Tips for getting a fat hardcore/powerviolence bass tone?

[Ritter667]

I'll admit that my Rats get more use for sure, as they are more broadly usable in mixes. But if I'm talking pure unadulterated heaviness, and I just want sonic destruction with a smile on my face, nothing does that for me like an HM-2!

I absolutely LOVE the HM-2 and all of its glory, but you've nailed the problems with it on bass for sure. It's a challenge to make it work in the mix. I've found that for my guitar needs, a simple 4 knob clone is perfect - the added features usually get in the way. But on bass, I've spent years finding the "perfect" HM-2 tone. The Bear Amps Heavier Metal is it for me. (At least so far...) The Dunwich DIY HM-2 is also excellent, but mine needs some tending to, as one of the knobs doesn't function properly. Then it may be #1. But the Arion Metal Master is no slouch at all, and beats out pretty much every other clone on bass, and for much less money. If you find one cheap, give it a shot as I think it's worth it. It it matters, I also NEVER run the HM-2 with the knobs maxed. On bass, I find that a standard 4 knob setup needs less gain (usually between 9:00 and 10:30) and a small reduction in highs from max. I max lows, and use volume to taste. This keeps plenty of bite in the signal, but keeps the bass clear enough without being washed away by too much treble. On guitar, I do similar, but it's usually around 10:30 to noon on gain, and with the high and low knob positions from earlier swapped. It does the opposite - keeps the lows from overtaking the distortion and gives me a clearer attack with guitar.

Oh, and this is for a very heavy cutting tone on either - quite similar to the old Swedish death metal bands, but not quite exactly that. It's NOT shoegaze or whatever tones, though, I'm pretty sure. Not overly familiar with that genre.

Anyway, hope some of this makes sense and helps anyone dialing in an HM-2!

Actually the HM-2 is also a pretty common pedal to see on shoegaze boards, place it after a reverb and you have a huge lush metallic noise reverb pad-esque effect (I don't play shoegaze, but I do utilize this, for my dark drone/ambient and stoner/doom rock projects, except I use a Metal Zone stacked into a Joyo Orange Juice overdrive, which does add a much tighter grind and grunt to the Metal Zone distortion, instead of a HM-2).

Also I assume you have heard of the Blackgaze genre? Blackgaze combines Shoegaze elements with Blackmetal elements.

Actually a lot of great music in this genre, if you ask me.

 

[kleinenenten]

Actually the HM-2 is also a pretty common pedal to see on shoegaze boards, place it after a reverb and you have a huge lush metallic noise reverb pad-esque effect (I don't play shoegaze, but I do use this, for my dark drone/ambient and stoner/doom rock projects, except I use a Metal Zone stacked into a Joyo Orange Juice overdrive, which does add a much tighter grind and grunt to the Metal Zone distortion, instead of a HM-2).

Also I assume you have heard of the Blackgaze genre?

Blackgaze combines Shoegaze elements with Blackmetal elements.

Actually pretty amazing.

I was aware the HM-2 was used in shoegaze, but I didn't think my settings were typical for that tone. I had not heard of Blackgaze... May have to look into that!

 

[seescottrock]

Craaaanked Rat, filter pretty wide open, more mids than seem necessary, pick hard. SVT about to explode wouldn't hurt either but I bet there are decent amp sims that will get you there.

 

[John Glue]

Really appreciate this info! Was able to see you play at the Middle East in Boston like 5 years ago, was one of my favorite shows I went to when I lived up there.

Boston was always a good time!

One thing I eventually figured out was to set up my 4 string bass with a 5 string set and ditch the highest string. We tuned to C and that got pretty floppy. A low B tuned a half step up to C made the overall sound way tighter. I also changed my lowest two strings after every gig (the only two I really played haha). Fresh strings with that amount of distortion and overdrive seemed to sound way better in my experience.

 

[deff]

funny i use to listen to stuff like that all the time, but I like the tone in the beginning of this, dunno what effect it is tho probably something simple, back in the day my 8x10 had atleast 5 blown cones which gave me a natural distortion in my punk/metal 3pc band.

The Idiot Box Blower box is based on Blacky's tone. I think it is a modded Rat. Always loved his sound. I am always also routinely amazed in how much I can hear the Die Kruezen influence with their songs.

 

[capnjagg]

So two anecdotes, one as an observer/fan, and one of personal experience.

When I think of gnarly hardcore bass tones, my mind immediately goes to my acquaintance Brent from Rogue State/Moxiebeat, whom I grew up watching in my local scene. I believe he uses a precision bass now, but back in the day he used a Stingray into a GK head (I think a 400RB?), and man, that was the gnarliest, grindiest tone I’ve ever heard. Even today listening to bands like Drug Church and Turnstile (pre-GLOW ON), they’re using Music Man basses and getting a fat tone.

Now for the personal experience. Back in the day, I had tried a trick that supposedly Failure used for their bass tone, which was to run a Bass EQ pedal after the distortion to add the lows back in. In my instance I just used a $20 Behringer bass equalizer after a DeuceTone Rat (with both channels on) and it was super thick and gnarly. Cheaper than an LS-2 with similar return, in my experience.

Here is a link to an EP I recorded with that setup. It was a Peavey T-40 into a 400 Series head and a Peavey 410 that was mic’d up. All the distorted tones are the DeuceTone with the Behringer at the end, I don’t think I used any other distortion/OD/fuzz.

 

[Aidenn7]

three things do the trick.. Ampeg svt. Marshall superlead. and rat.

mastereffects super 300

idiot box Blower box- marshally rat

 

[Aidenn7]

 

[Aidenn7]

a modded sonic titan is good too

 

[Aidenn7]

Hi TalkBass.com, I play bass in a powerviolence/beatdown hardcore band and I need to settle on a bass tone for our demo we'll be recording shortly. Bands I really dig are Weekend Nachos, Sex Prisoner, Internal, Wound Man, Nails, Full of Hell, and Crossed Out, their bass players tone are really what I'm chasing. I have no idea where to start with EQ, or just pedel settings. Should mention I don't use an amp, I just use a DI for recording, any specific amp I should look for? I'm looking for a combo amp, or should I buy a head+cab? I like the idea of getting a Fender rumble or Ampeg rocket bass amp, what watt would be the best?

Links to bands:







Gear:
Cort B4 active/passive bass with 2 soapbar pickups
B7K preamp/distortion
EHX Russian Big Muff (Prefer to find the good tone with this pedal)
ProCo Turbo Rat

russian pedals sound better with the tone rolled back.. and volume boosted..

 

[bassness]

I had tried a trick that supposedly Failure used for their bass tone, which was to run a Bass EQ pedal after the distortion to add the lows back in. In my instance I just used a $20 Behringer bass equalizer after a DeuceTone Rat (with both channels on) and it was super thick and gnarly.

I have a Rat that I bought back in 1991 that I run into a V1 VT Bass and then into a Q/Strip to thicken things up. I have the Q/Strip set to boost at 120 Hz and I also add a little at about 1 kHz. I go into a Darkglass Element from there for a cabsim for recording and it's nasty as you want it to be.

I've also ran that setup minus the cabsim into my 400RB and it slays through that also.

 

[mouthmw]

When I think of fat drive/distortion, I think of Damnation Audio MBD. You should check out MBD (any version of the three).

 

[eropt07]

The Rat is a great choice. I like the HM-2 for that kind of stuff as well.

Bassist in Godstomper uses a Russian Big Muff (original bubble font) and a HM-2 I think, as well as chorus.

 

[eropt07]

Kind of stumbled on this but I’ll throw my two cents in here. I used to play bass in Nails…

My live rig in 2009-2011ish was an Acoustic 370 head into an Ampeg 810. I would run a ProCo Rat and turn it up loud. When we recorded Unsilent Death we flew to the studio and I didn’t bring anything with me, I just used what Kurt had in the studio. The studio bass rig was an Orange AD200 and an Orange Thunderverb 200 into 2 ampeg cabs. I think the pedal we used was a Boss Bass Overdrive. I used a warmoth p bass. Live and studio were two seperate deals. I think on the other albums we did with Kurt the main bass tone was the boss bass overdrive direct in with some of the amps mic’s mixed in.

My favorite live amps were Ampeg SVT classics. I eventually got an Ampeg Mti era SVT and was using a fulltone OCD drive pedal. Everything turned up really loud.

Thanks for the help John, bought the Rat because I heard you played one haha, awesome to see you here.

 

[Fortyweight]

For recording your turbo rat should suffice as your engineer will probably mix in clean lows.

If you want to somewhat recreate it live, check out a damnation audio bass looper/dirtmixer/dirtfixer to use with your rat, or a rat clone with a build in low passed clean blend.

I use a blue collander tremond into an orange terror bass (or into a BDDI for the foh) in a related genre.