Heavy bass distortion for low end.

[SquareWaves]

The low tunings in metal are getting out of hand.

 

[chaosMK]

Yeah, he plays in the same octave, but the man got some killer bass sound. That is produced in an Axe FX II however, far above my budget.

I like the "rolling tank" tone on Chaosphere (different bassist though). On that album he's using a Mesa 50 Cal guitar amp.

Why are you interested in an EBS cab? I'd be shooting for something with a rock/metal voicing (Mesa PH would be awesome, massive low end). Are you playing something more like tech death?

 

[Brother Goose]

I purchased one of these pedals from a bassist who sent it back to the company to optimized further for bass frequencies. Maintains some sonic integrity in the low end. These can be found used fairly cheap and the factory mod was, I believe, only $25.

 

[Downunderwonder]

I have a simple recipe, cheap, gets all the distortion you ever want from any pedal while retaining all the low end.

Rolls mini crossover sx21, stompbox size, $65, sends highs via fx to blender, lows to direct blender.
Wounded Paw V3 blender, got mine used $140??

The reason for the fancy blender is to give me phase control since some pedals invert signal when on and some don't. The last blend loop runs series out with the lows and straight back in on opposite phase. This keeps the crossover frequencies from being nulled out.

There aren't many bar PA subs that will cope with your 2nd harmonic F#, let alone 4x10 bass cabs. An fdeck HPF is required equipment whatever rig you run.

 

[anton72]

DARKGLASS B3K.

God's tone.

+1 as soon as you try one you won't need anything else.

 

[jeff7bass]

Read about this one in Bass Gear magazine. Blend the clean lows back in, true bypass, 60's/70's tone switch, solid construction and good price.

Demo's included. Sounds killer.

Invalid Link Removed

 

[Mr. Foxen]

High passing will really help a lot with everything. Detuning has gone way to far to have a bottomy sound now, need to cut it all off to have a useable sound.

 

[NeonVomit]

Have you checked out EBS' "Billy Sheehan" distortion pedal? It attempts to implement Sheehan's bi-pre-amped rig in a single pedal, with a signal split and variable mix of clean bottom with distortion,. It's even got an effects loop that can be assigned to only one of the split signals, though I haven't tried that yet. Not cheap for a distortion pedal, but cheaper and above all less hassle than setting up two rigs. It all depends on whether its distortion circuit has the sound you crave.

I've got it, it rocks. Throw an equaliser into the gain channel, throw whatever you like.. it's a fantastic bit of kit, great addition to my rig.

 

[jeffgnr90]

the Fender Superbassman 300 has a great distortion circuit with an active eq and the blend feature. Very tweakable and can do many genre's very well!

 

[husky123]

Another pedal to check out that, IMO, is a huge sleeper is the Ashdown Lomenzo Hyperdrive. With a sweepable Q and blend is does an EXCELLENT job of keeping the low end intact and punching through. One of the best of played through for that function.

 

[aledeville]

I prefer not blending clean and dirty and I prefer having pedals that do a good job with it without needing a blend. There's a very fine line between getting a great sound blending and making it sound like there are two bass parts. That said, my Team Awesome Fuzz Machine has a blend and I can set it to where it sounds like the same signal easily enough, but the potential for making it sound like two bass parts is there.

I'm with you with this one, but the solution could be so easy... There should just be a way to tame the clean signals higher frequencies (just like the tone knob on the bass). Could even be passive. This would prevent the clean signal from "shining" through the distorted part which creates imo the feeling for the two tones. The clean signal has more attack and is more straightforward (and probably less compressed) and therefore significantly different from the distorted one.
I don't really know why no builder of a pedal ever did that.

One other way is to reduce the highs of the input signal (aka tone knob at the bass dialled back a bit). The needed highs are then created by the distortion nevertheless, so it's not gonna be muddy.

 

[kohntarkosz]

I purchased one of these pedals from a bassist who sent it back to the company to optimized further for bass frequencies. Maintains some sonic integrity in the low end. These can be found used fairly cheap and the factory mod was, I believe, only $25.

$25 is still quite steep if the mods were quite simple.

Keeley's mods appear to be;

C20 .22uf
c42 .1uf
c37 , c39 , c17 , c11 1uf
c8 .22uf
c9 .1uf
c20 .22uf
d3 , d4 LED


I can imagine it gets a bit tricky finding non-polar 1uF caps, but the rest should be fairly simple.

 

[Veldar]

The low tunings in metal are getting out of hand.

I know right, Ibanez is making a guitar that has a low C#

 

[NeonVomit]

I know right, Ibanez is making a guitar that has a low C#

Yeah, but it can sound pretty awesome if done right...

 

[jasper383]

The low tunings in metal are getting out of hand.

It's more colorectal experiment than music.

 

[Bassmec]

After decades of trying all sorts of stuff with all sorts of extreme metal bands I find the clean dirty rig is the best for this kind of sound and tuning.
For absolute best results, Have two (preferably tube) amps, two cabs, a splitter box and then perfect the clean rig, then add the exact right blend of the filth rig! Just enough so you don't quite drown the clean punch.
As for distortion pedals? that's just personal taste, could be a big muff or a Boss bass overdrive, metal zones can be a bit all fizz if you ask me.
PS. Sometimes an old Ibanez tube screamer added to a hard driven all tube head can be just enough but not too much dirt.
I find if you bung the sound all through the same loudspeaker at volume the inter modulation distortion that creates, looses a lot of punch:-(

 

[Jeff Scott]

One other way is to reduce the highs of the input signal (aka tone knob at the bass dialled back a bit). The needed highs are then created by the distortion nevertheless, so it's not gonna be muddy.

This is what I do.

 

[10cc]

I've messed around before with putting a guitar stack in the mix. My SVT pushing my 810 and a Marshall half stack set dirty. Unless there is only one guitar in the band I do not think you even need to worry about getting dirty let those guys take care of that. But if you got one guitarists I can see where you might want a dirty sound.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zz2jZnYhuGM

 

[I am Soma]

The low tunings in metal are getting out of hand.

No.

Anywho I play in a sludge post-metal project and I'm using a Fender 100T with heaving overdrive for pure heaven, but before that I was using a B3K teamed with a MicroPog with the dry at 100%, low at 25%, and high at 75%. Really gives it that gnarly chunky heaviness.

 

[Jim Carr]

I'm playing in a death metal band, and I'm tuning my bass F#-B-F#-B-E, and I've got a 4x10 EBS cab in my sights, but I'm not sure that it can deliver the low F# punchy enough....If anyone has any ideas for me, I would appreciate it.

Your F# = 23.125Hz

There is a good chance that an ordinary amp will have baked-in a filter that takes most signal below 30Hz out as noise. You need a high quality PA amp that does not impose a HPF roll-off.

I'd go for a Crest CA9 (or similar). The CA9 has two channels, each 2 ohm capable, and throws 1800 watts at 4 ohms bridged with 20Hz-20kHz, 0.1% THD (total harmonic distortion). Less that 1% is considered the basic standard, so this amp is seriously accurate down by 20Hz.

Then a tube pre (ART?), pedals (DarkGlass or SansAmp), and for speaker cabs—something that can represent however much of the fundamental you decide to throw at it (Acme, BagEnd, Epifani, fEARful, BFM, ThunderChild?). Maybe a GEQ will help you sculpt that?

Anyway, much luck with the 23.125Hz F#, I'd love to hear it, but my hi-end B&W speakers might not like it.