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Gritty boost to fill out mix behind guitar solos?

#24
Hard question as it seems every week there are new offerings that have great potential from simple and not expensive to some that offer copious options for more $$. Blumes looks good as does the Fuzzrocious Li'l Fella or [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. Fuzzrocious Li'l Fella has plenty of control to really nail the level of saturation you want from mind to wild. The Jive is transparent boost and offers several levels of crunch and slight compression.

If you are more daring and looking to cover more ground you might consider one of the source audio pedals from the deceptively simple Aftershock that offers a wide variety of textures, the Ultrawave Bass that is a full sonic tool box for bass or the new Artifakt that offers an assortment of tricks to enhance our basses sound.
 
#26
I play in 2 original, 3 piece bands and use two pedals to fill space when needed:

Darkglass Vintage Microtubes:

shopping


and the T-Rex Quint:

View attachment upload_2024-6-27_14-9-38.webp

the Quint allows me to play a "power-cord" (high-low octave and a 5th of the note you are playing) and the Microtubes give some dirt.

Both can be adjusted as to how much of the affected signal is mixed with your fundamental tone.

FWIW, the Quint tracks really well and seems to provide a small boost to the signal as well.
 
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#28
Smooth_bass88 said:
EBS Billy Sheehan drive. Retains the fundamental very nicely. Plus you can loop effects in and out and apply them to the overdriven signal only, again, while retaining the fundamental
Click to expand...

It is a cool sounding drive. At lower gain settings, it just has a voice of its own that sounds a bit different than the other stuff out there.
 
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#29
I spent a long time (and went through a lot of pedals) looking for something that would do this, without sounding like a distortion pedal. Finally tried and now happily settled on the Genzler 4 on the Floor. What really makes it work for me are the built-in hpf and lpf on the drive side. in my case, I really dislike distortion on the lower notes on the e string, so I set it for the level of grit that I want, then use the hpf to filter out the grit at the lower frequencies. Works great as an always-on OD pedal for e, but in your case you can set the clean and/or distortion level to give you a boost when you kick it on during guitar solos.

As others have mentioned, I also on occasion will use an octave pedal with just a touch of octave down and a bit more octave up, to fill out the space. I use a TC Sub n Up mini for that.
 
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#31
I've had a power trio recording thing going on lately (this upcoming Sunday, also), where I OD the guitar(s).

I have been using a looper (usually with more dirt engaged) when recording the live drums and bass, even if it's just the tonic feeding back, and then playing over that (can be heard here and there on the last two Almic releases at below link).
 
#32
_tedd said:
Thank you for the replies and ideas. I possibly wasn’t clear enough in the OP - I really don’t want the character of the instrument to change, just to get louder and add a little hair. I’ve had some Darkglass, Tech 21 and Aguilar in the past and found all three of those to very much have a character baked into the pedal was pretty obvious when engaged.

I hate to use to term “transparent overdrive” but perhaps that is what I’m looking for? Would a clean boost such as the Spark push the amp into driving on its own? I’ve never had one before. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Not all Darkglass is equal. VMT Deluxe is actually pretty transparent if you want it to be, not like B7K or Sansamp BDDI. And if you want to fill the space when guitar goes to solo, you need more something, usually extra mids with some overdrive. If you continue with exactly the same sound you are not going to fill that void. Just saying.

And I don't try promoting DG, I just have no experience of other transparent overdrives. Pick what you feel right.
 
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#34
In addition to choosing a light OD that fills out the sound and makes it more harmonically dense, the right type of compression and EQ may be beneficial.

However, trying to do too much with the bass will likely muddy things up or drastically change the bass tone in a way that is not style appropriate. For example: Reverb adds space, but typically does not work well on bass; especially in a live environment. The exception of course is if the music is atmospheric, which I am guessing it is not. Adding modulation effects like chorus or flanging can fill up some space and sound cool, but are these types of tone within the style you are covering? If you don't care about how closely the performance resembles the original recordings, you can do whatever you want and it can potentially sound very cool and artistic, but the audience may not understand or appreciate it.

IMHO a better approach is to choose tunes that work with the group format. If everything sounds fine until the guitar player starts to solo, the choice of music and/or the way the guitarist plays is the actual problem. So, usually the guitar player is the one who actually needs to fill out most of the space and this changes the nature of their solos: notes, how they are played, and the effects used.

I suggest listening to recordings of groups you think pull it off well.
 
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#35
Just a thought, but if you have an extra amp, you could configure the amp with a pedal / preamp of your choice and bring it in / out of the mix with an A/B/Y switch. This will leave your original bass tone unaltered but add the gritty boosted tone in with it when you call for it. I did this for a while as an experiment and it definitely sounded better IMO than simply adding dirt to your bass signal. Plus you can EQ the lows out of the grit 'channel' so it behaves more like a second guitar than a second bass. It is a bit more work and gear but it may be a good solution to your situation.
 
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#36
Parzival said:
It is a cool sounding drive. At lower gain settings, it just has a voice of its own that sounds a bit different than the other stuff out there.
Click to expand...
yes, definitely. I have at times used it as a 'hi-boost' when playing with a pick. It's actually almost a warm sounding high end; not brittle or glassy.
 
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#40
_tedd said:
Thank you for the replies and ideas. I possibly wasn’t clear enough in the OP - I really don’t want the character of the instrument to change, just to get louder and add a little hair. I’ve had some Darkglass, Tech 21 and Aguilar in the past and found all three of those to very much have a character baked into the pedal was pretty obvious when engaged.

I hate to use to term “transparent overdrive” but perhaps that is what I’m looking for? Would a clean boost such as the Spark push the amp into driving on its own? I’ve never had one before. Thanks!
Click to expand...

TC Spark Boost (full size version) is perfect for this exact role.
 

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