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My response to "I don't get effects?!?"

jbybj

jbybj

Supporting Member
Jun 11, 2008
6,808
16,378
Los Angeles
#1
About an hour ago, as I was basking in the afterglow of a 45 minute, wholly inspired, POG2 infused, solo bass jam, I formulated an analogy in my mind, that I share here with this post.

Many times on this forum, I've seen the posts from self proclaimed purists, about effects, and how they just don't get them. They can't understand why players want to "pollute" their sound. Followed by declarations of Bass>cable>amp.

Playing with an effect is like having a conversation. If you are talking with an interesting, intelligent person, they can bring all sorts of unexpected and interesting ideas to the conversation. Things that would never have occurred to you if you were all by yourself. I was coming up with all sorts of riffs and tones that were a direct response to the POG2.

And just like a conversation, if your companion is a dullard, and boring, then you quickly tire of them, and want to banish them to the back of your closet.

Tonight I was being led by the POG2, into some fun and very different places than I'd end up going in true bypass.....

FYI: I had the POG with all dry, going through the effects, just a little attack, 4th order LPF all the way open, and the detune about half way. Then added just a hint of -1 octave...........
Good times.........
 
#2
i'll never understand what possesses people to actually come into the effects forum and say that. it's one thing to say it in the basses or amps forum. but they go out of their way to come into a forum that shouldn't interest them in the least only to proclaim their hatred of effects.

i have this theory...they're douchebags.
 
#4
The way I see it is some players' playing is less inspired than others'. Some players want more inspiration in their playing, some people are happy with less :hmm:.

For me, even though I only use a handful of effects, those effects inspire a lot of new music that I wouldn't be able to achieve without them. And yes I write music. You need more inspiration to do that than to just add vanilla bass lines to someone else's compositions, which let's face it, is all a lot of bass players do musically.

Like an uninspiring pedal gets relegated to the back of the closet, a lot of uninspired bassists get relegated to the back of the band, where they're used to not being heard. Yeah, you can say, "that's what fits this music" (which I think is code for "my playing is too crappy to fit in the music"), or you can say some garbage about being "traditional". The instrument is 59 years old, what tradition? That's the problem with bass players, that's why us bass players as a whole don't get the respect we deserve, because there's a lot of us who are really uninspired and quick to give up on our instrument and never want to take it the next step. There's a lot of bass players that are the reason why so many people think bass takes so much less skill to play than guitar. That's my problem with these people.

Effects aren't right for every piece of music, but they have switches so you can turn them off, and the scale of what you can achieve musically and artistically with pedals is much, much more vast than what you can achieve without them. I can't take players who don't take an artistic approach to their instrument seriously. Music is about expression, among other things, about expressing thoughts, ideas, moods, things that have colors, sounds, textures. Using one tone and one tone only is the same as making paintings, a painting for every song, all with just one color. That's fine if you are just looking to add some low end to a mix, but if you're actually looking to create art with your instrument :rollno:.
 
#6
Jake of Bass said:
"Purist" kinda sounds more like "wanker" to me... :hiding:

But seriously, I really don't care if someone wants to never ever use effects, or if someone wants to have 15 boards with 10 effects on each. It's when people start taking the holier-than-thou stance, then I have a problem - on either side of the fence.
Click to expand...
ya, some people have a hard time accepting that nobody really cares what they do.
 
#9
every truth you hold to be self-evident, someone else thinks it's a damnable lie.
every thing you cherish and hold sacred, someone else finds it of no value.
your moment of greatest victory, someone else's agonizing defeat.
your agonizing defeat? yeah, you know the rest.

so it goes.
 
#10
Being an artist in the day (graphic design), I have approached the use of effects as different colors of your tonal palette. Sure, you can combine all of them and have this gigantic mushy, undefined sound (much like combining all sorts of paints). But by tastefully adding in some chorus here, fuzz there, you can really add to an overall song and make some wonderful sounds.

There are those artists that can kill with just charcoal and paper (much like bass-->amp), and there are those artists that like to use the entire color spectrum. Neither is wrong.
 
#11
A cable between your bass and amp will really destroy the tone, I use this:

110184d646f42127ef84e64aed9615a5.jpg


Of course that's after I've spent thousands of dollars on new boutique gear designed to sound old and crap. Once I've got that old, crap sound nailed I don't want to lose any of it to a cable.
 
#14
Mmmh... I might come out of this looking like some lame-assed diplomat, but here's my take.

If a TBer feels he's getting the most out of fingers>bass>amp>ears, all my best, less gear to carry. It's his personal choice and that HAS to be respected.

HOWEVER.

This is an effect forum. I come here to get and pass on information related to effects. It is annoying to find posts professing not to use effects. I like to use effects and my personal choice HAS to be respected.

Recommendation: They should have their own forum (they probably have) or at least their own thread in this forum. I would certainly read in from time, as I have a lot to learn from more talented and experienced fellow TBers. One thing I certainly not do is post something like "Dude, you should go for such-and-such effect to get that tone". I'm just made up that way.

And that's all I got to say 'bout that.

Peace, love and bass to y'all.

:)
 
#15
In the old days you had to convince a duke or a king or a bishop or someone to tell their orchestra to play your music if you wanted to sound like more than one instrument. Now, through the manipulation of electrons we can make all kinds of sounds with just two hands and two feet. I think it's pretty cool and I really enjoy it. I also enjoy playing unplugged, yeah electric bass unplugged.
 
#20
I used to not dig effects - the tone I heard was the tone I got from bass-cord-amp.
Two things changed my perspective.
I started playing in a funk band, and there are some very different tones needed there, that need some effectage, and those tones are extremely cool.
Second, I was invited to play a looping festival, and so a) I had a looper, which is an effect, and b)to JBYBJ's point, at that point my musical conversation was with myself and my own ideas, rather than with my bandmates. That really opened me up to the interest, variety, and idea/musical development that can come with effects.

YMMV.
 

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