know what I was missing. Last year a guitarist I played with used a Bassballs pedal and let me borrow it after a practice. Several months later I walked into a local music shop with a couple bills burning a hole in my pocket and they had a used Bassballs. I stood there for a few minutes thinking about how I really wasn't an effects kind of a guy until the GAS took over. I had enough to pick up a Bass Big Muff Pi too. I don't play them much but they're fun on certain songs.

Getting more serious about playing fretless did it for me. I love Pino's sound on White City so I picked up an Octamizer, and then decided some reverb would be nice, and that led to an IE Nimbus. That's all I currently have, but an IE Polytope is next, along with who knows what else down the road, probably a POG2 since I'd like an octave up...

i played piano as a kid, got into synths & samplers in my teens, with that came recording & effects processors, in my 20's i got into guitar & bass and running them thru synths & fx just seemed like a natural progression of what i'd been doing on other instruments.

definitely started with Cliff for me, so in HS I picked up a bass crybaby and a Boss HM2 (didnt really get the cliff tone), then added a chorus for GnR covers, and soon an octave.

Got rid of the crybaby and HM2 after a year or two, and just had the chorus and the octave. that was all I had for a long time.

Fast forward 20 years or so, and I found talkbass. Now I have this
(minus the PC-2A and added a Dunlop 105Q)

John Wetton

Mike Flanigan sold me his Fuzzder, Fuzz box for a 6 pack. What really got me going was when a friend lent me his Mutron III.

Right now there are more better effects for bass than any time I can recall. It's a glorious time to be alive.

Was first pedal was the mighty Bass Balls! I wanted my bass to go "BWOWWWOOHHHHH!"

So, honestly, my first effect pedal was purchased as a joke to get a chuckle out of band mates.