What effect am I lookin for?

[Gab124]

So, I am not so much an effect guy yet, 20 years and I am starting to think about it So what I am looking for is this; I need a way to increase sustain and harmonics – that little touch to tone that makes long slides more alive and helps cut through the mix of rock/rockpop music. Is that an OD pedal or something else? I do not want distortion or fuzz, just liveliness - a little edge as it were. All these terms like “grit, hair etc” they are so subjective and to make it worse there are no stores in my area that even think about bass players, so hard to try things out.
thanks all,

[Holy War]

you may want a compression pedal or a clean boost

on second thought, you definitely want a clean boost of some kind

[rratajski]

Have you tried compression or chorus?

[Mr. Pickles]

Perhaps an OD would fit your needs. There's a ton out there. Start with the bass friendly overdrives first, like the Catalinbread SFT or the Fulltone Bassdrive. There are many guitar ODs that work well on bass, like the Barber LTD.

[Holy War]

check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ywKlGRIzx8

guitar demo but works wonders with bass as well

heres the link to their web site:

http://www.creationaudiolabs.com/mk423

[Gab124]

Wow, quick response! Have not tried a chorus - I have an EBS multicomp and use it most all the time. I also use a sansamp BDDI - but it seems to lack something that I can't put my finger on. So far OD's that I am looking at are;
sparkle drive
barber
swell b drive

What will a clean boost do for me?
thanks...

[Holy War]

Originally Posted by Gab124

Wow, quick response! Have not tried a chorus - I have an EBS multicomp and use it most all the time. I also use a sansamp BDDI - but it seems to lack something that I can't put my finger on. So far OD's that I am looking at are;
sparkle drive
barber
swell b drive

What will a clean boost do for me?
thanks...

it basically boosts your signal to your amp without adding gain or distortion. It will increase sustain, create stronger harmonic overtones etc etc. I think its what you want

edit: A clean boost is also considered an overdrive pedal to most though, so dont let that title scare you, the term overdrive can be misleading sometimes

[Gab124]

Originally Posted by Holy War

it basically boosts your signal to your amp without adding gain or distortion. It will increase sustain, create stronger harmonic overtones etc etc. I think its what you want

Cool - are there OD's that also have clean boost so my money gets a multi-tool?
great help here, thanks.

[Holy War]

Originally Posted by Gab124

Cool - are there OD's that also have clean boost so my money gets a multi-tool?
great help here, thanks.

ya theres tons of stuff out there. Even some of your so called "ditortion" or "overdrive" pedals can be set up and run like a clean boost. An example would be the legendary Ibanez TS-808. It has 3 knobs- Gain, Tone, Volume. If you just left the gain at 0, cranked the volume, and set your tone to taste, you would be esentially running a clean boost. Its something you have to expeiment with pedals though because some boosts and overdrives can color your sound. Thats why I like the Mk.4.23, it doesnt color your sound at all and sounds amazing. The only problem with it being, you have to order direct I believe, so theres no trying it out in a store unfortunatly.

Hope this helps, Im sure others will chime in and give their $.02

[Frankjohnson]

Don't forget the BBE Boosta Grande - t hat one works well for a lot of people too.

[Gab124]

FWIW- I ended up buying the Xotic RC bass booster and BB preamp. I like them so far, but have not been able to get them setup on my stage rig just my little tiny small practice amp. So far so good though.
gab

[kaputsport]

I would have looked into the Hematoma... 5dB of boost, and overdrive to add sizzle...