I've played guitar for 18 years and played around on a bass for the past 3 years. I've really come to enjoy the four strings quite a lot. I'm into live pa and recording gear and I've also got a large pedalboard stocked full of guitar effects. I've recently landed a great bass gig and now I need some pointers on filling out some bass effects. Right now I've got a little cheap Korg pitchblack tuner into a SansAmp programmable bass driver DI to an Ampeg SVT Pro 3 on a SVT 6x12 cab. The band is a cover band on the fairs and festivals circuit along with some clubs that plays mostly rock. The tryout list included some Jet, Mötley Crüe, Black Stone Cherry, Poison, Bon Jovi, Great White, Sixx AM, & Kiss. All pretty much straight up rock with little effects that I can tell. Just wondering what the must haves for a good rock bass rig would be. I like to play some Kings of Leon (which i know uses a lot of effects), STP and Pearl Jam. Thanks in advance!
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Guitarist turned bassist
- Thread starter Jthakwvu
- Start date
ok. I use a few effects but I wouldn't think anything is totally neccessary for straight up rock past a bit of overdrive which you can get from the rig you have.
Not big on KOL here so maybe that needs something, chorus and milder fuzz would be most useful for rocking out.
If you're nto the PA side of things you might enjoy parallel processing like I do with crossover and blender, that'll be getting an update shortly. Short version, highs and lows split, distortion type effects on highs, lows unadulterated, packs a punch.
You are in good company - Greg Lake started out the same way.
Yep, and I think Paul D'Amour was a guitarist first as well. Both great players.
I'm also a guitar player who turned to bass a few years ago. I really fell into it, so much that I asked myself "why didn't I do this in the 1st place". Anyhoo...
I started on a cheap Zoom B1 multi and used it for about a year, then went totally nuts on pedals and had 20+ pedals on a PT Pro at one time. I'm pretty much settled on my current set-up (sig) and more thinking of up-grading quality wise (i.e. replacing the BassDriver for an Empress MultiDrive). But the Zoom multi was a great way to start making sense of effects on bass, for me anyway.
Like stated before a mild distortion/fuzz or overdrive is probably good to have, and maybe also a chorus pedal. Otherwise I would say a compressor might be useful to cut through evenly in a rock band setting.
I was chasing an improvement to my rock/grunge bass sound a while ago. Here is the attempt made back then:
Since then I have changed to overdrives which work a bit better with bass ([sfx] Micro Red Dragon and Wampler Euphoria), and changed the RotoVibe to a TC Electronic Corona chorus.
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The only pedal I have ever used is a chorus, and rarely use it. Other than that just a bass and an amp.
I originally started on guitar as well and made the tragic mistake that you can just add a pedal and it doesn't matter. The world of pedals is so much easier for a guitarist that you take it for granted that you can just add a new noise easily; but welcome to a whole different way of thinking. Now you will have to consider "Mud", "Loss of low end", "Mid scoop" and "Cutting through". The lower frequencies just start to become less distinct with added distortion, delay, reverb, chorus, etc. Furthermore, some pedals take the lower frequencies out due to the circuit design. A quick simple solution is to keep it clean, but hey pedals are fun and can sound great, so another solution is to get a hold of a blend, will return those lows that have possibly been removed and help cut through some of the mud. For the money vs functionality you cant beat a Boss LS-2, but obviously there are others out there.
Best of luck
Best of luck
