I Don't Get Bass Distortion/OD

[Pdaddy1978]

I play through an old Ampeg tube head.
I dont require a separate device when I want OD/distortion.
Just turn it up past 6 and....
Oila!

 

[The Rage]

Light drive:



"Full" drive:




I like to add a little bit of drive to my sound, just - quoting the AD for the drive I'm using - "to add a bit of crack on top"

 

[Grinderman]

A good place I would start is, "what do you mean by terrible?"

+

It helps to start by having a basic idea of what you want in the first place.


This is a good place to start:

More hard clipping.

 

[Spectrum]

For a 2-piece band like Clatter, where the bass is also the main melodic instrument, heavy dirt can work great. The fact the Rickenbackers sound awesome when driven hard and have two channels doesn't hurt.

 

[yodasfro]

Ever try a russian big muff? Lots of different tones can be had. You can even just use it to boost your bass.

 

[Grinderman]

From another side of the sand box.

 

[HardNHeavy]

music to my ears

 

[Nobis17]

 

[Plgfritz]

There is of course Type O Negative, where Peter was essentially playing the rhythm while the rest of the band added leads or what-have-you's. Adding the Boss OD-1 more or less rounded out the sound to give it a more full feeling.



Then there is a band like Swamp Ritual, which is just a two piece (bass and drum).



Obligatory Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth) reference.

Also, SLEEP. Al Cisneros is a real mensch.

 

[Brich]

In a lot of cases it’s a slotting into the mix thing, like above with Robert Deleo.

I’m a big fan of running a relatively low gain OD all the time with my Barbershop. It’s essentially used as a clean boost, tightening things up. If I dig in it gets dirtier. In any case, it makes my bass sit a little forward in the mix. I’m in a power trio so that’s a good thing to my ears.

Absolutely agree

 

[lildrgn]

I use a TC Electronic Spark boost pedal (overdrive?) to goose the signal about 7 or 8 dB before it goes into a Noble tube preamp. It's a clean preamp and the boost gives it a "clean tube amp" feel. Basically extra saturation of the tube without having to dial up the preamp volume. Very effective!

The boost is also useful for a solo passage or a song segment that needs an extra dash of bass.

View attachment 4731340

I was in the studio yesterday with my G&L L-1000, Epiphone Thunderbird and various bits and bobbles, including a TC Electronic Spark Booster going into a Tone Hammer DI. We had a mini-Ampeg amp that fritzed out, so I went direct. They had a preamp at the board, but generally speaking I had the TCESB on with some fuzz going into the THDI.

I am THRILLED with how the basses sounded on the 2 tracks we did. Each bass got to play a song and they just sound great. I don't have isolated tracks, just rough mixes, but for me, I just love a little hair and woolliness, especially when you have the moment in a song where it's just bass and drums and you can hear it.

Much like the STP example above, you don't know it's fuzzy until you do, and that's always a cool moment.

One of my favorite bass tones from one of my favorite artists. Check out this clip. Listen for the slides, esp:


And I must plug the whole reason why I went out and bought a T-bird earlier this year. Listen to the growl of the Gibby from the almighty Elle Macho:

 

[CoffeeLove]

Yeah, after lots of trying various pedals, still just not a big fan, but do see how it fits well with certain types of music. As funny as it sounds, I prefer a very clean/even breakup in my overdive/distortion or it just sounds bad. I think much of the overdrive and distortion that you hear in various professional recordings (ones that sound good) comes with lots of time invested by the bass player, and lots of work from the sound engineer to help make it sound good. My 2 cents on distortion. Most local bands that I hear with the bass player using overdrive or distortion just sounds bad.

 

[NathOBX]

 

[jdjk7]

I think it depends on having the right tool for the job. It's all subjective, but some circuits are just more natural to the ear for certain genres. When I'm with my more traditional blues/rock group, I'm not gonna use my RAT or one of my fuzzes because it just doesn't quite sound right. My Blueberry Bass Overdrive clone, however, kicks ass with that group and does a great impression of amp overdrive, especially when paired with additional clean compression.

 

[Wambemando]

Mike Mills sets a good example here, and he is very up front in the mix:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nEJYT7lixx_-IHu2n6ZTd6hWwGQCevMac

 

[Deleted member 271037]

Different tones are suitable for different genres of music. There are so many COMPLETELY different sounding OD/distortion boxes out there that it would be silly to make any generalizations.

My personal favourite type of distortion (when recording) is the kind I get from pushing the input on certain transformer based micpres (like Neve) slightly into "the red". It thickens the tone, soften the peaks (less need for compression) and somehow makes the bass sit better in the mix. This is of course the kind of distortion that wouldn't even be noticably distorted in the context of a mix.

Like when JPJ is digging in hard on this classic (skip to around 1min):



And Jamerson of course:



The bass on these two tracks doesn't really sound distorted in the context of the mix but it is.

For musical genres with heavily distorted metal guitars a completely different type of distortion would be more appropriate of course. You will likely need much higher gain and propably a more edgy/scooped/aggressive kind of distortion to avoid getting buried in the guitars. It's all about using the right tool for the job. Finding the right type of dirt box for YOUR specific needs can be time consuming and expensive but listening to online demos can at least get you in the right direction. There is still no guarantee that a pedal that sounds amazing on youtube will sound right through your rig, with your playing style and in the context of your band. The tone of the guitars will have a HUGE impact on what type of dirt box will make the bass sit nicely in the mix. How the bass sounds when playing alone means absolutely NOTHING unless you're aiming for a career as a bass soloist.

And of course, many genres of music will need the bass to be ultra clean too.

 

[_Some Dude]

This is what I typically go for…

 

[Freight Train]

I chased my tail for decades trying to match the great distorted sounds of players from the 60's like Jack Bruce, Jack Casady etc., but I never got there because I was using overdrive and distortion pedals, both solid state and tube, with solid state amps. And like you I thought it sounded pretty much like ass. It wasn't until I tried low-powered tube amps that I realized my mistake. The distortion that I waS lusting after was power tube distortion, not preamp distortion, which is what pedals give you. Preamp distortion is more buzzy to fuzzy. Power tube distortion (if it's a good amp design) is throaty and grunty. I say low-powered tube amps because you can get there at reasonable volumes. An SVT will do it for sure, but you better be outdoors or you'll be melting people's faces off. I now have a 50 watt Ampeg PF-50T rig and a 100 watt Bassman 100T rig (which also has a 25 watt mode) and I am in tone heaven with no pedals.

 

[DwaynieAD]

It's one of those things I can never get right solo but in the mix can sound tremendous.

But here is an excellent distorted bass tone. Jump to 2:22 for it to really shine

 

[frankie5string]

My favourite is still the distortion Herbie Flowers gets on a bunch of sessions in the late 60s-early 70s. It's basically a clean tone with a bit of hair, but most glisses, or really low notes have a kind "Whump" to them that's just a little bit magical and fun.