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Motown Sound in a Pedal?
- Thread starter trainyourhuman
- Start date
i think it's a combination of things, pbass + flats + fingers + fliptop, however if you need the bloomy kinda tubey mild to medium od you can't go wrong with a fuzzrocious dark driving od pedal
DiabolusInMusic
Functionless Art is Merely Tolerated Vandalism
A P Bass with flats, maybe a mute, and pretty much any amp of your choice. Bob Babbit explains achieving this sound on his forum, those are the directions.
There was a D.I. made that modeled the famous house D.I. of Motown but it was too rich for my blood.
Catalinbread SFT (especially the older one with the white knobs, the newer one is a bit more clanky) or Bearfoot Blueberry (which replaced my SFT), or Creation Audio Grizzly (on my radar!):
I'd suggest the SGFX Beta, just the "regular" one, if you wanted to do it all with one pedal. If you were going to add more than one, I'd suggest also adding a nice warm compressor, something like a Diamond. The Diamond + a warm OD would nail that tone.
SGFX Beta (regular orange version). Does EXACTLY what you are looking for. Like EXACTLY.
From the video, maybe the Dark Driving? Unfortunately, most of the demos etc. for OD pedals sound unpleasant to me.
... A lot of those old Motown recordings were slightly overdriven on the attack, usually from the desk that the bass was DI'ed into:
My fingers aren't magically able to make my strings sound overdriven so I stick to pedals.
My fingers aren't magically able to make my strings sound overdriven so I stick to pedals.
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That's my signature from now on.
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Fairfield Circuitry Barbershop+P Bass+flats. And tort.
I agree. I use flats and, with those, you can get "that" sound with more neutral overdrives like the barbershop.
The blueberry is also a good choice. For more range, the Azure Drive will get you there but also will cover a lot more ground.
On super low gain settings I could (with a p-bass with flats, naturally) get a decent motown sound with a b3k. Just to seal the deal, the vt bass was set to b-15. You just want to set the gain to where it accents the attack and doesn't grit up your tone unless you REALLY dig in.
Finding the sweet spot on a tube amp and learning to control your attack will let you do it. Guitar players do it all the time, no reason bass players can't do it as well.
So then the tube amp comes from the fingers? Or do we have square waves for fingers? I'm lost
So then the tube amp comes from the fingers? Or do we have square waves for fingers? I'm lost
Just pointing out that fingers do indeed have a role to play in producing a particular sound, and that relying only on equipment, instead of technique and equipment, is a mistake.
In fairness, the question was about pedals, not finger techniques.
Hopkins
Commercial User
Am I alone in thinking a BDDI could cop that tone just about perfectly?
