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HOW DO I MAKE MY BASS SOUND LIKE A GUITAR(DISTORTION!)

#23
I have a Valeton dapper in past when I own a squier strat.
Been try with bass guitar, possible nail the bright distortion guitar sound while both bright button and horn engage on fender rumble V3 200 combo.

 
#24
Not very good in this field at all but I have two examples of guys who did similar stuff so maybe you can look into their specs. Everyone so far has given good info.



Very crazy playing and is similar to what I think you are refering to that sound of bassish guitar playing



Another great band, not even their most popular song but the bass going for a guitar song is amazing.

Anyway sorry I couldn't be much help but I think this is the sound you mean and aim for?
 
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#25
There are dirt pedals that have clean blends which theoretically can sound like you’re biamping through both a bass amp and a guitar amp. Lots of bassists who can scratch something together with an engineer which sounds cool in a recording… but I haven’t heard anything convincing live.

I’ve only heard one bassist sound remotely good shoving effects through their bass amp- Matt Armstrong of Murder By Death. Probably not the sounds you’re going for, though.


If I’m going to use more effects than just a quieting rat for short nasty sections, I’m a big fan of splitting the signal, clean to the bass amp, dirty to an HPF/EQ/Crybaby/rat or anything to cut the low end out and then sending it through whatever effects and into a geetar amp with its bass cut and treble maxed. I would not put a muff in line without following it with another eq/HPF due to its huge bottom.

I like 80s Peavey Studio 112s & Bandits. They’re both reasonably durable, loud enough to bring the effected sounds up just enough, have very nice touch sensitivity with their natural dirt, and they’re cheap.

good luck!
 
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#26
hrodbert696 said:
A distorted bass signal is a distorted BASS signal, no matter what. To imitate a guitar sound, try a pedal with octave-up, then run that signal through a distortion pedal (or dirty amp channel). The MicroPOG or PitchFork will do it.
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This. Just putting some distortion on your bass will make it sound like a distorted bass.

There are a few occasions when I need my bass to sound like a guitar for a particular song and I get good results by using the octave -- up setting on my MicroPOG. Then add distortion to taste.
 
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#27
Michedelic said:
Earlier on Jack had a very muffled but buzzy sound on the What’s Shakin’/Powerhouse sessions with Clapton, Winwood, and Pete York, but I have no idea what instrument or amp he was using(he had a Teisco P-bass knock off with Graham Bond
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Bruce acquired the Fender VI when he was still with the Graham Bond Organisation (there is photographic as well as video testament), and I wouldn't be surprised if he used it on the two GBO albums, the Powerhouse sessions and the "Pretty Flamingo" single as well as on Fresh Cream. About the P copy he had less than fond words:
What about your switch from upright to electric bass?
I was very much a purist in wanting to play double bass, but then I was asked to do a session for a Jamaican jazz guitarist named Ernest Ranglin. He was very important in the development of Jamaican music like ska and reggae, as well as artists like Bob Marley, but he was also a jazz player. Island Records was doing a jazz EP, and I was doing quite a few sessions at the time. They told me, specifically, to bring a “bass guitar.” So I borrowed one; I think it was an old Guild semi-acoustic I got from a music shop, and I was immediately hooked.
[...]
The first pictures I’ve seen of you playing a solidbody electric bass were from your stint with the Graham Bond Organization; it appears to be a P-Bass copy.
It’s called a Top Ten; a Japanese copy of a Fender, and a very poor instrument. But the first real instrument I played – also with Graham Bond – was a Fender Bass VI

…which was a true “bass guitar” in that it bad six strings, but was tuned an octave lower than a standard guitar.
Exactly. And the reason I played that one was that originally, John McLaughlin had played guitar with Graham Bond, and when he left, we got Dick Heckstall-Smith on saxophone. So with no guitar, I was occasionally able to play little guitar-like solos. I continued using that instrument into the beginning of Cream.

Didn’t it ultimately receive a “psychedelic” paint job by the Fool, the Dutch art collective that also painted Clapton’s Gibson SG?
It did. But when it got painted, the neck was so sticky I couldn’t play it.
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Jack Bruce | Vintage Guitar® magazine

Elsewhere he calls the Teisco bass a "Top Twenty", which appears to be the accurate label (Geezer Butler also owned one). He adds that at one point it "tried to electrocute" him:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
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#28
Donici Mihail said:
So,i was playing with my band and i asked them if i can connect my bass to the ENGL guitar amp,I ABSOLUTELY FELL IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND, later i was thinking about getting a distortion pedal but i realized it will not make my bass sound like a heavy metal guitar,and i heard that it is bad for a guitar amp to be used for a bass
What do i do now?
I don't want to give up,i want to make my bass sound like a guitar!
Can i get a guitar amp and play bass through a boss pedal or it will affect the speaker too?
Is there any guitar amp that will not get damaged from bass?
Please give me some other ideas!
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As pointed out above, you definitely need to high-pass the signal before it goes into the guitar rig, so that the drivers don't disintegrate at gig volume. 100-110 Hz sounds about right.

Next step, you could simply approach the instrument as a 34" scale downtuned guitar.
[The pickup part of the equation may not be finetuned for the job (position and building specifications being off compared to guitar pickups), but I'd worry about those later, if you really become hooked.]

My suggestion: experiment with guitar strings, gauges and tensions.
Try either (or both) the D'Addario Bass VI set (EXL156), using the middle four strings, or their "Light Top / Heavy Bottom" 8-string set (EXL140-8), using all the wound strings minus the 2nd lowest.
In other words, either 34-44-56-72, or 30-42-54-74 as your gauges.

For standard bass (not octave-up) EADG tuning.
Yes, I am totally serious.

This way, the gauge/tension/scale recipe, hence tone, will be closer to what actually happens on a 6-string guitar. (For example, 6-fret Eb2 on the A string will be at 24.082" from the bridge, vs. 24.75" of a Les Paul tuned to Eb, with a not implausible string gauge - 54/56 - for such an application.)
Of course

- you'd need a pretty radical setup, loosening the truss rod and raising the action quite a bit, and you'd have to adjust to super-duper low tension, and resign to picking close to the bridge (for a wee more perceived tightness);

- unless another bassist is added to the lineup, you'll have to figure out how to add the missing low end. The signal should be split upstream and, with string gauges now optimised for guitarness, the bass side of the chain (finally coming out of a bass speaker) will require some generous reintegration of bass and low mids at the bass preamp stage. In isolation, the tone will probably not be pretty, but you'll have to judge it in combination with the guitar side.
 
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#29
PhatBottomBass1 said:
I was reading that Jack Bruce used his fingers to play and not a pick. The only tracks that I could come up with that has a 6 string Bass style going on is Aerosmith's
"Back in the Saddle" on the album ROCKS.

Also, I think a band named Lone Justice had a track that features a 6 string Baritone tuning possibly A-A. That's all that come to mind. But the timbre of the instrument is interesting. Something a dude could get creative with.
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I am pretty sure the bass on that track was a BC Rich 8 string, IIRC Joe Perry actually played the part on the recording, not Tom Hamilton.

The heyday of 8 string basses was in the late 70's/early 80's, Greg Lake used one (Alembic) extensively on the Works Tour (it's the bass sound on "Fanfare for the Common Man")

I love me some 8 string bass, owned a Kramer XL-8 years ago, thinking of picking up a Schecter Stiletto 8 sometime soon.

Other than the occasional one off appearance here and there ("Jeremy" by Pearl Jam) the main proponent of 8 string bass seems to be Doug Pinnick; it's basically his entire mojo sound.

Analogeezer
 
#30
Analogeezer said:
I am pretty sure the bass on that track was a BC Rich 8 string, IIRC Joe Perry actually played the part on the recording, not Tom Hamilton.

The heyday of 8 string basses was in the late 70's/early 80's, Greg Lake used one (Alembic) extensively on the Works Tour (it's the bass sound on "Fanfare for the Common Man")

I love me some 8 string bass, owned a Kramer XL-8 years ago, thinking of picking up a Schecter Stiletto 8 sometime soon.

Other than the occasional one off appearance here and there ("Jeremy" by Pearl Jam) the main proponent of 8 string bass seems to be Doug Pinnick; it's basically his entire mojo sound.

Analogeezer
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Check the album credits...it says "6 string Bass." Not sure it says who played it, but there is also "Bass" credited, as well.

*It was the first time I ever saw it and wondered about the timbre of the opening heavy riff.

Update: Joe Perry; 6 string Bass
 
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#31
PhatBottomBass1 said:
Check the album credits...it says "6 string Bass." Not sure it says who played it, but there is also "Bass" credited, as well.

*It was the first time I ever saw it and wondered about the timbre of the opening heavy riff.
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I read it back in the day in a period interview in International Musician and Recording World. At the time Perry was using and endorsing BC Rich guitars.

But I'm not gonna argue about it, I will say that is a great track and I'm not a big Aerosmith fan.

Speaking of Aerosmith, the first and only time I saw them live?

Opening up for JEFF BECK on the Blow by Blow tour.

They (Aerosmith) were really good, "Sweet Emotion" had just come out and they soon became a headliner in their own right.

Beck was phenomenal of course, that show of his was only bettered by the next time when he was touring in support of "Wired" and had Jan Hammer's band as his backup band.

A sorta sad night though as the opening act was Tommy Bolin and they came out and announced he would not be appearing that night but they had the Jan Hammer band. They introduced them and they played for about an hour and then Beck just walked out on stage doing his thing and then they broke into "Blue Wind".

Turns out Tommy Bolin (I thought that guy had a bright future, I mean he played with Cobham on Spectrum, good grief) had OD'd the night before in Miami.

Analogeezer
 
#32
Analogeezer said:
I read it back in the day in a period interview in International Musician and Recording World. At the time Perry was using and endorsing BC Rich guitars.

But I'm not gonna argue about it, I will say that is a great track and I'm not a big Aerosmith fan.

Speaking of Aerosmith, the first and only time I saw them live?

Opening up for JEFF BECK on the Blow by Blow tour.

They (Aerosmith) were really good, "Sweet Emotion" had just come out and they soon became a headliner in their own right.

Beck was phenomenal of course, that show of his was only bettered by the next time when he was touring in support of "Wired" and had Jan Hammer's band as his backup band.

A sorta sad night though as the opening act was Tommy Bolin and they came out and announced he would not be appearing that night but they had the Jan Hammer band. They introduced them and they played for about an hour and then Beck just walked out on stage doing his thing and then they broke into "Blue Wind".

Turns out Tommy Bolin (I thought that guy had a bright future, I mean he played with Cobham on Spectrum, good gried) had OD's the night before in Miami.

Analogeezer
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I did the check...not arguing with anyone, dude.

Joe Perry; 6 string Bass...could have been a BC Rich, doesn't say in the credits.
 
#34
Analogeezer said:
No worries, I didn't think you were just saying I am not arguing either :)

I would be interested in what the flanger they used was, in that era most likely an Eventide.

Analogeezer
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Like at the beginning of "Toys in the Attic!"

I think your right!

I saw Aerosmith with AC/DC (Bon Scott) opening. Never had the pleasure to see Beck, but have played with a guy who can do it! :drool:
 

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