drumvsbass
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- Aug 20, 2011
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How many pedals on your board?
- Thread starter bobbybass85
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- live bass pedalboard pedals
If I include my Sadowsky and GK Plex preamps, I'd guess that I have about 6 or eight, but I've never used them live, and other than the Drop D for detuned g(!+@#!$+$, I've not used them for a band practice either, but I'm a simple bass player without much pretense as to my playing sound and style.
I can certainly understand the usefulness of them in many situations.
I can certainly understand the usefulness of them in many situations.
why must these things be mutually exclusive?
i love maximizing the pure tone of my instruments, and i find deep satisfaction when the sound of my instrument is the main feature of my tone. i also love to enhance the tone with other effects, to help inspire my creativity.
i don't think it needs to be one or the other. i can appreciate the subtle differences of a well-made guitar, and i can also appreciate the subtle differences of a well-made effect pedal.
is wood type the only (or most important) determining factor in hearing good tone?
At the moment, six.
But, my plan is to move to this:
For most of my 25 or so years of playing bass, my “pedalboard” consisted of a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner. I didn’t start assembling a real pedalboard for bass until about 3 years ago. Other than the tuner, none of these pedals are essential, although I do like to have a compressor and acoustic resonance enhancer, since I play a fretless bass with piezo pickups, now, as my primary bass.
On fretted with magnetic pickups, I’d only need the compress of those two. Everything else falls into the realm of “preamp”, really, except the reverb. I don’t really use “effecty” type sounds on bass, and I don’t really use overdrive. The BB-1X Bass Driver is used to emulate the sound of a slightly saturating tube amp, not to provide an obviously overdriven sound, and that’s how I’ll be using the One Control BJFe Blackberry Bass Overdrive, too.
But, my plan is to move to this:
For most of my 25 or so years of playing bass, my “pedalboard” consisted of a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner. I didn’t start assembling a real pedalboard for bass until about 3 years ago. Other than the tuner, none of these pedals are essential, although I do like to have a compressor and acoustic resonance enhancer, since I play a fretless bass with piezo pickups, now, as my primary bass.
On fretted with magnetic pickups, I’d only need the compress of those two. Everything else falls into the realm of “preamp”, really, except the reverb. I don’t really use “effecty” type sounds on bass, and I don’t really use overdrive. The BB-1X Bass Driver is used to emulate the sound of a slightly saturating tube amp, not to provide an obviously overdriven sound, and that’s how I’ll be using the One Control BJFe Blackberry Bass Overdrive, too.
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I use a Boss BT-6B multi effect unit, so is that 1 or many??
I've had it for donkey's years and know it really well. I have my fx settings programmed in and adjust my amp tone controls to suit the room I'm playing in. Also I love having the volume pedal so I can silence the bass if I need to, and it's built like a tank and has survived many gigs.
I've had it for donkey's years and know it really well. I have my fx settings programmed in and adjust my amp tone controls to suit the room I'm playing in. Also I love having the volume pedal so I can silence the bass if I need to, and it's built like a tank and has survived many gigs.
As somebody with a bunch of pedals, I'll say, yes I do care about the tonality of my clean sound, and that includes factors such as wood used in the body and neck and strings. I may not know which wood combinations are best or anything, but I like the sound and body resonance and sustain of my current bass. I've had it 6.5 years, and had although it's an Ibanez SR505, and the previous was an Ibanez SRA505, they have completely different body types, styles, woods, and pickups. And just after I got the SRA505 just where I wanted the tone to be, I fell for the SR505. But that's my clean tone, and I always have a clean signal in an amp of its own to buttress the effected signal. Effects aren't in a vacuum either, the tone of your bass can still affect the effect's sound. So, I also don't see why you would think people who use effects don't care about wood tones. Those are more foundational aspects of bass playing, because, presumably, you play the bass you're playing because you like the sound of that bass. Effects aren't everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine, they are just ways to enhance the sounds you can muster from the bass and your fingers or pick or both. Don't care how good your technique is, you simply can't get a big fat envelope filter sound without an envelope filter or at the least a wah pedal and exceptional technique. Do you need a big fat envelope filter sound? Perhaps not, but if you get an envelope filter you will find different basses need at least slightly different settings usually to sound the same. Could that be the wood involved? Sure, but more likely to be the pickups, which may also lead to working on technique.
Bottom line: in my experience, the people who dive deeply into pedals don't do so to completely process their original tone away, but to build upon it, and effects denizens are really particular about sounds/effects they like/don't like and on envelope filters, you can 20 people who swear by 20 different envelope filters as the funkiest filter on the planet, and they can make a legit case for why the other 19 don't match that 1 they love so much. And even why clones don't touch the long out of production original that now sells for ridiculous prices. Not exactly people who put no thought into the tone of their clean bass.
I have on my pedal a eharmonix tone corset, digi tech drop, mxr vintage octave mini, boss tuner, and boss limited enhancer. Thinking about adding a preamp but not sure.
I put 10-15... but that is a bit misleading, my board hosts 3 signal paths:
Bass Signal: Tuner > Preamp (Compressor, OD, EQ and DI with FX loop) > EF > Chorus. Effectively 4 pedals.
Guitar Signal: Wireless > Tuner > Boost/Feedbacker > Wah > Tube Screamer > OD > 4 Chan PreAmp > 11 Modulation > Delay > DI/Cab Sim. Effectively 10 pedals.
Voice Signal: processor. 1 Pedal.
the board has a patch bay where all the instrument inputs and Balanced outputs as well as mains, and Aux input are readily accessible.
We play ampless, and use IEMs...
I play Bass mostly, but switch to guitar on some songs... the Guitar player uses my board when he plays bass... I sing backups and in some cases lead... so the board is in constant use... since this is TB... should I have voted 4?
Bass Signal: Tuner > Preamp (Compressor, OD, EQ and DI with FX loop) > EF > Chorus. Effectively 4 pedals.
Guitar Signal: Wireless > Tuner > Boost/Feedbacker > Wah > Tube Screamer > OD > 4 Chan PreAmp > 11 Modulation > Delay > DI/Cab Sim. Effectively 10 pedals.
Voice Signal: processor. 1 Pedal.
the board has a patch bay where all the instrument inputs and Balanced outputs as well as mains, and Aux input are readily accessible.
We play ampless, and use IEMs...
I play Bass mostly, but switch to guitar on some songs... the Guitar player uses my board when he plays bass... I sing backups and in some cases lead... so the board is in constant use... since this is TB... should I have voted 4?
13, out of which 2 are digital multi effects (one of them though used for 1 always on patch only, consisting of parametric equalizing, a subtle plate reverb, and a faux, EQ based, cab sim, all in that single 6 slots patch), 5 always on pedals (including that one always on multi effect), and one of those always on pedals being an effects looper/switch, namely a Boss LS-2, for blending an always on low gain overdrive with clean signal, but in addition I also use a second LS-2 in my pedal setup, which I respectively use for mixing a phaser and flanger effect in parallel, and as well 2 different distortion pedals mixed in parallel for my high gain distortion tone.
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So I'm one of those weirdos that has a two-amp situation for a split signal, so that I can hold down the bass line, and then step up to either hold down the rhythm while the lead solos, or sometimes even step up to solo myself.
So my low-end line is:
Korg Pitchblack -> Iron Ether Divaricator (for splitting signal) -> MXR BOD -> HOF Reverb -> Darkglass Microtubes 900 v2
My high-end line is:
Korg Pitchblack -> Iron Ether Divaricator -> Crybaby CAE Wah -> Darkglass B7k (used to use it for my low end, but found that it fit fine on my high-end so didn't need to sell/trade) -> Earthquaker Devices Dispatch Master -> EH Pitchfork -> Gamechanger Audio Plasma Drive -> Blackstar HT Dist -> TCE Sentry Noise Gate -> Radial Passive DI (placeholder until I decide on an amp that can counter a ground loop).
So all told, my board has 12 pedals, and most of them are "always on" pedals, as I typically use the wah (which includes a boost) to control what part of the sonic space I inhabit, rather than using it to make my signal dynamic mid-note.
It's weird, but I love it.
So my low-end line is:
Korg Pitchblack -> Iron Ether Divaricator (for splitting signal) -> MXR BOD -> HOF Reverb -> Darkglass Microtubes 900 v2
My high-end line is:
Korg Pitchblack -> Iron Ether Divaricator -> Crybaby CAE Wah -> Darkglass B7k (used to use it for my low end, but found that it fit fine on my high-end so didn't need to sell/trade) -> Earthquaker Devices Dispatch Master -> EH Pitchfork -> Gamechanger Audio Plasma Drive -> Blackstar HT Dist -> TCE Sentry Noise Gate -> Radial Passive DI (placeholder until I decide on an amp that can counter a ground loop).
So all told, my board has 12 pedals, and most of them are "always on" pedals, as I typically use the wah (which includes a boost) to control what part of the sonic space I inhabit, rather than using it to make my signal dynamic mid-note.
It's weird, but I love it.
I do it a little different. I have separate pedal boards. So I can carry only 1, 2, or all 3 depending on what I want to do.
