Am I silly for not using any pedals?

If your setup covers what you need, it's all good.

Don't just start buying pedals just for the sake of buying pedals. Look into specific pedals if there's a sound aspect that you're missing.

Do you like the sound of octave pedals and would like to add that to your setup? Then get an octave pedal. Do you need a compressor? Get a compressor. Etc, etc.

I really like pedals, but I've definitely been guilty of using them as a crutch and thinking that I need "X" pedal to sound good. As I'm progressing through my bass and guitar playing "career", I'm slowly learning to always start with the essentials, and only then add effects if and when they're needed.

Effects are great fun, especially for playing alone, but they can so easily be overused in a band context if you're not careful and skilled at tweaking them to fit the music.

 

Am I silly for not using any pedals?
No.
Makes life simpler, which I'd consider a good thing.

 

When you're hunting a certain tone and you can't do it with bass and amp, then pedals are the way to go.
Also, when you're playing in a setup with IEM and don't use an amp, you might want to look into pedals.

 

I didn't use pedals for years. Nothing, not even a tuner. I just played it clean, used the bass, amp, and technique to get the tone I wanted. And that was fine.

Recently, I've started to get into pedals, building a great little board with a nice array of pedals. And that is fine too.

Do what works for you. This is the way.

 

If it works for you and you are happy as it is then chances are high that all is fine and as it should be.

I don't say you think so, but just let me get something out of the way, I don't use pedals to cover up my bad technique, I use pedals to enhance it and get sounds I couldn't possibly any other way, even if tone is in the fingers it's hard to make them do a swirling psychedlic or quacking funky phaser effect or a massive wall of distortion, so if you need that to make the music you play sound just right then going pedal-less would definitely be the completely wrong move.

Don't get me wrong, I like my clean tone and use it quite a lot, but sometimes I just need the certain kind of ambience I get from pedals to make the music I create sound right, some of the stuff would not work without effects, even if Jaco had played it, the issue only comes if you think you can use effects to make you play better, but if effects is an integrated part of your compositions, you might say working kind of like individual additional instruments in their own right, then you will need them for it to work properly.

Thinking that if you can't play it with your clean tone it's not worth it is like saying all synth players ought to sell their synths and start playing piano instead, but the fact is it just doesn't work optimally for all possible music.

 

Am I silly for not using any pedals?


Yes.

 

Yeah, using effects just for the sake of using effects seldom works out well, as with all things related to playing music do what serves the music you play the best.

Some really spicy food tastes amazing if cooked well, and just wouldn't taste (as) well without the spices, but if someone just loaded a random dish with all the random spices he could possibly get hands of without any consideration for how they harmonized with each other and the actual dish he was cooking it would be bound to end up tasting awful.

 

so, not silly at all. Guitar wise, just reverb and eq pedal. Bass, besides a tuner, i don't use any pedals either. Never really have.

 

Using pedals you don’t need makes no more sense than not using pedals you should be using. No one can tell you what YOU need.

 

This x 1000

And where do you draw the line anyway? Amps have EQ sections... Is it ok to use the amp eq, but not an eq pedal? What about amp distortion or compression? Surely, if pedals are a crutch then so are amps, and we should all plug straight into the desk? And no active basses, of course. Actually, scratch that - Pickups also compress and amplify our sound, so we really have to go acoustic in order to *really* show that we have the required skills.

Semi-related:

 

You need a compressor, ie Keeley Compressor Pro

 

No...
When I started playing bass in the 70’s, bass players didn’t use pedals. It wasn’t even a thing. My preference today is still just bass and amp.

On guitar, if I’m using a blackface fender, I’ll use a tubescreamer. With a Superlead I use an attenuator.

I have a whole slough of pedals I can incorporate, if the gig calls for it. But I’m with you. I like to chase tone with just my axe and an amp.

 

Also might I add:

NO!

Absolutely no...

...but you ARE kind of silly for asking that question.

 

It's total personal preference.
If you have the tone / range of sounds with your current bass to amp setup, then that's great.
If, down the line, you feel you need a certain different sound for certain songs, then explore pedals.
Each to their own.