High Gain Basses vs. Pedals

[Lardass5000]

I'm going to add to the people saying look into a new compressor. My spector is so hot that it sounds like total garbage through a lot of my gear; I got a SA Atlas recently and it has turned that thing into a whole new instrument for me. Doesn't suck tone, has built in HPF/LPF, accepts really hot signals and like any compressor can be used as an attenuator via just turning down the output. I have a NS Dimension with fishman fluences- that thing basically spits out full frequency at high volume and needs external shaping.

Ima check it out.

 

[satantango]

obviously not trying to sell you on one specific pedal or anything, but the revelation to me was switching from a basic compressor to a multiband/parallel one because the bass response on the dimension was so overpowering that it squashed the rest of the sound in a bad way. worth looking into anyway.

 

[Felkara]

Can’t say enough good things about the Atlas - just picked up mine today

 

[Lardass5000]

I have a NS Dimension with fishman fluences- that thing basically spits out full frequency at high volume and needs external shaping.

Yes. That sounds like a nice bass.

 

[Lardass5000]

I think I have learned something from all of this.

I have a handful of sufficiently similar work basses.
According to the O-Scope, I have achieved a reasonable group-unity-gain across all of them.
They (basses,pups,pres) give me the sound I want (coming straight out of the bass).
(so not a problem with the instruments)

The amps that I use handle the instruments nicely, and have flexibility left in the preamp sections.
There is no Turdstorm emanating from my rigs. (so not a problem with the amps) And my rigs are Extremely simple.

However, while experimenting with certain non-compressor effects, the Bag O' Wet Farts "rears" its ugly head.
so...
+ I appreciate the value that a good compressor can offer. And I love the good ones.
+ I think a lot of effects sound great on a LesPaul or Strat, etc but are just hot trash on bass.
+ I can plug into GK, Ashdown, Old Trace Elliot, SVT, they sound like they are made for high-gain instruments.
+ Plugging into many 'other' amps sounds like a Germanium Fuzz Box.
So simply turning down the volume knob is not the answer for me. I don't want to alter the part that is not broken to accommodate for the part that is broken. And I don't want to infuse my rig with any more complication. I don't want to fix gear with more gear. My Spector plays very well with the SVT, for example. I'd go so far as to say that it sounds, what I will call, "good".

I thank you all for all of the great recommendations. But what I have learned is that...

...there's a lot of junk out there.

 

[satantango]

Yes. That sounds like a nice bass.

personally I'm not a massive fan of the fluences- like I mentioned I have to do more post-instrument tone shaping than I really care for because it's basically a frequency fire hose. But the instrument itself is incredible.

 

[Lardass5000]

personally I'm not a massive fan of the fluences- like I mentioned I have to do more post-instrument tone shaping than I really care for because it's basically a frequency fire hose. But the instrument itself is incredible.

I wondered about those. I have always liked Rudy Szarzos live tone and I thought they may be in his signature bass. Not sure about preamp tho. I remember being floored by his sig Peavey bass with Dio. Wow! He really knows his stuff.

 

[HelpImaRock]

I think I have learned something from all of this.

I have a handful of sufficiently similar work basses.
According to the O-Scope, I have achieved a reasonable group-unity-gain across all of them.
They (basses,pups,pres) give me the sound I want (coming straight out of the bass).
(so not a problem with the instruments)

The amps that I use handle the instruments nicely, and have flexibility left in the preamp sections.
There is no Turdstorm emanating from my rigs. (so not a problem with the amps) And my rigs are Extremely simple.

However, while experimenting with certain non-compressor effects, the Bag O' Wet Farts "rears" its ugly head.
so...
+ I appreciate the value that a good compressor can offer. And I love the good ones.
+ I think a lot of effects sound great on a LesPaul or Strat, etc but are just hot trash on bass.
+ I can plug into GK, Ashdown, Old Trace Elliot, SVT, they sound like they are made for high-gain instruments.
+ Plugging into many 'other' amps sounds like a Germanium Fuzz Box.
So simply turning down the volume knob is not the answer for me. I don't want to alter the part that is not broken to accommodate for the part that is broken. And I don't want to infuse my rig with any more complication. I don't want to fix gear with more gear. My Spector plays very well with the SVT, for example. I'd go so far as to say that it sounds, what I will call, "good".

I thank you all for all of the great recommendations. But what I have learned is that...

...there's a lot of junk out there.

It seems to me the effects that will do you best can handle a line level signal. That doesn't make everything else junk though.

 

[sunbeast]

...there's a lot of junk out there.

I think it might be a bit harsh to call the vast majority of stomp boxes junk simply because they can’t handle a much higher than standard output from an instrument. The main demographic using pedal effects are still guitarists or bassists playing passive guitars with vintage-style pickups that have output well within the headroom limits of the industry standard 9V stomp box (which is likely why 9V became the standard, along with the ease of 9V battery power). A 9V or 18V active bass running at its own rails is easily capable of putting out enough output to overload another 9V device in the chain (that actually runs internally at 9V), particularly anything with an amplification stage (which most effects have). Even just putting a passive volume control into a box at the start of your pedalboard would probably work great in your case, and because of the active output of your instruments you wouldn’t experience any loading losses to the tone if you did this (an active volume pedal as suggested by someone else would only be necessary with a passive instrument to avoid loading effects).

 

[Lardass5000]

I agree. And I thank you for your great insights.

 

[Lardass5000]

It seems to me the effects that will do you best can handle a line level signal. That doesn't make everything else junk though.

Yep. I get it. Thank you.

 

[Lardass5000]

It is compelling tho, that all the stuff that works well together is generally pretty good stuff. And to slightly contrast what sunbeast is saying; a lot of that high powered gear is not new, modern stuff. Alot of the good stuff, especially in amps, are like the old Trace Elliots and SVTs and GK.
But when you put one turd in the punchbowl, it all gets stinky.
I guess thats why systems are as strong as their weakest links.

Thanks for the Tech 21 and Strymon suggestions by the way.

 

[Dave W]

Weird. I play a variety of active basses, some of which are very hot. My Stingrays and Spector are the hottest by far. I have zero problems with any of them clipping FX pedals.

The only issue that I’ve noticed is a lack of clean headroom on certain amps. For example, I can’t play a Stingray through my V4B unless if want it really dirty.

 

[sunbeast]

It is compelling tho, that all the stuff that works well together is generally pretty good stuff. And to slightly contrast what sunbeast is saying; a lot of that high powered gear is not new, modern stuff. Alot of the good stuff, especially in amps, are like the old Trace Elliots and SVTs and GK.
But when you put one turd in the punchbowl, it all gets stinky.
I guess thats why systems are as strong as their weakest links.

Thanks for the Tech 21 and Strymon suggestions by the way.

I think you are talking about vintage amplifiers- and the preamplifier in an amp’s purpose is to raise instrument level to something approaching line level to feed a power amp. Doing this requires higher voltages than a 9V effect pedal that is designed to input and output an instrument level signal at both ends. An amplifier has a large built-in step-down transformer to provide both the power amp and preamp with relatively high voltages, something impractical to most people for use in an effect pedal. An amplifier preamp is generally going to be able to handle a much larger range of inputs since this high voltage allows a much larger amount of headroom in the circuit (I think my Rusty Box, which is a copy of a Traynor preamp, can operate at up to 36V or so for example). This is why a typical 9V pedal preamp can’t properly drive most power amps even with a passive instrument- both headroom and amplification require significant voltage input.

Digital DSP pedals like the Strymon and some other pretty high-end units were built to be used with a variety of instruments beyond just guitars and basses, for example synthesizers that output at line level, so they were designed specifically with larger headroom in mind. There are also lots of bass-specific effects these days that take the potential of high-output active basses into account (since the use of active systems is becoming very prevalent), sometimes with the trade off of needing higher voltage at the input (though many of these devices instead use charge pumps and a 9V input).

 

[satantango]

I think my Rusty Box, which is a copy of a Traynor preamp, can operate at up to 36V or so for example

I had no idea about this. I have mine as my clean preamp (which I know kind of defeats the intended purpose but I like that it's not a neutral preamp and even at flat EQ it tightens everything up) and actually kind of like the relatively low headroom it has at 9v. Funny to find out that something you've had for many years does something you didn't know.

 

[sunbeast]

I had no idea about this. I have mine as my clean preamp (which I know kind of defeats the intended purpose but I like that it's not a neutral preamp and even at flat EQ it tightens everything up) and actually kind of like the relatively low headroom it has at 9v. Funny to find out that something you've had for many years does something you didn't know.

If you have a 9V version, then it is a newer one that has an internal charge pump to bring the voltage up around 24V I think and you wouldn’t want to feed it higher voltages for risk of damage. The original Rusty Box didn’t use the charge pump and so came with a high voltage power adaptor

 

[satantango]

ah thanks, yeah it's the 9v version.

 

[Matt Dean]

Alot of older effect pedals were designed to be run with low output passive instruments, and so the internal headroom was/is just based directly on the 9V standard power draw and the limited headroom available to most components fed directly with 9V- many current pedals still function in that mindset, particularly anything usually used by guitarists (including most of the analog MXR/Boss/etc pedals and the wide world of effects based on modified versions of their circuits). When you use a bass with a preamp fed at 9V or 18V it often has the output capability of easily reaching the rails of a pedal that also runs internally at 9V. Lots of modern effects these days (particularly those designed for use with bass) use internal "charge pumps" to raise the headroom of the circuit (by turning 9V power into 18V or higher), allow direct attachment of higher voltages (12V to 24V), or utilize other circuitry like internal attenuation of the input signal in order to provide optimum ability of use for different ranges of input levels.

Either you can only use pedals optimized for higher output as described above, or you can use some other means to lower the output before it hits the rest of the pedal chain. The compressor suggestion above is a good one, and something I use regularly in my rig these days for this purpose- I just set the output to be a bit lower than the bypassed tone for a few of my basses and no longer have issues overloading most of my analog effects. I've also used a number of other "always-on" devices at the start of my chain for similar purposes, like pedal preamps or light overdrives, etc.

^ This… I use effects pedals a lot and I’ve elected to stick with passive instruments to mitigate this problem.

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

I don't think turning down the volume of an active bass would be a problem. If that's annoying, get a unit with a clean gain control and have it 1st in the chain. I don't use active basses but I adjust the level differences of by basses with the MXR Bass Pre. It has input and output gain controls with a powerful EQ that's very transparent.

 

[Rojd]

My Ibanez BTB747 has a pretty hot signal that causes my JHS Pulp n Peel V4 to distort and doesn't sound very good. The 747 sounds great through my Zorg Oppressor though. My LTD B206SM and Cort C5 Plus ZBMH sound great though the Pulp n Peel.