How do I get a dirty tone?

[chrisisnotevil]

The original Guv'nor is an amazing pedal. I would suggest these settings for a very dirty tone:

Level: Equal with clean signal.
Gain: All the way up
Bass: Somewhere between 1:00 and all the way up
Mids: All the way down
Treble: 2 or 3 o'clock

That's all the controls, right?

No! You'll never cut through a band mix without mids! Haven't you read the rest of the thread?

 

[mattfong]

Which time? Burying a bass and other "options" were posted more than once. And my initial post was to reinforce what had been posted about boosting mids. I've never understood the desire to cut mids, when as you've also agreed, is where cutting through happens. We're on the same page here. You hit the nail on the head by suggesting he work with the pedal he already has. I did not see a suggestion to bury said pedal...

And I have heard of drummers doing that. I can understand why it would work on a metal object. Add wood and electronics to the mix, and I think you have a recipe for bad things to happen. Besides, we are talking about drummers here

Well, in regards to burying the Guv'nor, I'm all for it if the Guv'nor in question is the current P.M. of Canada. Considering he seems fond of burying his problems by closing parliament...

I wonder if he's a drummer himself?

 

[JBoucks]

Haha Matt. Guys this has been really helpful. If I have any questions I'll come back here. If I find a tone I like I'll share the settings and get a picture for all of you to see what I did. Thanks broskinana's.

 

[Flipper43]

No! You'll never cut through a band mix without mids! Haven't you read the rest of the thread?

I'd like to hear you say that to the bassist of TAD. On this song, that's the exact settings for his Guv'nor. I know for sure because i talk to him regularly. He cuts through the mix fine. Here's the song:

 

[BioDriver]

You have to get it to talk with lots of double entendres, innuendo, profanity, and have the smell of cheap whiskey on its breath.

 

[Oric]

play dirty

 

[chrisisnotevil]

I'd like to hear you say that to the bassist of TAD. On this song, that's the exact settings for his Guv'nor. I know for sure because i talk to him regularly. He cuts through the mix fine. Here's the song:

I don't have chance to listen to that, but I'm not going to say you're wrong. The tone of my post could have been read as a little vicious and I didn't mean it like that. All I can do is say from my own experience and that of most of the bass players and studio engineers I've talked to agree scooping your mids on bass doesn't cut through a mix well at all, especially in heavy music. It even applies to guitars, I regularly have to beat my one of the guitarists in my band brutally around the head with a Rat pedal for scooping his mids and making the whole band sound like poo. You may find different, but at the end of the day it's down to what works well for individuals, and for you, me and the OP to find our own tone that works well for what we play. So get knob twiddling...

 

[blastjv]

Also, scooped mids on the pedal might not mean 'no mids'; the settings on the amp might then boost the mids or the amp could be mid-heavy to begin with. That TAD clip, had a good share of mids in the bass guitar.

Not a bassist, obviously, but Dimebag Darrell famously cut mids in parts of his signal chain and boosted them in others, and his tone (whether you happen to like it or not) easily cut through the mix.