who only uses 1 pedal?

[Bo0tsy]

For a couple of years I only had a Micro Q Tron. I'm now up to 12 different envelope filters alone! I normally only use one envelope filter at a time, does that count?

 

[Nephilymbass]

other than a tuner, who only has one effect pedal on your "pedal board"?

I use more than one. But I only currently use one as an on and off effect for bass in my hard rock band. My shure glxd is a wireless and tuner, my compressor is always on, my digitech jamman stereo isn't in my bass signal chain as I use it for sampling and run it into its own DI. I use a rack sans amp that's always on. The only pedal I actually turn on and off for bass is my digitech polara which pretty much stays on the modulated setting which is a mixture of reverb, chorus, and flanger. The jamman is actually the pedal I step on the most though. I sampled all the "cosmetic" tracks from the studio onto it. Some extra guitar layers my guitarist did, every keyboard part I did in the studio, sound effects, movie clips. It works great for us because we like having the ability to sound like a huge band but at the same time if had like 3 guitar players and a keyboard player or two they'd spend too much time not playing to justify having extra full time band members. But yeah my "lead" tone with the polara is the only time the bass is more than just compressor and sans amp.

 

[zontar]

For a couple of years I only had a Micro Q Tron. I'm now up to 12 different envelope filters alone! I normally only use one envelope filter at a time, does that count?

Don't know if that counts, but envelope filters are cool.

 

[MGR]

While I can't say I use one, I am very proud to say that I have finally got down to 2, with 3 being the maximum number.

I used to have 4 different dirts, chorus, flange, phase, stutter, ring mod and other noise makers on my board. But I found that instead of enhancing my creativity, I was getting bogged down in knob twiddling. The "music" I was coming up with was garbage. There are many people who can do the ambient thing well, but for me personally the bass is not a solo instrument, nor should it carry the responsibility of being the lead guitar. Taking it back to two pedals has reconnected me with my instrument and has made my riff making much more enjoyable. I'm occupying the low end again and leaving the ambient stuff for my guitarist.

My two pedals are Keeley Bassist and a Darkglass B3K. Occasionally I'll add a Feed Me for lo-fi flavor. The rest of my now small collection of 6 pedals stay in the drawer and only come out for occasional recording.

I highly recommend that we as bassists start simplifying this stuff down to bare bones. The music industry has not been doing too well lately, and part of it IMO is that bands are too busy being "experimental" rather than writing good songs. I predict that if there is another revolution in rock (which there probably won't be) it will come in the form of a stripped down band that writes good rockers. 25 bass effects won't do much good in that regard.

Nice thread.

 

[FretNoMore]

...
I highly recommend that we as bassists start simplifying this stuff down to bare bones. The music industry has not been doing too well lately, and part of it IMO is that bands are too busy being "experimental" rather than writing good songs. I predict that if there is another revolution in rock (which there probably won't be) it will come in the form of a stripped down band that writes good rockers. 25 bass effects won't do much good in that regard.
...

I highly recommend that you don't try to bunch everyone into that little corner of the music world that you want to occupy. "We as bassists" don't exist as that one homogenous group you'd like everyone to conform to, and I really hope it never will. Different is good.

 

[Blaargh]

While I can't say I use one, I am very proud to say that I have finally got down to 2, with 3 being the maximum number.

I used to have 4 different dirts, chorus, flange, phase, stutter, ring mod and other noise makers on my board. But I found that instead of enhancing my creativity, I was getting bogged down in knob twiddling. The "music" I was coming up with was garbage. There are many people who can do the ambient thing well, but for me personally the bass is not a solo instrument, nor should it carry the responsibility of being the lead guitar. Taking it back to two pedals has reconnected me with my instrument and has made my riff making much more enjoyable. I'm occupying the low end again and leaving the ambient stuff for my guitarist.

My two pedals are Keeley Bassist and a Darkglass B3K. Occasionally I'll add a Feed Me for lo-fi flavor. The rest of my now small collection of 6 pedals stay in the drawer and only come out for occasional recording.

I highly recommend that we as bassists start simplifying this stuff down to bare bones. The music industry has not been doing too well lately, and part of it IMO is that bands are too busy being "experimental" rather than writing good songs. I predict that if there is another revolution in rock (which there probably won't be) it will come in the form of a stripped down band that writes good rockers. 25 bass effects won't do much good in that regard.

Nice thread.

The music industry has not been doing too well lately for very different reasons, namely streaming and piracy. There are still quite a few non-experimental rock bands around and they're not selling very well either, there's more than enough room for both.

In fact, the only rock band to make any particular kind of impact lately has been Royal Blood, a band built entirely around the bassist's pedalboard, so I definitely disagree. Pedals tend to be about achieving tones, you can play bananas math-rock straight into an amp and you can play blues rock with a ton of pedals, the difference is the tone rather than how experimental the music is.

 

[Fuzzonaut]

While I can't say I use one, I am very proud to say that I have finally got down to 2, with 3 being the maximum number.

I used to have 4 different dirts, chorus, flange, phase, stutter, ring mod and other noise makers on my board. But I found that instead of enhancing my creativity, I was getting bogged down in knob twiddling. The "music" I was coming up with was garbage. There are many people who can do the ambient thing well, but for me personally the bass is not a solo instrument, nor should it carry the responsibility of being the lead guitar. Taking it back to two pedals has reconnected me with my instrument and has made my riff making much more enjoyable. I'm occupying the low end again and leaving the ambient stuff for my guitarist.

My two pedals are Keeley Bassist and a Darkglass B3K. Occasionally I'll add a Feed Me for lo-fi flavor. The rest of my now small collection of 6 pedals stay in the drawer and only come out for occasional recording.

I highly recommend that we as bassists start simplifying this stuff down to bare bones. The music industry has not been doing too well lately, and part of it IMO is that bands are too busy being "experimental" rather than writing good songs. I predict that if there is another revolution in rock (which there probably won't be) it will come in the form of a stripped down band that writes good rockers. 25 bass effects won't do much good in that regard.

Nice thread.

If you can't be creative with more than 2 pedals - ok then, each to his own.
The music industry surely has a lot of problems, but bassists with more than 3 pedals is probably not one of them.
And "being experimental" is not always the opposite of "writing good songs". Just look at Sonic Youth and a ton of other bands.

 

[Fuzzonaut]

Although, on second thought, I kinda like the assumption that, everytime I buy a pedal, the music industry has another problem.

 

[cracked_machine]

I could get away with just the Boss ODB but where's the fun in that?

 

[Fuzzbass]

other than a tuner, who only has one effect pedal on your "pedal board"?

I do not own a pedal board. When rehearsing at home or with my bands, I typically use just one pedal (sometimes zero). I use just one pedal at many of my classic rock/R&B gigs.

For my hard rock gigs I typically use 2 or 3 pedals... but sometimes just one.

Now... I own about a dozen pedals: two compressors, the rest overdrives. I rotate them because I like variety.

 

[Somnambulance]

While I can't say I use one, I am very proud to say that I have finally got down to 2, with 3 being the maximum number.

I used to have 4 different dirts, chorus, flange, phase, stutter, ring mod and other noise makers on my board. But I found that instead of enhancing my creativity, I was getting bogged down in knob twiddling. The "music" I was coming up with was garbage. There are many people who can do the ambient thing well, but for me personally the bass is not a solo instrument, nor should it carry the responsibility of being the lead guitar. Taking it back to two pedals has reconnected me with my instrument and has made my riff making much more enjoyable. I'm occupying the low end again and leaving the ambient stuff for my guitarist.

My two pedals are Keeley Bassist and a Darkglass B3K. Occasionally I'll add a Feed Me for lo-fi flavor. The rest of my now small collection of 6 pedals stay in the drawer and only come out for occasional recording.

I highly recommend that we as bassists start simplifying this stuff down to bare bones. The music industry has not been doing too well lately, and part of it IMO is that bands are too busy being "experimental" rather than writing good songs. I predict that if there is another revolution in rock (which there probably won't be) it will come in the form of a stripped down band that writes good rockers. 25 bass effects won't do much good in that regard.

Nice thread.

 

[tfer]

The proper way to phrase the question, is "who only uses ONE pedal?!"

 

[zontar]

While I can't say I use one, I am very proud to say that I have finally got down to 2, with 3 being the maximum number.

Reminded me of this--especially starting around 1:25.

 

[catcauphonic]

Currently I'm just using the Aguilar Agro very mildly for our original indy project. Adds a little sizzle to my Spector growl