Swollen Pickle on bass in a metal mix.

Hello TalkBass, me and my brother are beginning a project that can be best characterized as a Blackened Crust band.. Think Mayhem/Darkthrone with D-Beats. I play guitar and bass and he takes care of the drums. As far as our sound, we're going against the traditional scooped sound and my guitar settings emphasizes highs and mids, while generally cutting the lows. Think of a more trebly metal distortion, like a thrash metal tone.

We're not a serious band yet, we're not looking to play shows or anything anytime soon. We're more focused on working on a sound that basically marries what I like (second wave black metal) with what my brother likes (90's era powerviolence, crust punk). We have combo amps and are looking to home record a demo in the future.

Now my problem is trying to dial in a bass distortion to work with my guitar distortion. My original idea was to emphasize huge low end to compensate for the lack of lows in my guitar tone. I also want a sort of aggressive voicing for my bass distortion, in order to add a unique character to the bass tone. I want the bass in our mix to sound monstrous and full of attitude. I also decided to utilize the Swollen Pickle fuzz pedal, since the sound that we're trying to achieve needs some kind of bass distortion.

Now.. I feel we have a passable tone for what we're going for, after all, most Black Metal, PowerViolence, Crust Punk isn't known for good tone. But I feel I don't know enough about eqing a bass to sit well in a metal mix. Like I said, I want to have massive low end that compensates for the lack of lows in the guitar tone, as well as to have an aggressive wall of fuzz. Tightness is definitely not something we are trying to go for, which is another reason why I decided to go fuzz.

The amp I use is an Eden Nemesis NC200P, which has a compressor and Parametric EQ. I also have a Schecter Damien 4 with active EMG-HZ pickups. I generally max the treble knob and half the bass knob because maxing the bass knob makes the tone sound farty. Along with the Swollen Pickle Fuzz pedal, it's hard to even know where to start with all the knobs and tone possibilities.

So I guess my question is, what should I do in order to get a massive low end wall of fuzz on my bass, with enough definition to hear constant 8th notes and triplets? What frequency should I boost on the Parametric eq? Should I scoop mids on the bass or boost mids? What about the crunch knob? Like I said I have a tone that I feel works for us, and I understand that tone and music is totally subjective and about finding your own sound, but I'd also like to have other opinions from people that have more experience than me in bass tone. Thanks.

 

Hmm, I checked out a demo of the Rat Tail and it's definitely along the lines of what I'm looking for in bass distortion.

I mean I already have the SP, I guess I could try to work with it. So what would a Blender do exactly, something about splitting the signal? Couldn't I just boost a high frequency on my parametric EQ for more cut?