Fuzz, Overdrive or Distortion?

[TheIndieKid]

As a bass player who is now getting into the life of being in a band and having to understand live sound, I’ve decided would like to sit back in the mix and outline the chords and fill out the sound, rather than cut through. I’m using flatwounds and a clean sounding amp. However I like the sound of drive pedals on bass (as anyone does ), but I’m stuck with a few questions I’m seeking the answers to.

Most players who use drive say they do as it creates a desirable sound but also cuts through the mix. Is a drive pedal only good for standing out in the mix from a practical perspective? I’ve never really thought of it till now, but should the answer be no, am I best suited with a fuzz, overdrive or distortion for sitting in the mix?

 

[waveman]

Drives can actually get buried in the mix if not set right. I use all three (OD, DIST, FUZZ) for different things. I think it's something we have to have our own journey with since the application can be different with each player.

You might be served to read different threads about each one of them to see how other bassists apply the effect.

For myself, I use OD to get a vintage breakup for a couple of songs, I use distortion for songs that need more than that, and some synthy lines, and I use Fuzz for harder synth lines, just depends which one I think will cop what I am going for.

 

[bassbrad]

Start with a good overdrive pedal and take it from there, good news is there are a lot of cheap overdrives to try to find the one that works best for you. Effects are a slippery slope, but fear not. The answer can be as simple or as complex as you want to allow it to be. For me effects are tools to shape the texture of bass lines and colors to enhance the aural picture we paint as musicians. We can use those tools to blend in better, stand out or bring something completely different.

 

[Laurent]

Most of the time, light overdrive or no pedals.

 

[Basshappi]

OP from your description you will want to start with an overdrive.
These types of pedals basically help simulate the sound of a tube amp pushed to varying levels of saturation. So they will add a bit of harmonic distortion that is often described as "grit" or "edge" to your tone without pushing you all the way into full distortion or fuzz.

 

[Sunset Shalom]

As a bass player who is now getting into the life of being in a band and having to understand live sound, I’ve decided would like to sit back in the mix and outline the chords and fill out the sound, rather than cut through. I’m using flatwounds and a clean sounding amp. However I like the sound of drive pedals on bass (as anyone does ), but I’m stuck with a few questions I’m seeking the answers to.

Most players who use drive say they do as it creates a desirable sound but also cuts through the mix. Is a drive pedal only good for standing out in the mix from a practical perspective? I’ve never really thought of it till now, but should the answer be no, am I best suited with a fuzz, overdrive or distortion for sitting in the mix?

Dirt can be used for a lot of things, a gritty boost, a "lead" tone in a box, a sort of EQ shaping tool. Their most common use is probably driving lower gain amps. Amps without any grit or lead channels especially can benefit from a nice dirt pedal, or even if you just don't like the higher gain channels as much, then you can just drive the clean channel for more tonal options. It can also be fun to stack dirt pedals with higher gain channels to experiment, gain stacking is very common.

A versatile OD is probably the best place to start. Personally I tend to prefer pedals that clean up enough to make a fairly transparent boost but depending how you use them that's not really necessary.

 

[JWH91]

I use a grand magus by tc electronics. Sounds sweet and dirt cheap. Think I might add my compressor in the mix, playing power chords past the 12th fret sounds exactly like a 8 string guitar haha. I like to blend and help the guitarist as well when I play.

 

[Badwater]

It all depends on the type of music you play and how you want your bass to sit in the mix. A flat transparent bass sound is always a winner no matter the venue. But you can add effects to your taste for the stage sound.

 

[DDXdesign]

To add confusion to the mix, there are a couple different flavors of EACH type of effect!

Check out an OCD style overdrive like the Joyo UD, versus a rounder, tubbier OD like the Pigtronix Bass FatDrive. Very different to my ears. I like the tubby kind a whole lot, but I also have a more raw drive channel on my amp that can get that sort of vintage Geddy sound.

Fuzz types are legion, it seems: Muff style, Superfuzz style, Fuzzface, Brassmaster, Woolly Mammoth... and some in Silicon, Germanium, LED, no-diode variants... all have different characteristics you may love or hate.

Distortion is somewhere in limbo, and can have characteristics of a couple of the above, all at the same time. RAT types are common round here.

For sitting comfortably in a mix, you may need more or less gain than you think based on practicing alone, but keep your midrange present - turning the mids down can sound killer at home, especially if you play heavy rock, but in a band the lowest lows will get eaten by the floor and the kick, and the highs will get eaten by the guitars (this includes plenty of that sizzling fuzz top-end, which is why sometimes you need less gain).

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

all three.

 

[CapnSev]

Yes

 

[Being and Bass]

I stick with the fuzz sound, and stack in overdrive and distortions to build its sound. But for most bassists, I find 90% of regular situations call for one of three options: a clean tone, a bass heavy-compressed tone, and a distortion tone with an intensity depending on the drum cover.

If I had to do it again, I'd get a GOOD distortion pedal that can give you some range and then a Bass Soul Food from EHX to give you a clean boost and also push the distortion into the power.

But get a compressor first. Once you find a good compressed tone it should be absolutely clear what dirt, if any, is needed. For me, it is either a clean tone when I am in a chill groove or (most of the time) I have a muff on: I forget that my bass doesn't have a built in fuzz sometimes.

 

[mpdd]

i use a 200 watt mesa tube head with a high output g&l bass for shows and a rat tail with solid state heads at the practice space, that's it sorry it's not more glamorous or more complicated

 

[40Hz]

I'm primarily a fan of a clean bass tone. But judicious use of overdrive can add a certain intensity to your overall tone if you don't overdo it.

The one OD I use is a Southampton Fifth Gear V2. It's a light to medium overdrive I can highly recommend trying. Works equally well with guitar. Affordable too.

This video can give you some idea of how it sounds. IMO there isn't a bad tone to be found anywhere in it.

 

[andruca]

IME:

1) You shouldn't go for a fuzzy type of thing, neither fuzz itself nor some ODs that go into fuzzy territory (IME MXRs). OD or distortion should happen on the mid register for it to be grainy/crunchy and not hissy (as a fuzz is) and also not to get too far into guitar territory or even higher. Fuzz is still a cool effect to use on specific parts, just not as part of the basic constant sound, unless you're trying to out-cymball cymballs, which simply is not going to happen. A crunchy base OD sound OTOH offers lots of nuances and responsivenes to playing intensity, even when really pushing the gain.

2) You should aim for a blend control to dial back some of the clean sound in, for keeping punch and clarity.

I've had several old OD/DIST pedals (some old DOD distortion, the classic SansAmp -first that came out with the dip switches-, many other ODs/DISTs from several multi effects) and tried countless others. Hated them all, all felt like I was using a guitar amp, no definition, no thump, no punch, no bass! Then a friend let me use his SansAmp BDDI for a week and that (an RBI in fact -my overview here from a recent thread-) is mostly what I'm using until this day. For me any of these modern crunchy preamps (SansAmp, DarkGlass, Eden, and countless others, or emulations of them) outperform any dedicated DIST/OD pedal by a really long shot, even those specifically marketed as "for bass", IME most just destroy the signal as any guitar pedal would do.

 

[Bubble]

Some effects strip the bass off and turn the sound into a thin buzz. Makers of effect boxes should include a phase adjusted output that can plug into a second input channel or amp. Or maybe even have a clean + effect mixer built in that only needs one channel and cord, and gosh another button to push, the ability to control clean(volume +in/out) + effect(volume +in/out).

 

[jaymelewis]

I stick with the fuzz sound, and stack in overdrive and distortions to build its sound. But for most bassists, I find 90% of regular situations call for one of three options: a clean tone, a bass heavy-compressed tone, and a distortion tone with an intensity depending on the drum cover.

If I had to do it again, I'd get a GOOD distortion pedal that can give you some range and then a Bass Soul Food from EHX to give you a clean boost and also push the distortion into the power.

But get a compressor first. Once you find a good compressed tone it should be absolutely clear what dirt, if any, is needed. For me, it is either a clean tone when I am in a chill groove or (most of the time) I have a muff on: I forget that my bass doesn't have a built in fuzz sometimes.

+1 to all of this

 

[vegas532]

All of it is going to depend on the style of music and what you intend to do. I keep an array of all of the aforementioned effects depending on what's needed. I do at least use light overdrive to help the tone stand out in mixes. I've gone all the way up to gain stacking several fuzz effects for more extreme situations.

 

[DrColossus68]

Source Audio Aftershock comes stock with all three effects plus it has a clean blend to dial in the low end. It also is infinitely tweakable with its app if you want to play around more. Could be a good way to experiment with all three for relatively cheap.

 

[bass40hz]

Man I've tried them all, Wren and Cuff Pickle Pie B (fuzz), Darkglass B3K (overdrive), and countless others...what I've settled on is a Tech21 Bass FlyRig where the SansAmp portion is very akin to their "VT" pedal that is always on, and a Boneshaker (distortion) that I use to go over the top. The Boneshaker has a (semi) parametric EQ so you can really dial in your tone to be as thunderous or as thin as you want, with any point in between.