• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

#19,082
Went over to jam with a guitarist buddy I used to be in a band with last night and decided to take my old Digitech Bass Synth Wah pedal with me. It was the first "weird" pedal I ever bought and took me down the road into this thread today. It ain't perfect, but it's still a great synth pedal. The simplicity of it compared with lots of newer ones is kind of refreshing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: theunknowndude and JES
#19,084
I took the Micromonsta2 to practice tonight. I plugged my Linnstrument into it with a MIDI cable, powered both of them off a powered USB hub, and plugged the headphone out straight into the mixer. NO noise. And the synth sounded very powerful and interesting. My bandmates were thrilled. The fact that it's bitimbral and that you can program custom keyboard splits per preset is GREAT for the Linnstrument 200 -- I can play huge bass sounds low and have other sounds higher up. I am over the moon -- this is such a simple setup -- no iPad or computer, no ADA interface, USB hosting, none of it.

I brought it home just to program a bunch more weirdo presets to see if it inspires us at all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Funky40, dukeorock, steubig and 3 others
#19,086
Nice! Hope you'll enjoy yours as much as I do. I remember us all joking last year that this would be the most pre-ordered pedal in the history of the thread. My one hot tip: have it up near your hands. If you're using the "drifting" modes it's not like precision in beginning/end of the loop matters all that much.

As for shipping, who knows? For my Martin Keith touch guitar, we were talking about using a Ukrainian builder for the hardware. I can only imagine being an instrument builder one day and then being told to take up arms to fight an invading army.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dukeorock, Spectrum, Bob_Ross and 2 others
#19,087
Just had my touch guitar lesson. We were talking about using the volume pedal as a kind of envelope generator. I'm curious if anyone here is doing that (seems like something @steubig might have worked through at some point) and if anyone has any tips. My balance is so bad I am not sure I will ever be able to do it standing up, but I should be able to do it sitting down.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dukeorock
#19,088
JES said:
Just had my touch guitar lesson. We were talking about using the volume pedal as a kind of envelope generator. I'm curious if anyone here is doing that (seems like something @steubig might have worked through at some point) and if anyone has any tips. My balance is so bad I am not sure I will ever be able to do it standing up, but I should be able to do it sitting down.
Click to expand...

not sure what you mean? explain a bit more?

i’m sitting down 90% of the time now. juggling different foot pedal and riding the vol pedal creates interesting issues with a bass on my back.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dukeorock, monsterthompson and JES
#19,089
JES said:
We were talking about using the volume pedal as a kind of envelope generator. I'm curious if anyone here is doing that
Click to expand...

I gave it a bit of a try the other day, using it to make attacks gradual. It worked well for me, but I was sitting. I'm also not sure how well I could coordinate it if I wanted to play faster, but for slower stuff into long reverb, building up chords one note at a time, it was nice.
 
#19,090
Okay, so 90% of what I see volume pedals used for are things like: a boost (seems like not the best way to do this), a mute, or for swells or fade ins. What my teacher was suggesting was that it could be used more like a bow, or like a foot-driven tremolo, or to create envelopes with my foot to complement what I'm doing with my hands (more or less like an AD envelope in a synth). I would say I'm at the "let's do some volume pedal swells" level so I'm looking for interesting musical examples of other approaches. Most of what he does is in the midst of heavily overdriven guitar solos, which is cool but not what I'm up to most of the time.
 
#19,091
steubig said:
i’m sitting down 90% of the time now. juggling different foot pedal and riding the vol pedal creates interesting issues with a bass on my back.
Click to expand...

<seated high five>

I have experimented with volume pedal envelope/swells. My biggest issue with this on bass is the inherent ADSR of a string pluck. You can only fade in so slowly before you miss the string sustain (disregarding other forms of sustain, like fuzz, eBow, etc.).

Well, I just flipped my Champion Leccy Skitter and I'm gonna regret it. I wasn't using it so I let it go. As I packed it up to ship I stopped to film a test video as proof of function, and it sounded so good with my synth. Now I need to mimic the pedal with a Zoia patch (I've heard one exists). This has me thinking about envelopes and VCA settings to get tremolo effects.

Edit - Man, I love this trem effect application.
 
#19,092
okay. yeah.

you can do trem. i’ve done slower things, sort of like an lfo applied to a vca.

def better to sit down for that.

there are times when i hear stuff back that i’ve done and the volume pedal work makes things almost sound in reverse (no delay or verb). it’s odd cause i’m not exactly sure how i do it. maybe slides down with the volume pedal swelling into the slide?

very usable with overdrive or distortion.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dukeorock and JES
#19,094
...and speaking of volume pedals: Yeah, I think I get what @JES 's teacher means about using it as an envelope generator. Certainly when I'm using a lot of loops and delays and whatnot I'm making heavy use of the volume pedal to both help define foreground and background textures, and to shape the leading edge of notes to provide a wider spectrum of attack profiles. But things get really fun on those (admittedly rare) occasions when the only thing between my bass and my amp is a volume pedal, because then I'm still trying to help define foreground and background textures, and to shape the leading edge of notes to provide a wider spectrum of attack profiles...but now I'm trying to approach those things from the perspective of an acoustic instrument. And not even necessarily a stringed instrument. The volume pedal allows a vaster range of subtle articulations and dynamics than fingers (or plectrum) alone; it creates more granular divisions, more (and finer) shades of grey. The trick is to incorporate it without it sounding like a gimmick.

I'm still working on that last part. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: JES
#19,098
I just ordered a modal skulpt se… was only a tiny bit more than the pigtronix space rip and considering bass as a synth is harder to get what I want. it should be fun to mess around on.

I’ve looked through a few old threads where people are saying should be ok to run a synth into a bass amp just watching volume. would a normal a/b switcher in front of my pedalboard feeding into my genz Benz shuttle amp be ok? Or would a dedicated mixer be better? At practice we are running guitars, vocals and triggered kick drum through mixer into PA so I guess that’s another option to feed into?
Realistically I may never take it out of the house though but I guess options are always good…
 
#19,100
theunknowndude said:
should be ok to run a synth into a bass amp just watching volume. would a normal a/b switcher in front of my pedalboard feeding into my genz Benz shuttle amp be ok? Or would a dedicated mixer be better?
Click to expand...

Depends what you want to achieve; a mixer offers more flexibilty, but if you don't foresee ever needing any of that flexibility then all its additional features (and gain stages) can become a liability.

fwiw back in the 80s when every techno-pop band expected the bass player to double on synthesizer I just plugged the Moog into the #2 input on my bass amp.
 
  • Like
Reactions: theunknowndude, Spectrum, JES and 2 others

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back