Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[Cristo]

Wow 1152 pages. Can't say I will be able to read all that.

Anyway, this sort of playing is new to me. What advice would you give to someone looking to just dabble a bit in it, maybe for some moments here and there in original music?

Essential pieces of gear or techniques?

 

[steubig]

AND nobody will tell me what the font is so I can replace “Terror Bass” on the front with “Pleasure Bass.”

they can be the same:

“beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.”

 

[monsterthompson]

Wow 1152 pages. Can't say I will be able to read all that.

Anyway, this sort of playing is new to me. What advice would you give to someone looking to just dabble a bit in it, maybe for some moments here and there in original music?

Essential pieces of gear or techniques?

For ambient bass gear you'll probably want to consider:
- Reverb with some modulation. Bigger lush pad sounds will come from heavy doses of big reverb, and not usually plate or spring. Shimmer reverb is popular, but polarizing as some hate it.
- Delay for echoes. Stereo ping pong is nice, but stereo rigs are complicated.
- Loopers are quite useful, not just for composing, but also for sound design. Looping a phrase as you tweak other pedals in the chain will help you dial in sounds.
- Fuzz/distortion/compression for sustain and articulation. I find delays and reverbs respond in more interesting ways when the sound is punchy with some upper mid and clipping content. The transients are what the delays/reverbs work with.
- Filters for shaping the tone.
- Chorus/trem/vibrato/phaser modulation is nice.
- Volume pedals are great for creating swelling effects and modulating the bass volume.

For me, the time based effects are the most important for making things ambient. I think the style lends itself to minimalist playing, but you want the sound to do stuff between notes you pluck. I find noiseless pickups are important for avoiding hum building up in effects with long tails, but that isn't to say you can't use single coils.

I think for finding ways to build parts into original music you should step away from a rhythm section mindset and think more about textures and moods. Maybe find bridges or breakdowns in existing songs where you don't need a driving AC/DC bass line to keep the song chugging along. Look for sections where some breathing room will create contrast and pause before jumping back into more rhythmic sections.

Just my thoughts. I'm sure others will chime in.

An example of what I tend to do. I focused on how the octave fuzz decays and sputters into the reverb. I don't count when I play this style. I listen for the pulses in the effects. If something starts feeding back then I let it go as long as it feels right.

 

[Cristo]

I think for finding ways to build parts into original music you should step away from a rhythm section mindset and think more about textures and moods. Maybe find bridges or breakdowns in existing songs where you don't need a driving AC/DC bass line to keep the song chugging along. Look for sections where some breathing room will create contrast and pause before jumping back into more rhythmic sections.

That's exactly what I was thinking, something to do in intros, outros, bridges, and the like. Since there is no keyboardist!

Cool sample, I felt "transported" by it somehow...

 

[bassbrad]

Inviting @pantherairsoft to this cabal as his CD is a constant source of inspiration.

 

[GilesP]

Next question: how do I translate physical measurements to font sizes so I can do it right on the label.

You could try using an online converter to convert inches to pixels?

 

[hieronymous]

Well if you want to get all philosophical...

 

[hieronymous]

Wow 1152 pages. Can't say I will be able to read all that.

Anyway, this sort of playing is new to me. What advice would you give to someone looking to just dabble a bit in it, maybe for some moments here and there in original music?

Essential pieces of gear or techniques?

To me, so much of it depends on what you hear in your head. Music in this thread stretches from ambient to electronic as in EDM to electronic as in 20th century classical to noise or a combination of some or all of these - plus stuff I haven't even considered.

For me, I've always wanted to be able to have an atmosphere to play my bass in, whether it's groove or lead or atmosphere. For me, improvisation is a key element. Some of my favorite forays have been improvising with my limited synth gear to set something up that will play itself, then improvising something on top of that.

But the sound palettes are influenced by music I like, whether metal or prog or synth-based etc. So often distortion, filters, and phaser, as well as delay and reverb. I'm learning to incorporate more "space" which is where reverb can come in but it also depends on how you play and the colors you incorporate.

For ambient bass gear you'll probably want to consider:
- Reverb with some modulation. Bigger lush pad sounds will come from heavy doses of big reverb, and not usually plate or spring. Shimmer reverb is popular, but polarizing as some hate it.
- Delay for echoes. Stereo ping pong is nice, but stereo rigs are complicated.
- Loopers are quite useful, not just for composing, but also for sound design. Looping a phrase as you tweak other pedals in the chain will help you dial in sounds.
- Fuzz/distortion/compression for sustain and articulation. I find delays and reverbs respond in more interesting ways when the sound is punchy with some upper mid and clipping content. The transients are what the delays/reverbs work with.
- Filters for shaping the tone.
- Chorus/trem/vibrato/phaser modulation is nice.
- Volume pedals are great for creating swelling effects and modulating the bass volume.

For me, the time based effects are the most important for making things ambient. I think the style lends itself to minimalist playing, but you want the sound to do stuff between notes you pluck. I find noiseless pickups are important for avoiding hum building up in effects with long tails, but that isn't to say you can't use single coils.

I think for finding ways to build parts into original music you should step away from a rhythm section mindset and think more about textures and moods. Maybe find bridges or breakdowns in existing songs where you don't need a driving AC/DC bass line to keep the song chugging along. Look for sections where some breathing room will create contrast and pause before jumping back into more rhythmic sections.

Just my thoughts. I'm sure others will chime in.

An example of what I tend to do. I focused on how the octave fuzz decays and sputters into the reverb. I don't count when I play this style. I listen for the pulses in the effects. If something starts feeding back then I let it go as long as it feels right.

So many great insights in here!

Oh yeah, I started a new Soundcloud account for more explicitly electronic stuff - though I also ran out of upload space on the hieronymous account!

 

[monsterthompson]

Well. My neighbor is moving out so I decided tonight was the time to start experimenting with the Erica Sample Drum and making liberal use of the built in wave folder. I sampled my own racked oscillators, and I grabbed some of the stock beats, and boom. I started getting loud.

My goal was to play with the attack and decay settings and loop some drones. It was a smoother operation than I expected.

 

[pantherairsoft]

Inviting @pantherairsoft to this cabal as his CD is a constant source of inspiration.

Ah, thanks dude! Super kind of you. I don't frequent TB all that often any more and this thread had eluded me... no idea how given it's over 1100 pages long!?
I've just finished a modification of my board in mind of working on some new solo bass ambience over the next year (possibly finally leading to a new Constantine's Wing album). Stacking 5 delay pedals is something of pure beauty!

 

[bassbrad]

Ah, thanks dude! Super kind of you. I don't frequent TB all that often any more and this thread had eluded me... no idea how given it's over 1100 pages long!?
I've just finished a modification of my board in mind of working on some new solo bass ambience over the next year (possibly finally leading to a new Constantine's Wing album). Stacking 5 delay pedals is something of pure beauty!

I noticed 2 Colliders and more from your post on PYPB that was quite different from your older boards.

 

[pantherairsoft]

I noticed 2 Colliders and more from your post on PYPB that was quite different from your older boards.

Yeah, it's much smaller, but also much more focused on ambient and textures. I'll post it here for completion sake...

Signal chain for those that care:

Input ->
Boss OC-5 Octave ->
Dr. Scientist Franz Dazzler ->
Source Audio Aftershock ->
Red Panda Bitmap ->
GFI Synesthesia ->
Iron Ether Xenograph (controlled by Moog EP-3 Expression Pedal) ->
Whammy Ricochet ->
Source Audio Collider 1 ->
Source Audio Collider 2 ->
Catalinbread CSIDMAN ->
TC Electronic Polytune2 Mini ->
Output ->

Everything is mounted to a Pedaltrain Classic 2, cabled with EBS gold flat patch cables and powered by a Cioks DC7 (which is a beast of a power supply - it powered this whole thing and I've only just lit the '40% of capacity' light). Footswitches are also colour coded per section - orange for dirt, blue for modulation, green for delay/reverb, silver for utility. This makes the OCD geek happy.

The two 'unlocked' Colliders allows for 4 stacked delays/reverbs in any combination, then the CSIDMAN allows for a 5th delay with glitching. I'm still playing around the with chain position for the CSIDMAN. Currently it's behind the other delays, but I've been messing with it being between them, which is also cool. All that stacked delay is incredible for soundscapes, though the GFI is a monster for modulation and ambient work.

It's a more refined and compact version of what I used to run, but I'm really happy with everything here and have no desire to swap things out, which is a rare feeling.

 

[JES]

Anyway, this sort of playing is new to me. What advice would you give to someone looking to just dabble a bit in it, maybe for some moments here and there in original music?

Essential pieces of gear or techniques?

Welcome @Cristo . If you want our comments on specific gear, you will find those with a search of the thread. (most of the 1100 pages is us talking to one another.)

@monsterthompson really covered it. But for your specific use case--"here and there in original music" where you're otherwise (presumably?) fulfilling some kind of bass role, you need a way to get in and get out, and to do so gracefully. So it's not just adding pedals to your board, but a way to turn them on and off with a single stroke, if we're talking about eg the breakdown in a song. You want your delays and reverbs to have spillover so you can go back to playing bass while your textures ring out, etc. You also don't need all that stuff.

For instance, you want to enter a song from a wash of sound. You need:

a way to sustain your sound:

could just be a reverb or delay. Or it could be a Superego pedal in front of the reverb. Or it could be a fuzz or a distortion, maybe also into the delay or verb.

a way to shape the sound:

could be subtractive EQ or a tone control in the delay or reverb; could be tone controls on a distortion or fuzz; could be an EQ pedal; could be a filter

a way to get in and get out:

if you're using a multifx pedal, it could be a "scene"
if you're using a single pedal, that's really easy
if you're using a bunch of pedals, you need a loop switcher or some other graceful way to to. Or tap dancing.

Don't under estimate utilities like routing and volume pedals.

And don't forget that what sounds good at home may not sound great with your bandmates. I find gnarlier fuzz works better in a band setting than by myself; delays work more often than reverbs when I'm playing lows, and cleaner delays are more effective than the cool sounding vintagey ones.

At home by myself, anything goes.

 

[Colum]

I've a DHA VT-Std pedal that I have plugged into an isolated 12V supply which, aside from the pedal being quite noisy, has a 22KHz spike whenever plugged into the chain.
This is when the pedal is bypassed.

View attachment 4949584

DHA Pedal engaged
View attachment 4949586

The Pedal is 12v positive grounded and I've used a Rockboard Power Ace Polarity Converter. I've tried several power supplies over the years—the original started to smell like burning so I'm not risking it. This is the best so far noise wise.
The Spike goes up when the Deluxe Memory Boy beside it is engaged too and less so with the other pedals.

The PSU is one of these which powers another Harley Benton PSU. It's all going into the one outlet on the wall. I'm using the 12V Link with 1a.

https://www.thomann.de/ie/harley_benton_powerplant_iso_3ac_sag_modular.htm

It daisy chains this PSU which is under the board with an adapter and unplugging it makes zero difference https://www.thomann.de/ie/harley_benton_powerplant_iso_10ac_pro.htm

I can't fault the PSU. Everything is silent when the DHA is unplugged and I'm down from 4 plugs to one.

I have a triple bypass looper on the pedal board too and this section is in loop 2.
Engaging another pedal afterwards in the chain gets rid of a lot of the noise but the spike remains.

It's current state:
View attachment 4949607

I'd never normally worry about a 22k spike for bass but this is a studio set up and I also use the board for other instruments.



Thanks

Colum

This is probably going to die on it's arse on the mainland so I'll post it here in the hope that you people are the same kind of crazy as me?

No pressure

 

[monsterthompson]

@JES Glad you brought up the getting in/out of sounds and things like spillover and tails. I started thinking about that last night after I posted up.

Something like a Boss LS2 can be helpful for engaging a group of pedals at once but I think that device doesn’t have tails. Zoia seemed like a great tool for having switchable presets with complex routing, but I soon realized it hasn’t got spillover/tails when switching. There are ways to build patches where you can get spill/tails inside a single patch, but not when switching between two patches.

 

[Bob_Ross]

The one SWR thing I liked was the Interstellar Overdrive. Not needed today in an age of good power amp modelling but it was a fantastic distortion.

~25 years ago there was a second-hand SWR Interstellar Overdrive in the used equipment rack at my local Guitar Center. I think they were asking ~$300 for it? I asked if they'd take $200, and they scoffed.

6 months later I was back in that GC, and the IO was still there. I said "Now will you take $200?" ...and they still scoffed.

This kept happening every few months for the next two years! They would absolutely not budge on the price, and that IO gathered dust in the display rack for at least two years, waiting for someone to cough up their asking price.

So I've still never actually heard an SWR IO. I just thought it looked cool and could be had for cheap.

=====
The irony is, I got my Alembic SF-2 just a year or two earlier from the very same Guitar Center, from the very same used equipment rack! And when I asked if they would accept an offer below the tagged price, the sales dweeb said "Dude, if you can figure out how to use this thing you can have it for what we paid for it."

So I did. Got it for $99. (!!!)

Hmm... maybe I'm the reason why they wouldn't part with the Interstellar Overdrive a couple years later...

 

[JES]

I can totally imagine the conversation between the store manager and the person who sold you the SF-2 for $99. Even if you’re right, at that price it was worth NOT getting the IO.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I was/am pissed/disillusioned, I made this. Havent done Harsh stuff like this in quite a long time.
That is all.

 

[steubig]

Wow 1152 pages. Can't say I will be able to read all that.

Anyway, this sort of playing is new to me. What advice would you give to someone looking to just dabble a bit in it, maybe for some moments here and there in original music?

Essential pieces of gear or techniques?

welcome . . . now you're part of it (1153 and counting).

you'veseen some really good comments in here.

i came to this thread through looking for people's comments on a particular pedal. i've stayed for the conversations and insights . . . and the music people have shared (which arguably the most important aspect).i've gotten a lot out of the folks on this thread.

as someone mentioned, there are people from all over the musical map here (with a lot of overlap), which makes it really fun. (i think that the thread name needs to include, post-jazz, but that's just me.)

gear? as had been mentioned: what do you hear in your head . . . how can you achieve that?

also mentioned: *volume pedal*, which in my view might be one of the *most important* things you can have. softens attacks, creates swells, creates fades, cuts noise from fuzz/od. imo, an absolute must before any delay or reverb (and also after fuzz/oc sounds). it's not sexy, but will make the sexy pedals more useful and sexier.

delay and reverb: be judicious in band settings. imo, in most band situations, it's a spice, not the main ingredient.

 

[steubig]

I was/am pissed/disillusioned, I made this. Havent done Harsh stuff like this in quite a long time.
That is all.

well, that goes straight into the cerebral cortex, doesn’t it?