Every now and then, a "bass reverb" thread pops up and dies fairly quickly, but I wanted to create a slightly more permanent area for those of us who play bass in ambient, post-rock, or similar bands so that we can discuss technique, gear, pedals...all that fun stuff. I personally love bands like Hammock, This Will Destroy You, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Stars of the Lid, etc. and have always taken a great deal of influence from their ambient stylings. I treat the bass less like a "bass guitar" and more like a "low frequency audio source." I would love to see what you guys are creating and how you're going about doing it. My board is always in flux so I'll hold off from posting a picture now, but feel free to post yours here. It would be nice if there was a little bit of explanation or insight provided to go along with it, though. Here is a recent video I put together featuring ambient bass chords; I also have some other demo videos up showing delay and reverb usage: Here is a track with a good bit of reverb, delay, and high-passed bass guitar: And the other music I make can be found in the links in my signature if you ever feel like listening. Cheers!
This isn't quite up to your level, but here is a small sample of me using SA Dimension Reverb, SA MWBD, TC Flashback, POG2, and the HH3 sensor for some textures. I use this sound a great deal in church. I can't wait to see the ideas other people post.
I didn't realize this was you! I watched that on YouTube and its what helped sell me on buying that dimension from you
I hope this thread catches on. I'm gonna sub it now, and post up my dealings soon. I think bass guitar definitely has a different role in post-genre music and I look forward to the avant-garde approaches to FX discussed here. Cheers.
hey whats up. i've been waiting for thread like this to come along. ill probably become a regular here. i don't have much to post at the moment due to the fact that i only have a minute right now. but anywho i play Post-rock, Shoegaze, Noise, Blackgaze, Atmospheric Black metal, and DSBM. i just wanted to drop in and say hi to everyone here. and i agree with the post above in these types of music bass has a different usual roll sometimes many different roles. and I too look forward to the approaches to effect discussed here -Necros
I have a couple of synth pedals, a delay, a chorus, and a modulation pedal that does a number of things. I use these for spacey effects in certain parts of my band's originals, but I don't usually get to do this sort of long ambient stuff because we are still a rock band and someone needs to play bass. I grew up listening to The Fish by Yes, which is all bass riffs and melodies played over a drum beat, with lots of effects. But that hard to replicate live; when Chris Squire plays it live he does it differently. That sort of delay and echo stuff is very interesting to me, and that's more along the lines of what I want to get to in my band. You mentioned Hammock; I saw them in Philly a couple of years ago on the Penn campus. Neat stuff.
Hey! This is what I do: http://mechanik.bandcamp.com/ Check out "Radian" for ambient... bass harmonics with deep reverb... And this is my pedalboard: {} Home made double fuzz, ibanez phat ditortion (now using a BBM), Vt bass deluxe get my dirt tone. Then aLine 6 M9 for delays, echo, looper, modulation and whatnot, into a compressor with crazy settings, a limiter, the ehx freeze on hold and a EQ. Last in chain is a home made bypass/feedback loop To the OP: what effects are you using on the youtube video?
hello friend ^ i notice you use an Ibanez PD7 i have heard that the phat hed is an excellent drive and right now i am torn between getting either a PD7 or a Boss Blues Driver. so question is would you recommend the phat hed?
Subscribed ... Hi, I play in an ambient / post-rock band called Marche La Void. If you want, you can check out our music at marchelavoid.bandcamp.com I use some pedals but nothing compare to the boards I've seen on PYPB thread. Here is the latest incarnation of my board {} A bit different setup than what I used to record our songs with, but mostly the same. I have a Fender MIA J-Bass V (I recorded with this) but lately have been favoring my Squier Matt Freeman P-Bass Looking forward to the discussions we're going to have in this thread. Thanks OP
I agree with treating the bass as more of a sound element in ambient music. Sometimes I lay on the effects. A Digitech Bass SynthWah, Boss Flanger, and SansAmp ParaDriver are my core FX, sometimes I add analog modulation and filter pedals. I regret selling a Boss Analog Delay pedal years ago, that was awesome on bass. Here's an ambient piece I played on a Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom through a Boss GT-3 multi-FX. It's one of the first things I ever wrote (in 2006), a little rough in places. I worked it into a two-handed tapping piece with whistling for a Steve Lawson seminar, but never recorded it that way. Using silence structurally - making ambient music, I don't feel the need to have the bass present at all times. When mixing and recording, gates and "mute" automation create space. This is my Pedulla Rapture RB4 with TI Jazz Flats. I'm not attached to using bass guitar if I find a keyboard sound that works. Here's an ambient dub tune I played in Reason, I approached it just like I was palm-muting on bass.
Never tried the Boss Blues Driver... I do like the Ibanez tough... cheap, simple, EQ... Right now is out of my board, but I'll keep it. It's a nice distortion!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aAsp9pJ-NAQ My attempt on ambient playing, anyway I am changing my previous set up above as I realize it is much simpler to use hd pod500x to achieve the same result.
Great stuff so far! Looking forward to the discussions, as well as checking out all the sounds posted already. Cheers, guys.
here is the current pedalboard im using. my pedalboard is always changing this is just the current design its last incarnation was much much larger this is just a temporary downsize. though it is temporary it may stay this size for awhile. i don't expect those exact pedals to stay the same though. {}
I just bought a Boss RV3 today. Its really good for a real washy reverb and delay sound. I like using it with my Echo Park. Boss really needs to make the RV3 again.