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Why use distortion?

#21
I use distortion to different textures to the bass sound in different songs, and sometimes to make it fill a more central role in our songs (even though we do have two guitars at play). Also, the right distorted tones just feel like candy to the ears :)

René_Julien;8969965 said:
Why is it that people say that the bass is lost in distortion?
Then you can also say: the guitar is lost in distortion.

:)
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well, lots of types of distortion effects do cut the lower frequencies... not the ones I use, tho :D
 
#22
takfar said:
well, lots of types of distortion effects do cut the lower frequencies... not the ones I use, tho :D
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I never had problems either with distortion killing my lower frequencies.


My point is that when people (mostly non-musicians) hear distortion in heavier styles of music they automaticly assume "that's the guitars".
While (IMO) bass is an as worthy instrument to produce the distortion in heavy music.
But most people expect that the bass is just there to thumb and fart some low clean(-ish) notes.


However, me personally right now, in a metal band, I don't use overdrive or distortion or fuzz at all.
Just the grit and growl coming from my amp is enough. I leave the heavy distortion to my guitarist otherwise he is redundant. :D
 
#23
ya, johnny april from staind is another dude who likes to use a dead clean sound in hard rock. his rig is crazy...spector euro 5's into an avalon 737 and crown power amps, into two ampeg 810e's, two custom ampeg 218's, and 4 of those gigantic jbl pa tweeter horns from the 70's. says he likes to hear the pick scrape the string windings. i guess he does ;)
 
#24
knit the mix.. thats easy. distortion and overdrive are forms of compression. you get a track a little fuzzy and its going to sit well because its compressed all kinds of crazy.

clean bass needs to be compressed to fit in this well.

and i just like how mean overdrive sounds with some high mid boost. grindy.
 
#29
JimmyM said:
ya, johnny april from staind is another dude who likes to use a dead clean sound in hard rock. his rig is crazy...spector euro 5's into an avalon 737 and crown power amps, into two ampeg 810e's, two custom ampeg 218's, and 4 of those gigantic jbl pa tweeter horns from the 70's. says he likes to hear the pick scrape the string windings. i guess he does ;)
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His dead clean sound is so aggressive and heavy though. I tend to think of "clean" these days as anything that is a hifi and flat sound. Otherwise your hearing a lot of amp, speakers, distortion, or a combo of all three. Me? Can't stand clear and hifi. Got to have some edge, or be deep enough so that you can feel it more than hear it.
 
#31
Distortion sounds loud even if it's not as loud in the mix as a clean tone.
It's the harmonics that are typically quiet that have been brought up to level that are part of that magic, but also the clipping that changes the shape of the envelope of sound...

...so complex that I can't aptly describe it...but it sounds rich, loud, and slightly aggressive.
 
#32
As a rule, I try to avoid effects except in moderation, whether on guitar or bass, but this thread has me thinking about subtle overdrive/distortion for recording bass. Some of these explanations make sense. Thanks for the education!

Now, if it's not a thread hijack, what are some common OD/distortion stomps that work well with traditional flatwound Fender bass sound? Though I never use them, I collect dirtboxes when I see them cheap and must have a couple of dozen of the common ones. Strangely, I often see that bass distortion boxes are often ragged on pretty hard for bass here.
 
#33
Bongolation said:
As a rule, I try to avoid effects except in moderation, whether on guitar or bass, but this thread has me thinking about subtle overdrive/distortion for recording bass. Some of these explanations make sense. Thanks for the education!

Now, if it's not a thread hijack, what are some common OD/distortion stomps that work well with traditional flatwound Fender bass sound? Though I never use them, I collect dirtboxes when I see them cheap and must have a couple of dozen of the common ones. Strangely, I often see that bass distortion boxes are often ragged on pretty hard for bass here.
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only the boss bass overdrive ;) but even that will work well if you like its sound.

i think the two big mild od pedals these days for bass are the tech 21 vt bass and the fulltone sparkle drive. there are plenty of others, like the catalinbread sft, the ebs valvedrive, geez, so many others i can't even think of them. it's a lot better than it used to be, that's for sure.
 
#34
newbold said:
Distortion sounds loud even if it's not as loud in the mix as a clean tone.
It's the harmonics that are typically quiet that have been brought up to level that are part of that magic, but also the clipping that changes the shape of the envelope of sound...

...so complex that I can't aptly describe it...but it sounds rich, loud, and slightly aggressive.
Click to expand...

If you don't mind, would you like to explain more?
What u mean by "harmonics"? When i see this word i'm thinking the clipping of the waves, and each individual waves sound like chords.....whatever, I would like to learn more.
 
#37
Bongolation said:
As a rule, I try to avoid effects except in moderation, whether on guitar or bass, but this thread has me thinking about subtle overdrive/distortion for recording bass. Some of these explanations make sense. Thanks for the education!

Now, if it's not a thread hijack, what are some common OD/distortion stomps that work well with traditional flatwound Fender bass sound? Though I never use them, I collect dirtboxes when I see them cheap and must have a couple of dozen of the common ones. Strangely, I often see that bass distortion boxes are often ragged on pretty hard for bass here.
Click to expand...
Try the Fulltone Bass-Drive and OCD stompers. The Bass-Drive gets you into that big wooly territory and the OCD is a fairly transparent box tonally, so it works very well on bass. I slightly prefer the OCD's cutting dynamic, but I do have and love both of them.
 
#38
TOM274 said:
If you don't mind, would you like to explain more?
What u mean by "harmonics"? When i see this word i'm thinking the clipping of the waves, and each individual waves sound like chords.....whatever, I would like to learn more.
Click to expand...


ok I'm not very good at getting into the complexities of it but IMHO:
what it means is that the harmonics you hear from a clean sound are amplified when distorted,... grab a guitar or bass, play natural harmonics on the 5th fret and then play them with distortion turned on,... BIG difference,... this can help with lots of different tones and can bring out more,... not sure how to describe it but 'life' at times,... other times it can be used in overkill or different EQ on the pedal to fully change the tone which is sometimes described as cold or sterile... you may lose the fundemental sound alot (ie when distortion is fully cranked) so all you hear is buzz of different pitches and not the actual note but sometimes this can work well to create that wall of sound,...

other times its all just subtle distortion/overdrive that brings out the character (such as the cranked tube amp sound some pedals are aiming for now)... then you can explore different tones like the synthy artifical sounding ones, the more natural sounding ones, the crazy weird stuff etc etc etc :D

its half the reason why I love dirt,... and why I have so many distortion/fuzzes,... they can change your tone in so many ways that they are just awesome like that ;)

that said if you play in a band it all depends on your mix, I find clean or OD work in some situations, my mixed fuzz/clean via LS2 I only put on some songs (though funnily enough ive had reports from band/audience that a mixed clean/fuzz sounds better at times than the cranked OD). It all has its place though!
 
#39
honestly years ago when I was very young (many years ago...)
I used the cheapest fuzz box I could afford so that I had something besides boring old plain bass tone when I was jamming at home.
When I finally got in a band it helped get my bass up a little louder to compete with the guitars, drums and screaming punk rock vocals. The fuzz/od adds upper treble/midrange harmonics and compresses the signal so you can get more volume out of your 65 watt combo. Of course you wont be blowing them away with bottom end at that point.
After a while I grew to love it. I kind of got pigeon-holed as "that crazy distortion bassist."
These days I am going opposite. I lean towards a clean tone, but still like to have some natural tube/speaker drive going on.
Truth be told, I still have about 6 different fuzz boxes. And love to do surgery on them to make them better.
 

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