Nearly Finished My Pedalboard (Last Few Pedals)

[Fullmetal]

Ok so I've been trying numerous pedals to find the right ones for my board. I don't wanna get too many pedals because I will easily run out of room on my board to fit them on. So far I have...

Battery Pack
Korg Pitchblack
EHX Big Bass Muff
MXR Bass Octave (M88)

Soon to be added to my board are...

Digitech Whammy
Boss Noise Surpressor (or MXR Smartgate)
Tech 21 VT Bass

So I'm now wondering if there is anything else I can add to my board? I play in a Thrash/Groove Metal band, and sometimes use my effetcs, however I seem to use them more for jamming purposes. I would like to start up a Prog-Metal project with some effected bass.

All ideas considered.

-Jak

[René_Julien]

Jak,


I am currently in a prog-metal project.

But the thing is use of effects (the quantity and types) is much more a personal thing than genre based.


Right now I am running:

EHX big POG, for organ type sounds (I love classical organ music)
Big John Hairy Balls, agressive fuzz(/distortion)
Line 6 RotoMachine, rotary speaker effect: my alternative for chorus, it's more transparant than chorus IMO
Goatkeeper v2, it's just an evil tremelo especially when combined with fuzz
volume pedal for violin-like swells
delay, right now an analog but going to go back to digital again for clean short delay without side-effects

In my rack I have a TL Audio Mono Valve Processor, it's a tube compressor + tube semi-para 4b equalizer + noise gate.
I love that in a rack unit because it's constantly on for my overall tone.


But my problem in the progressive metal project is that I want to cut down my effects arsenal.

Organ emulation: I play with a keyboardplayer.... so he can provide much better organ sounds. Making my POG absolete.

Fuzz, although the Hairy Balls sounds wonderful on bass and our guitarist is envious about the sound and encourages me to use it, I rather keep playing clean when the guitarist is playing with heavy distortion. I feel when playing alongside him I don't need any fuzz/distortion on my sound.

Goatkeeper v2 is something weird and fun... but it's not musical enough for the things we play.


When jamming with the band, more talented musicians than I am, all I want to do is keeping an incredible cutting through lowend without any thrills.

Rotary speaker effect and delay are very usefull on mellower parts.


So basicly, it's all very personal, you need to figure out yourself what you want.


So from my experience I would suggest you try out chorus (or rotary speaker) and delay. Maybe that can be usefull effects for you.



my 2 cents

[Fullmetal]

Originally Posted by C'thulhu

Jak,


I am currently in a prog-metal project.

But the thing is use of effects (the quantity and types) is much more a personal thing than genre based.


Right now I am running:

EHX big POG, for organ type sounds (I love classical organ music)
Big John Hairy Balls, agressive fuzz(/distortion)
Line 6 RotoMachine, rotary speaker effect: my alternative for chorus, it's more transparant than chorus IMO
Goatkeeper v2, it's just an evil tremelo especially when combined with fuzz
volume pedal for violin-like swells
delay, right now an analog but going to go back to digital again for clean short delay without side-effects

In my rack I have a TL Audio Mono Valve Processor, it's a tube compressor + tube semi-para 4b equalizer + noise gate.
I love that in a rack unit because it's constantly on for my overall tone.


But my problem in the progressive metal project is that I want to cut down my effects arsenal.

Organ emulation: I play with a keyboardplayer.... so he can provide much better organ sounds. Making my POG absolete.

Fuzz, although the Hairy Balls sounds wonderful on bass and our guitarist is envious about the sound and encourages me to use it, I rather keep playing clean when the guitarist is playing with heavy distortion. I feel when playing alongside him I don't need any fuzz/distortion on my sound.

Goatkeeper v2 is something weird and fun... but it's not musical enough for the things we play.


When jamming with the band, more talented musicians than I am, all I want to do is keeping an incredible cutting through lowend without any thrills.

Rotary speaker effect and delay are very usefull on mellower parts.


So basicly, it's all very personal, you need to figure out yourself what you want.


So from my experience I would suggest you try out chorus (or rotary speaker) and delay. Maybe that can be usefull effects for you.



my 2 cents

Thanks for the advice. I'm considering getting myself a delay/echo pedal at some point. I quite like the kind of eerie sounds you get with it (the bass solo from Tool's "Schism" being a key example)

I'm currently in a thrash project which uses some distortion and octave effects, I wanted to combine these with Prog-Metal to get a sort of darker sound with it. I'm really into making eerie sounds with my bass.

As for a Rotary Speaker, I've never used one before. Could you possibly recommend one for me to look up?

Many thanks

Jak

[René_Julien]

Originally Posted by Fullmetal

Thanks for the advice. I'm considering getting myself a delay/echo pedal at some point. I quite like the kind of eerie sounds you get with it (the bass solo from Tool's "Schism" being a key example)

I'm currently in a thrash project which uses some distortion and octave effects, I wanted to combine these with Prog-Metal to get a sort of darker sound with it. I'm really into making eerie sounds with my bass.

As for a Rotary Speaker, I've never used one before. Could you possibly recommend one for me to look up?

Many thanks

Jak

I use the Line 6 RotoMachine. It's simply and fairly good quality.
There's also the BOSS RT-20.
I believe BBE has a rotary emulator pedal.

And Hughes and Ketner have a pedal with a tube inside.

Basicly it's a tremelo effect with low depth.

[jufros]

I play funk, metal, pop, dance, and lately a little electro, and I would definitely recommend a versatile overdrive pedal to you.

The Bass Big Muff is definitely a fantastic fuzz pedal but it would definitely be tough for me to survive on fuzz alone.

The Humphrey Audio mod for the Digitech Bad Monkey will probably afford you the best quality for your money at $95.

The Xotic BB is more expensive (~$180 new) but excellent, as is the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive (personal favorite of mine at ~$120 new and 60-$100 used).

You might also want to look into the Barber LTD SR (~$150 as a I recall) if you decide you want a flatter and more transparent frequency response than the above-mentioned mid-boosted tube screamer clones offer.

In addition to the Sparkle Drive, I use an Electronix Gemini Drive (discontinued product) and it is absolutely killer for the super-articulate higher gain sounds that I can't get out of the Sparkle Drive. Like the Sparkle Drive, it has a clean boost with a powerful tone control, but it also offers a wide array of different clipping configurations and a much broader amount of gain. If you can find one of these used, I would highly recommend picking one up.

The seemingly most popular talkbass "overdrive" is the Tech 21 VT Bass. It's really a tube amp simulator but it can definitely get you warm tube overdrive tones.

Do a search for "overdrive" and you'll find a wealth of information, testimonials, and sound clips on a bunch of excellent pedals.

[gnasher1993]

Originally Posted by C'thulhu

I use the Line 6 RotoMachine. It's simply and fairly good quality.
There's also the BOSS RT-20.
I believe BBE has a rotary emulator pedal.

And Hughes and Ketner have a pedal with a tube inside.

Basicly it's a tremelo effect with low depth.

Try the DLS Rotosim. I'm sure somewhere round here has got one. I just remember it sounding awesome. Can anyone remember who it is?

[Fullmetal]

Originally Posted by jufros

I play funk, metal, pop, dance, and lately a little electro, and I would definitely recommend a versatile overdrive pedal to you.

The Bass Big Muff is definitely a fantastic fuzz pedal but it would definitely be tough for me to survive on fuzz alone.

The Humphrey Audio mod for the Digitech Bad Monkey will probably afford you the best quality for your money at $95.

The Xotic BB is more expensive (~$180 new) but excellent, as is the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive (personal favorite of mine at ~$120 new and 60-$100 used).

You might also want to look into the Barber LTD SR (~$150 as a I recall) if you decide you want a flatter and more transparent frequency response than the above-mentioned mid-boosted tube screamer clones offer.

In addition to the Sparkle Drive, I use an Electronix Gemini Drive (discontinued product) and it is absolutely killer for the super-articulate higher gain sounds that I can't get out of the Sparkle Drive. Like the Sparkle Drive, it has a clean boost with a powerful tone control, but it also offers a wide array of different clipping configurations and a much broader amount of gain. If you can find one of these used, I would highly recommend picking one up.

The seemingly most popular talkbass "overdrive" is the Tech 21 VT Bass. It's really a tube amp simulator but it can definitely get you warm tube overdrive tones.

Do a search for "overdrive" and you'll find a wealth of information, testimonials, and sound clips on a bunch of excellent pedals.

I am really digging the Tech 21 VT Bass! Can get a nice, super crunchy tone from some of the demos I've seen. Will definantly think about getting one. Shame they are pretty expensive though