Is Simple The Way To Go?

[Korladis]

I've always had the absolute best luck with a minimalist setup.

Bass > sansamp > tuner > amp. That's it.

So long as you're not pushing tons of effects, there's literally no point in getting more complicated than this. At least that's what I've found. The simpler, the better.

Thoughts?

Obviously ditch the sansamp.

 

[chris_b]

Simplicity and synergy is the aim for me. That is, the sound of a bass, amp and cab that fits together like a jigsaw to make me sound good when all I do is just plug in and play.

Then all that's left is the tricky bit. Me, my fingers and the song.

 

[BoogerMan79]

The only things I bring to a gig are my basses, Ampeg SCR-Di, and Digitech. Most of the people I work with have their own PA, or the venue they're playing at does, so I have no need to bring an amp with me. I won't lie, I was skeptical about doing it like this at first, but it really does make sense. If there's a pa, then there's really no need to have an amp on stage. You can just as easily hear yourself through the monitor mix.

Depends on who's running sound.

 

[Korladis]

Depends on who's running sound.

Also the monitor situation.

In my experience bass doesn't sound very good through most venues' monitors. If they even have them.

 

[P. Aaron]

.... said the guy with an extra string on his bass

IF, you haven’t heard Country Music lately...

 

[Korladis]

IF, you haven’t heard Country Music lately...

Doubt the high G is needed.

 

[P. Aaron]

Doubt the high G is needed.

Actually, ALL the strings can be and are necessary. It all depends on what and how one plays.

Keeping things simple doesn't mean forsaking that which at first seems difficult or complex. It just means eating the musical elephant one bite at a time.

 

[Biggbass]

for me, Bass > amp is simpler.
Clip on tuner

 

[bassicallybob]

for me, Bass > amp is simpler.
Clip on tuner

I've always found clip on tuners to be slow and sometimes unresponsive, especially with the low B. A pedal tuner has always been much faster.

 

[Biggbass]

I got one of the new Korg clip on tuners last year and it works great for 4 string bass.

 

[mannysilvers]

As someone who spends too much of my life working with/dealing with pedals, I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with them. When I was really young I lusted after lots of unattainable gear the way I think most young players do at some point, including many fancy pedals. Once I started working at EHX I had incredible access to pedals and messed around with building pretty complex boards for awhile and landed with a packed Pedal Train Classic Junior with three different distortion pedals, a Super Pulsar, Freeze and more...

After awhile I felt like I wasn't really using a lot of that stuff and am now at what I consider (but I'm sure many on here don't) a very simple setup on a Pedal Train Nano Plus, tuner -> preamp/OD (always on) -> fuzz -> chorus.

There's a part of me that wouldn't be shocked if one day I end up just plugging my Ric straight into some badass overdriven tube amp and call it a rig. I also kept my old Pedal Train around because I wouldn't be shocked if I decide to add more stuff again one day.

I do though agree that keeping things simple is beneficial as long as you aren't actively limiting your creativity by doing that. There is a reality that the more things you have going on, the more things there are to go wrong. Especially with pedals (depending on your power situation) more pedals often equals more noise added to your sound and more (often cheap) patch cables to not be plugged in all the way, break, etc. One of my guitarists used to have a massive board with every pedal he owned on it even though he almost never used half of them. He NEVER plugged that thing in and had it working fine the first time.