Does the bass need effects?

For the gigging bassist...honestly most of the time you don't need anything. I was effect crazy but then I realized it was pretty useless when I'm a hired gun.

 

Depends on the sound you want. For a giggin bassist I woudln't think you'd need them. For me, a guy in a band, I don't NEED them but they really change the mood of a song when they are in use. I play in a band that is somewhere between... blues, jazz, funk, techno, prog rock, jamish. If I didn't have effects a lot of feel and moods created by certain added sounds would be lost. Most people aren't in the position I am with the band I am in and most bassists don't need them at all.

To add to all of that... I must say that don't see how anyone couldn't love an envelope filter or an octaver on bass

 

Depends on what style of music. For most people, no not at all.

I play experimental funk rock and until recently i didnt use effects, except OD. Now delay and synth wah are making themselves heard.

 

Most of the time, no; but sometimes when there's a particularly repettitive riff, it needs something extra to feel (as in with the song) and sound a bit better.

 

I don't think a bas should have any fancy effects, they should be left for guitar unless it's solo bass. Songs just sound weird when the bass is full of useless effects.

 

I am a strong supporter of both the envelope filter and the EHX bass synth, among other things (od, chorus, delay, wah). Bass isn't just about holding down the low end, even in most band settings. The bass is absolutely essential in setting the mood of a song, and a sweet effect can usually do just that.

 

Envelope Filter(meatball) - Funks the **** out of a song

EBS OctaBass - Fattens the sound, great octaver

HAO Rust Ride - with correct playing dynamics it creates a great overdriven sound... too much and its a bit distorted for my tastes but the OD is great


I have a Deep Impact as well but it doesn't get too much use for the music the band plays, I was about to sell it. Great pedal but I don't mind leaving the synth stuff to the keys.

 

I love Chorus (EBS Unichorus) and Reverb (EBS Dynaverb), both are very natural effects for the bass IMO. I like fuzz (EHX Bigg Muff) and envelope filter (EBS Bassiq) also, and my favourite crazy effect is Digitech Whammy.

 

I have a BOSS VF-1 and 400 effects available, but I'm finding all I really use is flange, envelope filter (a lot), octaver, and some of the more "spacey" or "watery" ones. The EV on the VF-1 isn't that great, IMHO, so I'm looking at an EBS Bass IQ to fill that void.


Hmmmm...judging from the above posters, seems like I'm not the only one who like EBS

 

Fuzz + Wah baby, Fuzz and Wah..

 

Distortion (Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor, Danelectro FAB, Broken Korg pedal), OD (Hao Rust Ride, Sansamp BDDI), Fuzz (Big Muff Pi)...I love them all....in fact I need to stop buying them. However I am also a fan of Octave effects (EH POG), Wah's (Morley PWD-II which is also gives a pretty good OD sound too), and Delay (Boss DD-20). I usually use the Octave and the Wah in conjunction with distortion and the Delay for looping parts. However I recently learned of new tricks with my delay pedal and I'll probably incorporate them into my bag of tricks.

As far as where I use them, I've got 4 active bands and I use some for at least all of the bands.

In my 3 piece instrumental rock band (Guaime) I use everything and alot of it (I am distorted with the octave running 3 extra ocatves through about 85% of the songs/set, gives me a HUGE bass tone) Also using the Delay to loop and the Wah for swelling noises.

In my Improved Stoner Doom band (Bongripper) I used all sorts of effects when recording (Dist, Octave, Delay, Chorus) and found that Distortion/OD was the only one that really made a difference after the fact (we are tuned at F so throwing all the effects on a bass that low gets pretty ungodly) So now I pretty much only use that when playing, however I'll probably keep experimenting.

In the Sludge Trash band (Weekend Nachos) Distortion/Fuzz all the time, and thats it (Depending what pedal I have with me at the time).

In the Tech Death Band (inthewakeof) I used distortion on and off throughout certain parts of the songs (mainly in the higher registers when it would need an extra kick)

 

I saw James Singleton on Friday (In !!!N.O.!!!) and at the peak of his totally fantastic solo on the last tune, he loops a groove (I hadn't even noticed he had pedals) and starts soloing arco on top of it. It was really really cool, and that was on upright in a jazz group!

So, I'm not personally one for any effects, but I sure as hell won't ever talk down about anyone who does use them.

 

I think that the logic used to answer “no” this question could also be used to reach the conclusion that you don’t need anything more then the first four frets on the E & A strings, and then only the first fret on the D string, since that gives you all 12 notes.

 

Playing in a hardrock band.

Using:

Overdrive - almost always on as its set to just a little grit

Fuzz - For when things (i.e. chorus / outro) is going to be "spiced up", cuts through the mix just fine.

Behringer BOD100 (overdrive) - Only using this for boost! Not using the overdrive sound of it at all.. set the gain to max, bass knop to max, treble set to flat and level set to flat. Using this to rip off hair in the audience

Can I live without these 3 effects? Yea I guess I can, but the sound of them suits our music, so why not!

 

i use effects to achieve parts of my tone. flanger and systh wah being my favorite. i am hopfully getting a chorus soon

lowsound

 

Most of the time I don't use effects, but when I do, it's because they're necessary.

 

IMO, this is like asking "What's the best da Vinci?". There is simply no right answer.

One can use an old Kay doghouse plugged into a Gorilla practice amp to express thems selves, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. One caan also use 12 different basses with mutliple rigs and a pedal board the size of a Honda Civic and that's great too.

I guess what I am trying to say there is no "need"- the answer is what ever gets the job done for the individual in question.

 

Nah, it's just not your style - and that's cool.

My style of music is pretty out there, so any noise making machine is fair game. I currently have around 14 pedals on my board!

Having said that, there's some songs we play and even entire jams that I go to in which I never turn any of it on!