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I sense a trend
- Thread starter Peaveylover
- Start date
I enjoy pedals on my guitars, but not my basses. I've tried a variety and the only one I've liked is a tube front end that can add a small amount of the shimmer I'd gotten with my old tube amp.
For americana, blues, real r&b, country the 'put a little hair on it' variety of clean has always been en vogue. For the funky stuff, unless it is truly for effect, clean, clean, clean... 'cause clean is where the punch is. By it's nature, distortion robs dynamics. So does compression. I subscribe to the if I can hear it distinctly, it is probably too much school of thought. At least in my own tone.
Then there are the rule breakers. I heard Chris Wood live. Mostly URB of course but he had an Ashdown combo on a chair and a hofner he played very aggressively with a pick on a tune of two. It was pretty overdriven and completely fit the vibe of the show. That act, The Wood Brothers leaves a lot of space to fill. Every single thing is clear in the mix. So it was kinda startling, but it really did for the arc of the performance.
Then there are the rule breakers. I heard Chris Wood live. Mostly URB of course but he had an Ashdown combo on a chair and a hofner he played very aggressively with a pick on a tune of two. It was pretty overdriven and completely fit the vibe of the show. That act, The Wood Brothers leaves a lot of space to fill. Every single thing is clear in the mix. So it was kinda startling, but it really did for the arc of the performance.
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I've spent a few years trying to find the overdrive pedal with hus the right amount of dirt (almost none). I have found "it" several times, except....then I decide it's not it. My pedalboards (I have 2) right no have....no dirt pedals on them. Given the subject of this thread, I assume I'm the trendsetter. ;-)
I have been noticing this trend, but I'll still always have a spot for fuzz on my board
When you need durt....you need durt....but when you need clean...you need clean!
Depends on the project I'm in. The singer songwriter needs cleaner tones, the Rock band needs some grunt. But my tone changes as needed to fit the song, not today's trend.
The Wood Brothers are one of my favorite bands. When I saw them live 1.5 years ago, he was using a Bass Big Muff for his dirt sounds. And it was killer! Being in a trio helps too
TB only represents a small part of the bass world so maybe its a TB trend, if anything. With the gear available now and with modern technology making it easier to use crossover, running parallel, or bi-amping my tones have gotten dirtier and better
I love those guys. Chris Wood is amazing! URB plus background vocals plus playing harp on a neck brace ? Now that is the advanced class ;-) And Jano Rix playing keys over his floor top on while keeping a beat ? Not too mention Oliver's song writing. Those guys set the bar pretty frickin' high.
Did the show you saw have The Shook Twins open ? They were big fun at a TWB show I saw about the same time.
I might have mention in another thread that I was feeling inspired to play more clean by my newly acquired ME Super 300. Truth is, when playing in bands, I've always played clean about 80% of the time. There is one band I play in that is the exception, but in that one, we do a lot of live looping where there is multiple layers of bass and sounds made with a bass guitar that are often heavily distorted or fuzzed out. This is the only band that has been getting together regularly during the pandemic, so maybe I've been getting fuzzed out and the Super 300 reminded me how good clean can sound.
I feel like we've been in the golden age of the modern bass amplifier, or at least when it comes to Mesa Boogie. My TT800 sounds so good that there are times when I think could ditch the pedal board and feel absolutely fine about my tone... and seriously, for the first time, I've been thinking about getting a smaller board and forcing myself to use five effects pedals instead of ten; this would be an interesting experiment.
Yo Matty D! The 300 is an incredible pedal. But even with that one I am leaving the ultra lo and high on for a much punchier and smooth clean sound than I can get with any other pedal. But alas, it came off the board because a/b'd with my straight P bass tone I just find the plain jane tone to be a little punchier and sits better in the mix. There is a huge amount of power that the 300 is capable tone wise though. The only pedals I will use for anything crunchy going forward are that and the Rusty Box. I would literally sell every other dirt and fuzz I own at this point.
I loved fuzz bass since the 60s when there'd be a fuzz bass break in classic am radio pop and some book about a band described a "lawnmower bass" sound. In Coved Times I got an MXR octave fuzz (the guitar one with a filter knob) and a sound from EQ Tentacle into ElOsso bass fuzz, both seem appropriate for Coved Music, and the stack of Dystopian audio loops has grown. But yes, I'm playing with more clean eq'd tones lately, including flat wound reggae tone (still with effects...the Grizzly bass pedal, milkbox compressor into Vox tube pre). There may be astrological reasons for this.
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I'd assume modern "radio rock" stuff is competing in loudness wars. Perhaps the sonic space of a nasty bass tone drenched in fuzz is detrimental to making a track louder in various streaming formats.
I can think of a few other areas where mixing live and in the studio could be easier with cleaner tones. In heavy music, competing with down-tuned guitars running lots of gain has got to be a challenge. Same with electronic stuff with synths and trigged drum samples and the like.
In a band context, it can be tough to make heavy distortion work, but there's nothing like cranking a fuzz through some big speakers until you can feel your clothes vibrating. I find it therapeutic.
I could never quite get the players who spent a small fortune on dirt boxes, and then cranked them to make their expensive rigs sound like a cheap 60s era combo amp farting out. Some judicious use of a clean boost or moderate overdrive can sound really good at times. And fuzz has its place in certain songs and genres. But I never could quite get my head around distortion effects on bass. Or bit crushers, data corrupters, PLL-based boxes and similar effects.
I think a lot of it has been overdone and people are looking for something different. Melodies seem to be slowly making a comeback in popular music. So maybe bass players (and possibly listeners) are starting to want to hear actual notes - as in distinguishable scale tones - rather than what I would characterize more as “beats” and “textures” from the bass player.
Bass has kinda become a percussion instrument or drone over the last 15 or so years. Maybe the pendulum is slowly starting to swing back.
I think a lot of it has been overdone and people are looking for something different. Melodies seem to be slowly making a comeback in popular music. So maybe bass players (and possibly listeners) are starting to want to hear actual notes - as in distinguishable scale tones - rather than what I would characterize more as “beats” and “textures” from the bass player.
Bass has kinda become a percussion instrument or drone over the last 15 or so years. Maybe the pendulum is slowly starting to swing back.
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