Help me conceptualize what effects I need

[mrcbass]

I'm in the @BassAdder27 camp on this. I go back and forth between full pedal board and next to nothing all the time. (Added a bunch to support some new tunes a few months ago and just stripped it all back again this week.)Most of this is caused by what I hear at home vs what I hear (little difference if any) with the group. I keep returning to the less is more view and am actually planning on selling of a handful of pedals that I've given up on. (= wasted money)

Since you're not competing with other instruments, pedals may have more value for your project - but this does have the really big danger of becoming an endless quest - and you'll lose "real" practice time to the pedal setting/selection quest.

And it can get very complicated if you let it. One of the instructors on SBL does the kind of gigs you are talking about and he has a lot of toys in his arsenal including programmable multifunction pedals and loopers, a PC and about 20 other things in his signal chain. I bet it takes him hours to load in for a gig- not to mention the lifetime of learning curve he's spent figuring it all out.

When I go minimal, I still have a compressor and my HPF/LPF. I highly advise you investigate the HPF and or LPF. The HPF helps me control boominess and I adjust it to fit my playing environment du jour. The LPF can help squash any unwanted high pitch sounds (white noise, some string noise etc). This is by far the most valuable pedal on my board. Like many here, I use the Broughton HPF/LPF pedal. A little pricey, but really worth it to me. Easily the best pedal I've ever owned.

All that being said, these are pedals I keep trying to stuff into the mix, but always remove after playing with others - because they just get lost in all of their effects. But they could be of value to your situation:
- A chorus/delay/reverb type pedal will help thicken things up
- Flanger can be fun if that fits the style of your music
-I'm not much for distortion and your amp may already have this covered, but I do like the Big Muff pedal if I want to add some growl.

If you really want to find something to work on, a looper pedal may provide substance to the bass only accompaniment you're doing - but it is a huge learning curve - at least for me. Foot timing is hugely critical on these things.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

I'm in the @BassAdder27 camp on this. I go back and forth between full pedal board and next to nothing all the time. (Added a bunch to support some new tunes a few months ago and just stripped it all back again this week.)Most of this is caused by what I hear at home vs what I hear (little difference if any) with the group. I keep returning to the less is more view and am actually planning on selling of a handful of pedals that I've given up on. (= wasted money)

Since you're not competing with other instruments, pedals may have more value for your project - but this does have the really big danger of becoming an endless quest - and you'll lose "real" practice time to the pedal setting/selection quest.

And it can get very complicated if you let it. One of the instructors on SBL does the kind of gigs you are talking about and he has a lot of toys in his arsenal including programmable multifunction pedals and loopers, a PC and about 20 other things in his signal chain. I bet it takes him hours to load in for a gig- not to mention the lifetime of learning curve he's spent figuring it all out.

When I go minimal, I still have a compressor and my HPF/LPF. I highly advise you investigate the HPF and or LPF. The HPF helps me control boominess and I adjust it to fit my playing environment du jour. The LPF can help squash any unwanted high pitch sounds (white noise, some string noise etc). This is by far the most valuable pedal on my board. Like many here, I use the Broughton HPF/LPF pedal. A little pricey, but really worth it to me. Easily the best pedal I've ever owned.

All that being said, these are pedals I keep trying to stuff into the mix, but always remove after playing with others - because they just get lost in all of their effects. But they could be of value to your situation:
- A chorus/delay/reverb type pedal will help thicken things up
- Flanger can be fun if that fits the style of your music
-I'm not much for distortion and your amp may already have this covered, but I do like the Big Muff pedal if I want to add some growl.

If you really want to find something to work on, a looper pedal may provide substance to the bass only accompaniment you're doing - but it is a huge learning curve - at least for me. Foot timing is hugely critical on these things.

This is honestly why a multi-effect pedal can be so useful. It's always there to try a thing, but if it doesn't work you can always scrap the experiment easily and it doesn't feel like you've wasted a bunch of time and money sorting it out.

 

[singlemalt]

I was down the Trey Gunn rabbit hole last week.

I love how he calls this a “simple” patch at the beginning.
He backs off on the “simple” after a few minutes. He even seems surprised at how convoluted things were getting.

But the dragging around lines for connections is so very cool.

I have a plethora of options on my Line 6 hd500x, so many options. It’s a major undertaking to explore all the ways this tool can work.

I run my Smoothie comp into the HD500x and then I mostly use eq, reverb, delay, and octave.

I haven’t even started getting into combining amps, cabs, clean and dirty sides...

When I get frustrated, I punt back to the Zoom B3 and the old iMac at the other end of my desk. The looper and drum machine is super simple to jam with.

 

[mrcbass]

This is honestly why a multi-effect pedal can be so useful. It's always there to try a thing, but if it doesn't work you can always scrap the experiment easily and it doesn't feel like you've wasted a bunch of time and money sorting it out.

I started the pedal game with a multi effects rig. It was fun, but it had limitations and why I started to collect individual pedals. Again, these can be great time eaters as you explore all the options. Mine had 70 preset patch slots and another 70 customizable patch slots.

The biggest reasons I gave up on mine was because the pedal spacing was too close - I couldn't use it as a mid-song stomp and I often accidently activated the looper option that I never knew how to stop. That device never made it to the stage. Of course, you mileage may vary.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

I started the pedal game with a multi effects rig. It was fun, but it had limitations and why I started to collect individual pedals. Again, these can be great time eaters as you explore all the options. Mine had 70 preset patch slots and another 70 customizable patch slots.

The biggest reasons I gave up on mine was because the pedal spacing was too close - I couldn't use it as a mid-song stomp and I often accidently activated the looper option that I never knew how to stop. That device never made it to the stage. Of course, you mileage may vary.

Amusingly, you can totally flip multis finding the one that works for you best . I used a B3 for years and now I'm using a GT-1B, and while neither is just mindblowing at anything, they both were good at everything I needed to gig and kept the GAS away for my modest needs, and both are pretty easy to use live (once you set them up). YMMV.

Edit, to clarify, the B3 was the first unit I was comfortable building a rig around. Previous multis were all pretty tough to use well and had a lot of garbage in them or were just a piece of the puzzle.

 

[singlemalt]

Get into effects and you are still going down the rabbit hole. It's going to add up to some bucks. I've flipped more individual pedals than I can remember, and a few multi's and loopers besides. Thanks to the never ending river of used effects on Talkbass I can run a fairly economical catch and release program. I'll never get the time back, but its been fun.

At this point, if I can't get close with one of my multi fx, it's just me being lazy. If a shiny (used) new thing should make it through my defenses, I know it's ok to play with it for a while and pass it on. It takes quite a bit of time to get to know a pedal. No rush, no return period. Then it goes up for sale.

You guys are there for me.

 

[Aaron5]

Thanks, all, for all the suggestions. This will bet me started on the hunt, with a whole bunch of ideas, which is what I was hoping for.

Aaron