Effects for fretless basses

[The Nameless]

I overdrive. Fretless and slight overdrive is great! Tony Franklin, anyone? Old Tubeworks Blue Tube fer me. Original tube still in it. Great compression effect from that old tube, and it is very sensitive to signal, so my hands can control how much drive I get. I play fretless 60% of all my gigs. Metal, country, pop. All styles. I run the P.A. for my bands. If I run reverb, flange, chorus, etc? It is thru the tops of my P.A. Only. And only slightly. I keep my rig and my Sub signal clean, modulation and time effects can make it hard to lock in with the drummer or band. Onstage? We all need to hear me clean.

 

[Michedelic]

I use pretty much everything I use on fretted, and like others I like to bump the upper mids. However, I detest chorus on fretless, It blurs intonation (for me).

Yes, chorus can mess with your ear's interpretation of pitch in certain situations; as an alternative you can always try a phase shifter, or a mild flanger setting.

 

[boylebass]

Chorus and overdrive indeed. I try to let my amp do the overdrive, my GK1001 does a great job on that. I played an auditorium gig recently where I was able to crank it up a little bit. The sound that I got from the amp on the verge of breakup was incredible, one of the best live sounds I've ever heard.

I only eq for the room or 'to taste' and never use a eq pedal. No compression, unless added by a tracking engineer. Octaver on occasion, depends on the setlist and how much creative control I have on the gig.

 

[DavC]

i would agree with what you already have ... chorus / reverb / comp

 

[Lia_G]

I play 90+% fretless. I've never been one to add effects. The phrasing and left hand technique make it "sound fretless" to me. I don't at all "look down on" anyone who uses effects though ... Everyone should do whatever makes their ears happy.

 

[RiZzBot]

Two words. Ultra Vibrato

 

[D.A.R.K.]

Kill the sustain or make it sound like a tuba? Palm muting with the plucking hand for sustain control, same for tuba sound but add some overdrive to it.

 

[woodyng2]

I have an old ART Phat boy multi fx,which just seems to have been made for fretless enhancement.
I usually use the limiter function in lieu of compression,and use the doubler or reverb efx. There is also a drive button,but that tends to make the mwah disappear. It has various combinations of delay,reverb,flanging,chorus,even a single note harmonizer. It's a pretty cool little unit.....

 

[FunkyMcNasty]

I like a light bit of Verb in my fretless tone. I use some compression about 50% of the time. When I do I use the Iron Ether Nimbus for verb and the Empress comp.

 

[Max Blasto]

Sometimes chorus, for shimmer.
Sometimes octaver, for meat.
Sometimes env filter, for bark, or in combo with the octaver for synthy sounds.

Always compressor.
Always OD grind from preamp (but less than for a, say, 4003).
Always bump the mids.

If I'm channeling Jack Bruce, I'll bump the OD.

Flanger might be fun, but I don't have one.

 

[imdkoz]

The pedal I hated on my fretted basses I'm loving on my fretless - EBS Billy Sheehan signature pedal. Has the mid boost and compression that seems to work great. Go figure.

 

[groooooove]

pretty much anything will work...

i always loved jacos reverb sound.

heavy fuzzes sound cool if you use a lot of slides and such. octaves are cool. ext..

 

[Mark_70]

Octave and chorus
Regards
Mark

 

[Honch]

That's a pretty cool idea, I should try it sometime. What pedal do you use for it and when do you use it?

Any delay pedal or multifx box with modulation delay, there are numerous. Korg multifx boards, like Ax-1500G/SDD-3000 pedal and so on. TimeLine by Strymon should be able to do it, as well as Boss Digital Delay pedals (the larger ones). But I use a 90's half rack unit called BOSS VF-1 which is great for any bass sounds. Can be found for bargain prices these days. Those tiny red half racked ones. They have some patches which can modulate length of the delay, sweeping - say - between 300 ms and 400 ms, in a sine wave or triangular wave. I use shorter though. They even have "pre-delay" at choruses, i e the amount of delay before the chorus sets in... but I don't use that one.

Mostly on solos and so on. Generally, by and large, I don't even use that one as much, because it puts some sort of phase anomaly over all the lowest notes. It doesn't seem to cut through, and the bass is "neutralized" and gets cancelled out at certain frequencies. You stumble over comb filter effects and so on. With "solo" I mean even a capella, when there's no other instrument playing. When the bass is completely alone I'll use it the most. As fast as any band kicks in in full flight, the bass "disappears" so to speak. Then I'll turn it off.

 

[Honch]

Pedals that try to emulate tube amps might get you close to a tuba. I'm thinking of an Orange preamp pedal, for example, which is supposed to emulate an orange tube amp, or maybe a DHA (?) pedal or other overdrive pedals where you can control Sag (a Barbershop might even work). But there are others on TB with much more pedal experience than I have, so maybe they could chime in.

Yeah, any brass pedal will get you there. Honest. The first thing you should do is change your cabinet out to something with a horn built in. Combined with a brass pedal, and a tube amp ... it's only one letter different tube/tuba. A tubamp? preferably then, with four valves (cough cough..low moan)

[sorry, can't help myself, can't take this seriously]

 

[Honch]

Find it peculiar no one mentioned Nathan Navarro as of yet. He is flagship sponsor for Source Audio pedals, and he gets a lot of mileage out of their weird wireless HAND controlled FX. It makes his fretless sounds like a Roland TR-303 bass synth sequencer. Envelope/Distortion/Bit crusher in one. Mostly useful in dub/dubstep and electronica. You know, Skrillex type stuff. He has his intonation down alright though... the first one I've seen in quite some time that has brought something new to effects combined with fretless.

Although the actual music may very well not be to your liking at all. But so be it.

 

[40Hz]

I'll sometimes run through [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] (tremelo/pseudo-flange) and their [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] - both set to absolute minimal settings - purely to give it a hint of some of that ambient "air" and "motion" you'd feel with an upright. You could probably get much the same results with a high-end verb/effect unit like a Strymon Big Sky. But I don't have have the purse (or inclination) to be dropping roughly $500 on a single pedal for the amount of use it would get.

I also may (or may not) use a tiny bit of compression (Keeley Bassist) depending on what the room is doing to the overall sound. Been in a few places that had really weird acoustics where a top quality transparent compressor was a real godsend.

 

[Blue_Whistle88]

No modulation at all. What I've heard so far, is everyone that uses chorus pedals on fretless, are using it to camouflage their shortcomings in intonation and relies on the chorus to mush it up, so you can well be off with your fingering. As suggested by someone else already, you can use a short slapback delay, and produce your own chorus by moving the fingers slightly forward and backward along the string to make the delay and your "vibrato" on the string sort of "chorusy". Compressors and EQ are ok though. Reverb should be used as little as possible. I think it just messes up the low end. If you play high up, in the baritone area, maybe you can use it a little bit.

Chorus pedals "directly" on the attack of the note seems to kille transient pick and definition. It muddies up the initial attack to with their 20 ms modulated delays. Me myself likes a long delay with modulation so the chorus is only heard in the background on the feedback of the delays.

Regarding compressors and sustainers, I think on a fretless bass, I still would love to (see other thread about sustainiac) have a pedal or effect to KILL THE DECAY of the string on a fretless. Especially when playing high up to mimick an upright properly. When playing high up on an upright, it's just a percussive instrument with a short thud, and no decay/sustain at all.

What about using a really aggressive noise gate, which only permits the loudest part of the signal to come through?

 

[Kael]

None

 

[Deleted member 165050]

I would never use chorus on fretless, it hides both the sound of your bass and your vibrato. I use subtle compression with occasional octave, overdrive and delay, and a Super Synth for wilder moments.

ficelles