your ultimate pedal

[redgreenblue]

Hey all,

Just looking for my first pedal and was wondering if there were any you would recommend and for what reason. Is distortion a good effect for the bass or does that sound hold its glory with the electric guitar? What is an overdrive effect like?

[René_Julien]

I thought that it was a general consensus that the ultimate pedal for bass was a fuzz pedal.

Oh, heads up: 37 tuner pedal suggestions coming your way.


edit: by the way: welcome to TalkBass.

Tip, for this thread: be more precise. What kind of music do you play and how do you want your bass to sound?
Like a frog? Like a hot airballoon taking off? Like a mangled saxophone? ...

[Qvist]

When I first started playing bass I bought the BOSS os2 overdrive/distortion pedal almost right away. Big mistake. All the bass-frequencies were cut and it sounded outrightly like crap. What I've learned now, about my own tone, is that I only need a little overdrive in my sound to make it crunch, and still maintin the low-end that I love as a bassist.

So I'd recommend tech 21 sansamp products, pedals like the bass driver, the gt2 and the new VT bass pedal should be pretty awesome. Can't go wrong with a sansamp!

[atheos]

Everybody: NO TUNERS. I bet the OP is looking for an EFFECT

[ksandvik]

Zoom B2. You get the tuner in there, too, and enough effects to spend a couple of years going through those. You could get more pedals and stuff later even if I personally think the use of pedals and bass is somewhat over-advertised -- fingers could do 80% of the effects with bass. *)


*) Check out Geddy Lee's pedal board :-).

[bongomania]

RGB, my serious advice is to go here: http://www.talkbass.com/wiki/index.p..._Clip_Database
and listen to all the clips of all the different effects people have posted there. That will give you more of a real idea of what's out there than just some written responses in this thread. Also read the FAQ.

[redgreenblue]

Alright thanks for the insight. Now is there a specific pedal that is made for the slap pop sound or would any of those pedals (distortion, overdrive, etc.) contribute in a unique way to that sound. Also does anyone know what settings compliment slap/pop playing best (ie: brightness high/low? bass+ treble= up down?) it seems to me that i might be lacking the necesssary settings to get some good groves going. I have a geddy lee and a fenderbassman 400 on a mesa cab and i feel like popping the g string puts out too loud too strong of a sound.
thanks in advance.

[ksandvik]

Originally Posted by redgreenblue

Alright thanks for the insight. Now is there a specific pedal that is made for the slap pop sound or would any of those pedals (distortion, overdrive, etc.) contribute in a unique way to that sound. Also does anyone know what settings compliment slap/pop playing best (ie: brightness high/low? bass+ treble= up down?) it seems to me that i might be lacking the necesssary settings to get some good groves going. I have a geddy lee and a fenderbassman 400 on a mesa cab and i feel like popping the g string puts out too loud too strong of a sound.
thanks in advance.

Compressor and learn how to slap/pop using the fingers.

[kevteop]

Originally Posted by ksandvik

Compressor and learn how to slap/pop using the fingers.

+1. Practice not popping the strings so hard, or practice thumbing the strings harder.

The EHX Bassballs sounds really good with slap playing btw.

[The Ethanator]

first pedal i got was an ibanez pd7 overdrive/distortion pedal that came with my bass. good pedal for messing around, not really practical in a band setting unless youre playing stoner metal or such
a few months later, i got a digitech bass multichorus pedal. sounds cool, but only really good for playing slow songs with long bass notes or for adding a little more balls to the distortion
on saturday i bought an electro-harmonix big muff pi from the guitar center. not really liking it much until i put it before my pd7, and turned the attack up/drive down on the pd7. sounds pretty cool
brought my churches sansamp home today. ive brought it home before. it assists me in getting almost all the clean bass tones i want, from clean, p-bass like tone to a growly tube-amp-style tone

an overdrive effect as opposed to a distortion effect on bass usually sounds smoother. the pd7 gives me access to both with its 2 seperate modes. with the overdrive, think of an acdc-type tone, and on the distortion side, think thrash metal

the ehx bassballs sounds cool with slap and pop, if youre into an envelope filter. the guy doing the demo on their site slaps it, sounds pretty cool. alot of people who do funk slap use a wah pedal so they can control the funkiness of their sound manually rather than having an effect that follows every single note just like the last (envelope filter). a compressor, in a nutshell, helps decrease volume spikes, which are more common with slap/pop playing in my expirience. an eq pedal or other preamp of some sort with good eq adjustment capabilities will help you get a better tone for slap/pop, which usually has boosted treble/hi-mid and scooped lows

a tech 21 vt bass pedal will help with all of these (except actual slap effects. you can dial in a good slap tone, and some heavy sounding distortion. alot of people here use it, considering how new it is, and seem to like it alot. the only real major difference between it and a sansamp bass driver di is that the sansamp has a di (xlr) output, and the vt bass has a mid control

[almix12]

Originally Posted by kevteop

+1. Practice not popping the strings so hard, or practice thumbing the strings harder.

The EHX Bassballs sounds really good with slap playing btw.

+1 for the bassballs... cool effect and ya, good for slapping