• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Post Your Pedalboard - Part I

Status
Not open for further replies.
#103
Lo Freq Freak said:
The BP200 has a ton of effects. I use the Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Reverb, Delay, Volume, Wah and Authowah, though admittedly sparingly. 95% of the time I play straight, but I like having some other flavors available for when the music calls for it. The (silent) tuner is adequate and I use it routinely.
Click to expand...
I have pretty much the same approach with my Korg AX-1B.
It's the center of my pedal board, as a tuner, mute and pretty much everything that requires an expression pedal.
Other pedals supplemented it for things it didn't do very well.
I like a good tremolo, vocalizer, fuzz octave or ring modulator, but not enough to justify buying them separately. Some effects also are very difficult to find as separate units.
Modulations on the Korg are splendid, much better than any other low priced individual pedal. Time effects aren't bad neither and filters are versatile and a lot of fun.
 
#104
Link Removed

What is all this stuff for?

Bass --> Trace Elliott Dual Compressor

My first proper pedal, I used to use this all the time for subtle low frequency compression and switch in the high frequency compression when slapping. Great for evening out your playing, helping you punch through a dense mix or getting more volume out of your rig. However, I've recently stopped using it for the above, as my playing's even enough, I'm not struggling to cut through and my rig has an excess of headroom. I need to experiment with setting it up for the ultimate slap tone, but of late I've been using it to EQ my bass to get a more guitar-like sound when playing chords. I'll probably still use it when recording.

--> Loooper true-bypass box

A simple passive 3PDT switch which takes most of my pedals out of the signal chain (only the compressor, delay/looper and volume pedal are independent). Essential for peace of mind when you have this many pedals to potentially break mid-gig, and for going from clean tones to heavily effected ones in an instant.

(in Looper's FX loop) --> Akai Deep Impact synth

Recently discontinued by the fools at Akai, this synth sounds awesome, has true-bypass and is programmable. Does everything from envelope-alike sounds, through a slew of different synths, to the best tracking octaver I've yet found (including the EBS Octabass). Can sound a little too clean at times but a smidgeon of overdrive and treble cut solves that. Not as easy to use as the non-programmable pedals - I need to spend some time setting up some nice patches to start from when creating sounds.

--> Akai Unibass 'guitar faker'

I love this pedal! Pitch-shifting up an octave is great for playing lead, especially when looping, and layering the octave up (and +5th as well) on top of clean bass gives some seriously huge sounds, though they sound best after the whole lot has been passed through some overdrive or distortion.

--> Fulltone BassDrive overdrive/distortion

A monster! From clean boost through overdrive to screaming distortion. Transparent yet thick (you can tell which bass you're playing through it and it responds well to changes in touch and onboard EQ). Boost control effectively gives you second channel. Beautifully built. Expensive but well worth it IMO.

--> Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz

Well, it hasn't broken in a while which is nice. Great tone, almost the perfect fuzz. Changing the output cap for a higher value helps retain the low end - mine already has a highish value (Big Muffs vary a lot, depending on the parts that EH had around at the time, and the loose tolerance of allegedly identical parts means that they all sound different) so has enough bottom if the tone's not cranked. If the bottom is lacking I can always boost it on my bass and it comes through beneath the fuzz. Would be very cool with a passive blend control added.

--> EBS BassIQ envelope filter

A nice little filter. Very straight-forward - only two knobs and one 3-way switch, vs my old Meatball with 6 knobs and four 2/3-way switches! Classic squelchy funk tones. Also very nice as a dancey synth type effect with fuzz or distortion running into it, for faux wah guitar, as a dub filter and for moog-like dirty synth sounds. Very responsive to playing, especially attack and volume.

--> MXR Phase 90

Rapidly becoming one of my favourites. Like chorus minus the cheese but with added funk. One knob, which is easily turnable by foot (has big rubber knob cover (therefore condom?!!) to add grip). If only every pedal were this easy and great sounding. The midrange colour it adds is fantastic for filling up space with wet textures.

--> Boss BF-2 Flanger

The offspring of the ugly sister and angry cousin of the Phase 90. King of nasty spaced out noises, metallic tones and general swooshingness. Nice after distortion or synths for total craziness. Can do the more subtle flanging things with the resonance turned down.

--> back to Loooper and then --> Line6 DL-4 delay/looper

This pedal is soooo deep. It does the straight forward very clean digital dealy with tap tempo thing. Also emulates a million analog and tape delays and has weird delay related effects with modulation, reverse, etc thrown in. Have been mostly using it for looping, doing some cool solo stuff - maybe we'll have some bass on its lonesome moments to give the gig a different vibe - but I haven't managed to pull off looping grooves with a drummer and keeping it all in sync. However, I can see some effective uses of looped textures and other weird guitar/synth/pad/noise parts created with bass and FX to fill out the soundscape, whilst I'm playing my usual bass/guitar role, in the imminent future.

--> Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr --> Amp

A very solid, transparent and excellent value low-impedance pedal. The slope is a little more exponential than I'd like but I'm getting used to it. Essential for handling such extreme effects IMO and really helps with getting the most out of the touch sensitive ones. Trying to get into setting it nominally below maximum so it can be used as a volume boost, which requires a bit of a paradigm shift.

Most players wouldn't want all this stuff let alone need it - I certainly wouldn't if I was playing in other people's bands or playing other people's music. But I'm in my band, doing my music and I'm playing a hybrid bass/guitar role and have a lot of space to fill. Listening back to some of our jams, we don't really need a guitarist, it sounds complete with just bass, drums and vocals. When we acquire a guitarist they're going to need to take a very different approach, otherwise things could get messy.

Alex
 
#105
I don't have a pic, but I run my custom bass w/ lane poor soapbars through this setup:

Samson Optical Compressor -> Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor -> Sansamp Bass Driver DI -> Poweramp

Works for me and sounds sweet. Any eq'ing is done on the bass (seymour duncan 3 band eq w/ slap switch), but it's generally kept flat. :hyper:
 
#110
beav2k2 said:
First, what kind of power supply is that? Second, what kind of patch cables are those?
Click to expand...

It's an Aspect Design Labs Juicebox 2. Good clean power but rather heavy and expensive. Unfortunately the lightweight digital supplies weren't on the market when I got this. The cables are Klotz La Grange with heavy-duty Neutrik right-angle plugs, apart from the plugs into the Loooper which are Switchcraft. They took ages to cut, strip and solder together - glad it's finally done!

Alex
 
#111
alexclaber said:
Link Removed

What is all this stuff for?

Bass --> Trace Elliott Dual Compressor

My first proper pedal, I used to use this all the time for subtle low frequency compression and switch in the high frequency compression when slapping. Great for evening out your playing, helping you punch through a dense mix or getting more volume out of your rig. However, I've recently stopped using it for the above, as my playing's even enough, I'm not struggling to cut through and my rig has an excess of headroom. I need to experiment with setting it up for the ultimate slap tone, but of late I've been using it to EQ my bass to get a more guitar-like sound when playing chords. I'll probably still use it when recording.

--> Loooper true-bypass box

A simple passive 3PDT switch which takes most of my pedals out of the signal chain (only the compressor, delay/looper and volume pedal are independent). Essential for peace of mind when you have this many pedals to potentially break mid-gig, and for going from clean tones to heavily effected ones in an instant.

(in Looper's FX loop) --> Akai Deep Impact synth

Recently discontinued by the fools at Akai, this synth sounds awesome, has true-bypass and is programmable. Does everything from envelope-alike sounds, through a slew of different synths, to the best tracking octaver I've yet found (including the EBS Octabass). Can sound a little too clean at times but a smidgeon of overdrive and treble cut solves that. Not as easy to use as the non-programmable pedals - I need to spend some time setting up some nice patches to start from when creating sounds.

--> Akai Unibass 'guitar faker'

I love this pedal! Pitch-shifting up an octave is great for playing lead, especially when looping, and layering the octave up (and +5th as well) on top of clean bass gives some seriously huge sounds, though they sound best after the whole lot has been passed through some overdrive or distortion.

--> Fulltone BassDrive overdrive/distortion

A monster! From clean boost through overdrive to screaming distortion. Transparent yet thick (you can tell which bass you're playing through it and it responds well to changes in touch and onboard EQ). Boost control effectively gives you second channel. Beautifully built. Expensive but well worth it IMO.

--> Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz

Well, it hasn't broken in a while which is nice. Great tone, almost the perfect fuzz. Changing the output cap for a higher value helps retain the low end - mine already has a highish value (Big Muffs vary a lot, depending on the parts that EH had around at the time, and the loose tolerance of allegedly identical parts means that they all sound different) so has enough bottom if the tone's not cranked. If the bottom is lacking I can always boost it on my bass and it comes through beneath the fuzz. Would be very cool with a passive blend control added.

--> EBS BassIQ envelope filter

A nice little filter. Very straight-forward - only two knobs and one 3-way switch, vs my old Meatball with 6 knobs and four 2/3-way switches! Classic squelchy funk tones. Also very nice as a dancey synth type effect with fuzz or distortion running into it, for faux wah guitar, as a dub filter and for moog-like dirty synth sounds. Very responsive to playing, especially attack and volume.

--> MXR Phase 90

Rapidly becoming one of my favourites. Like chorus minus the cheese but with added funk. One knob, which is easily turnable by foot (has big rubber knob cover (therefore condom?!!) to add grip). If only every pedal were this easy and great sounding. The midrange colour it adds is fantastic for filling up space with wet textures.

--> Boss BF-2 Flanger

The offspring of the ugly sister and angry cousin of the Phase 90. King of nasty spaced out noises, metallic tones and general swooshingness. Nice after distortion or synths for total craziness. Can do the more subtle flanging things with the resonance turned down.

--> back to Loooper and then --> Line6 DL-4 delay/looper

This pedal is soooo deep. It does the straight forward very clean digital dealy with tap tempo thing. Also emulates a million analog and tape delays and has weird delay related effects with modulation, reverse, etc thrown in. Have been mostly using it for looping, doing some cool solo stuff - maybe we'll have some bass on its lonesome moments to give the gig a different vibe - but I haven't managed to pull off looping grooves with a drummer and keeping it all in sync. However, I can see some effective uses of looped textures and other weird guitar/synth/pad/noise parts created with bass and FX to fill out the soundscape, whilst I'm playing my usual bass/guitar role, in the imminent future.

--> Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr --> Amp

A very solid, transparent and excellent value low-impedance pedal. The slope is a little more exponential than I'd like but I'm getting used to it. Essential for handling such extreme effects IMO and really helps with getting the most out of the touch sensitive ones. Trying to get into setting it nominally below maximum so it can be used as a volume boost, which requires a bit of a paradigm shift.

Most players wouldn't want all this stuff let alone need it - I certainly wouldn't if I was playing in other people's bands or playing other people's music. But I'm in my band, doing my music and I'm playing a hybrid bass/guitar role and have a lot of space to fill. Listening back to some of our jams, we don't really need a guitarist, it sounds complete with just bass, drums and vocals. When we acquire a guitarist they're going to need to take a very different approach, otherwise things could get messy.

Alex
Click to expand...
This my friend, Is truly a fine set-up. Not many things I'd change out of what you've got. I've heard a bunch of people voicing loss of low end concerns over having the mxr permanently in line, though.
 
#113
Here is my pedal board in Full. I just got the sansamp, and i would have to say its probably about the greatest investment ive ever made.

Link Removed

The toneworks modulator and the MXR Q are in the loop because there both not true bypass and the toneworks KILLS my tone when bypassed.
 
#117
My Signal chain is: Boss pedals
LS-2 Line Switcher
MT-2 Distortion
BF-2 Flanger
CE-2 Chorus
PH-3 Phaser
DD-6 Delay
Morley Volume

I have not taken an updated pic, I replaced the Dynamic Wah
with the DD-6.
 
#118
Figjam said:
Im currently using 0 effects or anything in chain. Just my bass direct to amp. Anyone else do this?
Click to expand...

I can't answer this without being mildly amused that you'd comment in the effects forum.

Yes, I'd say the majority of players play clean the majority of the time. Some players like being able to effect their tones in a sonically pleasing way. No right or wrong, just what feels good to the individual. :bassist:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back