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Pedal help!
- Thread starter Shushamouth
- Start date
One guitarist was willing, the other is set on how she was told to keep her settings. However I messed around some yesterday. I have a week before we head out on the road. I'm going to end up trial and erroring and see how things sound in the venue and keep in touch. I am thankful for all of you and this thread, seriously lol.
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This song is in drop D and one of our, softer songs. I'm concerned with the drop Bs live as opposed to studio. Our other song Eyes Wide Shut is in drop B and sounds decent live however when we get into the more heavier stuff I get lost in the mix which is easy to happen. Thank you for taking the time to listen to that and your advice.
You can do a mild mid boost on your EQ or boost the treble a bit and a Sansamp BDDI would be a good cheap option for adding a little grit.
There are many other great OD's but that would give you a cheaper easier solution. Do you play with a pick? cause that could help too.
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I am glad I could help.
These videos are just run-of-the-mill mid-rangey grindy bass, IMO. I am not a fan of this style of music so I am probably not the best person to ask. In general, I prefer bass players who take a more unique and personal approach to their sound, regardless of style.
Since everyone here is tossing out the name of their favorite mid-grind overdrive, I would like to offer my rather unusual choice, the Dredgetone Angler. This is not a popular pedal in this forum. It can sound pretty bad by itself, rather bright and harsh, but I find it works well in a heavy guitar mix. It has excellent definition and dynamics that help it punch through the mix. The style of music I play is more heavy melodic rock, like Foo Fighters, so this may not work for you. The Angler has a tight bottom, a strong low-mid bump and a distinctive over-driven octave note. This really helps the pedal cut through heavy guitar and loud drums. Even if you don't care for this pedal in particular, I suggest checking out octave distortion pedals. They are also known as octave fuzzes. (The Angler is definitely not a fuzz.)
Overdriven bass sounds much less distorted in the mix. So don't be afraid to get heavy. Preserving dynamics, (punch, definition), and a tight bottom are key to a good overdrive sound.
I'll just take the time aside to say that your band sounds fantastic, Shushamouth. Kudos to you.
Thank you! It's definitely a project coming together with stress, love and dedication
I agree. I've always played different types of music and that's why this project is harder because now I'm dealing with different tones. And I have never thought to use a pedal so my curiosity is full of confusion and wonder and delight haha.
That's a good place to be.
Since you seem to be comfortable with overdriving the PF500 now, I recommend looking for the right compressor pedal instead of an overdrive. Compression is tricky stuff to learn how to use correctly. But if you master using it in a live situation, you will really benefit from it.
You can work with some of the sound guys & gals as you move around. They can help you in the mix as well - if they are decent at their role. The funny thing about a guitarist who doesn't want to work with your situation is that they become the one who gets drowned out, so sooner or later they will come around. It just makes the greater good that much more effective & explosive.
Use rehearsal times to tweak and work on it. Remember that what sounds good alone is not the mix. It makes a big difference in the end. For the low B stuff, it might be your rig just not quite doing the job. Sound guys and good compressors can really help the house sound if available. There's also the whole turn up loud, and control your dynamics and volume until the songs where you need some oomph, and let it rip. I ride the bass volume knob higher for lower tunes and lower volume for higher and more dynamic stuff.
Best of luck on the road! With this little challenge of yours don't forget the most important thing - having fun!!!
More thoughts and +1's to other comments:
1) Definitely stay away from the Ultra Lo switch. It should be called Ultra Tone Suck.
2) The "Clip" light should be called "Signal". If it's not lighting up, crank up the gain. At least this was true on my old SVT 3PRO. Not sure about the PF500.
3) Treble is your friend if you want to cut through the guitars.
4) The more bass EQ you add, the more power it will take to get loud. Low frequencies need a LOT more power than high frequencies to reproduce.
5) Tip the soundguy a little bit before your set, and he'll be more inclined to make sure you sound good in the FOH.
1) Definitely stay away from the Ultra Lo switch. It should be called Ultra Tone Suck.
2) The "Clip" light should be called "Signal". If it's not lighting up, crank up the gain. At least this was true on my old SVT 3PRO. Not sure about the PF500.
3) Treble is your friend if you want to cut through the guitars.
4) The more bass EQ you add, the more power it will take to get loud. Low frequencies need a LOT more power than high frequencies to reproduce.
5) Tip the soundguy a little bit before your set, and he'll be more inclined to make sure you sound good in the FOH.
Nope. It should be flashing most of the time for your purposes. If you want super clean, don't let it flash ever. But that is not going to work for you IMO.
With your bass pod do a little experiment: use a clean boost to hit the preamp hard and light up the thresh indicator and see what it sounds like. If you want two voices (ie clean and dirty) you may just need a boost of some sort. There are great boosts with some added voices.
If you need details how to make your pod do a clean boost just reply with your model and I (or another) will help
If you need details how to make your pod do a clean boost just reply with your model and I (or another) will help
It's a line 6 bass pod pro. Model number is unavailable at the moment but I can let you know tonight.
Ok, that's all I need...
Start with the volume low on your amp and POD.
1) connect your bass to the POD input. Make sure the switch above the input is set to Bass.
2) connect the MODEL output of the POD (back of POD) to your amp input (front of portaflex). Set the switch next to the output on the POD to LIVE.
3) on the POD choose "tube preamp", and set the gain at 9 o'clock, bass mid and treble at noon, compression off, effect off for now.
4) bring up the volume of your amp a bit. Now bring up the volume of the POD until the thresh light starts to just blink / flicker. This should sound nearly the same as if your bass was plugged directly into your amp.
5) now, turn up the POD output knob until the thresh light is on most of the time you are playing. At this point you should be driving your amp into breakup, or saturation.
From here you can do a few things on the POD:
- turn up the gain, balance the output.
- just turn up the POD output, just be aware of how hard you are pushing your portaflex.
- add the effect called "pig foot" and turn up the effect knob as you like. This is a booster.
This is just the beginning, you can go way deeper from here. It should give you an idea of your amp driven. You can mess with all of the POD settings from here as well, just to give you an idea of what other distortion a sound like.
The manual is a really annoying read, but there are a couple of ways to hook it up and get some decent tones from it. This way you can get a sense of what sound suits your band and have us help you find a simple pedal to get you there.
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If it was my choice, it would leave the Bass POD home. Why have more gear on the tour than you need. That is assuming the POD is just a preamp and you really like using it. If that it the case, I would plug the POD output into the power amp in on the back of the pf500. That way you are using the pf500 as a power amp and bypassing the ampeg preamp completely.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying take the POD on the road, I'm saying use it to help you find the sound you want. The best way to experiment is to set it up as a pedal going into the front to simulate what a pedal would do. It's a very cost effective experiment that will help you save money buying and trying, and will help your ear learn what you like.
If you want to use it as the preamp, then sure that's exactly how you should do it, but we're in the effects forum with a thread called "Pedal help"
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