How many Bassists use no pedals?

[-Stingray]

• A tuner
• A DI
• A compressor
• A dirt box to cop certain signature sounds.
• And an EQ to scoop mids for those two songs where I need to do some slapping.

Other than that no pedals.

But I couldn’t live without the pedals above for the cover band I’m in.

 

[DwaynieAD]

I voted no because, while I have pedals, I always seem to gravitate back to no pedals outside of messing around on the couch

 

[Mastermold]

I noticed when reading the amp setting thread that not many contributors mentioned pedals in the response which is interesting, as that is part of many signal chains when settings are discussed.

I recognize I am a dinosaur and can't comprehend the why of any pedals at all and have reported having younger players asking about my tones because they can't see any pedals on stage, but I am not sure the frequency question has been asked before.

It would also not surprise me to see pedals are age related meaning people who grew up in the 80's on wards? I saw my first pedal (apart from Wah pedals) in the 70's. it was a Boss Phase 90, (Guitarist pedal - Think Keep Yourself Alive/Queen) the orange one, but never saw any bass pedals until much later.

I have pedals but not fancy ones and don't use them for every bass I play. I'd use them more I think if I had more time to play around with them, but since most of what I strive to sound like is handled by just using an SVT, I find that enough.

 

[lermgalieu]

Asked and answered. Do a search.

 

[joel406]

This is my board. I use the Mesa strictly as a DI. Keely Compressor Pro is the only pedal I’m currently using. I have more. I can get
What I want. I jut have no need. Being amp less and wireless I keep a clip on tuner around. I have 2 Peterson srobo stomps. But I leave my board by the mixer.

 

[joel406]

Actual now that I see that picture it was taken before I loaded these onto my board.

But you get the gist.

 

[Neil Folkard]

I have a song in one band, where in the middle section, I trigger two distortion pedals on top of each other during a big epic crescendo, before things quiet down a bit. That, and the fact that the guitarist is hitting huge chords and the singer is wearing a skull mask seems to always get a big reaction from the crowd.

Love my pedals, for rock. One day, if I join a jazz outfit, I'll back off a little, of course.

 

[Jogobass]

I have a multieffects pedal but I rarely use it. The sound of my bass comes first, then the sound of the bass through the amp. Effects when I need them. I can plug into a mixing panel in a studio and get the sound I want, that's my priority.

 

[bassbrad]

@Aussie Player I have been a gigging bassist since 1976 and have always used effects, before that I played guitar and also used effects almost as soon as going electric in '70. Coming from that time and place respecting others choice to do things or be different was part of being cool, not so much anymore, huh?

I love playing bass, grooving and getting the perfect tone for the song and style -AND- I also love being able to use my instrument to get other sounds because I love a lot of different kinds of music, always have from classical to pop to electronic to jazz and stuff you probably would consider noise and a waste of time. I have always played a wide variety of gigs in the early days in Central Texas they were all about dancing so being able to get funky bass sounds were required even in the C&W bands they wanted me to bring the Funky bass sounds. Using effects makes it more fun, remember play.

I don't understand why using or not using effects HAS to be an issue? It is a matter of choice like rounds or flats, string brand or whether to P or not to P.

 

[WayneP]

Pedals are a big “no” for me. With a rack I can make any needed adjustments while standing, not squatting. I'm 6" tall so it's a long way to the ground.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Pedulla Club #45

 

[Old Fart]

What's a "pedal?"

 

[David McIntire]

A tuner. Not run in line. I tune once a night. Twice if new strings.

My rack preamp has Overdrive. It's always on. No pedal. But it is an effect.

 

[pbass2]

It would also not surprise me to see pedals are age related meaning people who grew up in the 80's on wards? I saw my first pedal (apart from Wah pedals) in the 70's. it was a Boss Phase 90, (Guitarist pedal - Think Keep Yourself Alive/Queen) the orange one, but never saw any bass pedals until much later.

I don't think it's age-related. I started in the 70's too, and used as many effects on bass as I could because I was a prog fanboy. Now I use a simple tuner/pre/DI setup to the FOH, sometimes just tuner/DI. I don't care what the amp is. But it's because of the music I'm playing now, not because of an age-related aversion to pedals.

 

[pingvuiini]

No pedals, rack effects or effects of any kind for me. Just bass, cable/wireless and amp for practice, recording and gigs.

 

[TerribleTim68]

I voted "yes". But it's not that simple. Back in my gigging days (late 80s / early 90s) I used no pedals or effects at all, just the bass tone itself. These days, I find that I really love some chorus, reverb and delay. It just makes it come alive.

That being said, I just can't get behind distortion on bass. I hear other people do it and it sounds amazing. But when I try it, I just hate it.

 

[Neil Folkard]

That being said, I just can't get behind distortion on bass. I hear other people do it and it sounds amazing. But when I try it, I just hate it.

I think it sounds great with the full band behind me. A little less so, if I'm just practicing no my own.

 

[Alessandro Cruz]

I'm not into pedals and effects anymore ( in the past I've owned a Bass V-Amp and Digitech BP-80 ).

Besides, it makes me wonder about people talking for "vintage tone" or "modern tone", all the discussion about strings, preamps, woods, to ended up filling all that, the "immaculated tone" from a good/great/super bass with lots of effects...

Isn't that a bit weird?

 

[Fynn]

It's kind of crazy to me how many people are not using any pedals at all. For one, there's so many great sort of utility pedals, that don't necessarily change your tone much, but have great functionality in any sort of setting. But beyond that, how could you not want a pedal that emulates a Leslie speaker, or a great fuzz tone that let's you get all doomy, or what about a delay pedal that let's you do amazing sounding bends...

I personally don't use alot of effects live. I have a distortion pedal that I use sometimes for songs like La Grange, because for one, that distortion gives it a very high mid focused sound, but it also just sounds better when you only have one guitar and that guitar is playing a lead. A distorted bass underneath a lead guitar is probably one of the greatest sounds I can imagine. Then there is my Boss GEB7. It's a graphic EQ... it works... it's incredibly versatile... I use it to boost some 800hz. I also have an always on MXR compressor and an always on VT bass di, along with some other miscellaneous pedals.

You can use whatever you want, but saying stuff like "using pedals is cheating", are just poor excuses by people who can't be bothered to learn what frequency to boost when their bass sounds thin and rather end up selling that bass and buying another, even though the bass itself is amazing...

 

[spiritbass]

Effects pedals, no. I do use a High-pass filter in front of my Reeves since it doesn't have one on-board like my Mesa.

 

[evs]

I went through that whole 'pedals' phase many years ago.
Each song I played had a particular sound and set-up.

Then at one gig I was running late, so I just plugged my bass straight into my amp.
No one in the band noticed the difference in sound (I guess its all just 'bass' to them).
No one in the crowd would've noticed the difference.
And I had way more fun at that gig because I wasn't piss-farting around with pedals in between each song.

Since then I've put bass straight in the amp, and never sounded better.