Worship Bass Pedalboards

[SemiDriven]

Although, I love coming here and looking at everyone's pedalboards, and reading about new gear and effects that comes out. I came to the realization, that nobody notices difference in my tone... no matter what I add or upgrade. I realized that from what Ian Martin Allison said in a video I can't find anymore, but what he said made a lot of sense, and it comes to mind when I see new pedals and DI's come out. He said, if you are happy with your tone, and it sounds good to you, the sound guys, and your audience, spending $1000's in pedals, preamps, DI's... etc... wouldn't really add much to what you already have. ROI wouldn't be much from the money spent....

Yep. Sigh....

The only complaint I have on my tone, is how the volunteers EQ and mix me through FOH. It varies week to week. Some days it sounds great... and some days people mention bass isn't loud enough. All I have control is what I hear in my IEM's... which is my personal obsession. I think I spend more money on improving the sound in my IEM's than trying/buying new pedals and basses.

And yep. Double sigh.

 

[projectapollo]

Love your boards! Your "fly rig" is fairly close to my actual board lol I would personally add a mini compressor at the beginning of the chain (I like having those controls handy) but the Kilt is great as well!

The small board may be just as effective as the larger one. I'm curious to try each and see.

 

[johnyrocksville]

Here is a small clip from today (may need headphones to really hear the bass). I tried something different today, normally I run a Sansamp at the end of my chain as a DI, but today I turned it off and used the Regal (Noble) preset in the HX One. I though it sounded pretty good in my IEMs and got some good feedback from FOH and our other bass player. Pay no attention to the horrific cable management, I am trying things in different places to see what I like best. Current iteration might be a winner

 

[Luke the Fluke]

I'm a weekend warrior as well!

I imagine most of us on this thread are. Unless all week worship services are a thing where you are?

 

[prndltech]

I imagine most of us on this thread are. Unless all week worship services are a thing where you are?

It actually has happened before!

most of us, yeah probably. But not all… and things change over time.

 

[MovingPitchers]

I'm on a 2-month hiatus which is set to end at the end of August, then a meeting with my pastor to discuss the break and all that, and then slowly being reinstated (I hope). In the meantime I've been helping with my friend's church's worship nights every other month since April and that's been a lot of fun but I might have to step down from that temporarily. My friend understands that and is thankful for my contributions no matter what.

 

[prndltech]

I'm on a 2-month hiatus which is set to end at the end of August, then a meeting with my pastor to discuss the break and all that, and then slowly being reinstated (I hope). In the meantime I've been helping with my friend's church's worship nights every other month since April and that's been a lot of fun but I might have to step down from that temporarily. My friend understands that and is thankful for my contributions no matter what.

I chose to take a 2 month break and it was really nice. Much needed.

 

[SteveC]

I think we start up September 8 after our summer hiatus.

 

[SKennedy32]

Sorry yes I definitely didn't mean to insinuate that the Darkglass and Capo were apples to apples . The way I'm running the Microtubes 200 is roughly how the guy in this video has it EQd at timestamp 4:30.





As someone who has used Aguilar for about a year now, or specifically the Tone Hammer, I'm inclined to agree with you (also not trying to throw shade) I still like aspects of it alot. I think it took awhile for my ear to place the way it does the mids isn't how I like to hear them? Like you said slightly honky/warbly is kind of how my ear hears it. I am however running it AGS always on, with gain at noon and the rest of the EQ at noon. And to my understanding of the AGS, the more the gain is pushed it pushes/saturates the mids even further.
To be honest I've used the TH so long I'm just a little afraid to pull it and start the experimentation of plugging new options in, but that seems to be what my ears are telling me

I've been eyeing the Grizzly the last few days, I know Miko, NickyBass, and a few others in here has spoken well of it too. I also have a SushiBox Underground Accelerator arriving tomorrow that I'm excited to play around with.

Also sorry, I didn't mean to derail the thread with technically non pedal talk, but this is about the only thread I do much gear chatting with. I mentioned more since it got the gears turning on still chasing "the tone".

The key with the Tonehammer with the AGS is to dial back the mids. What I like to do is turn the mids all the way up, and then play a note repeatedly while finding the "honky" mid frequency. Once it is found, I dial the mids back to around 9 o'clock or so. Typically the mid frequency is in that 9 o'clock range as well. I then bump the bass eq to around 1 and the highs to around 11 or 11:30 (depending on freshness of strings).

 

[Killens84]

I've taken screenshots of three Bethel bassists' Tone Hammer settings… Tanner Erickson, Adam Kiser, and David Funk. All three guys set their mid frequency dial between 9:30-10:30, and the mid level knob around 9:00-9:30.

 

[SteveC]

They seem to set their EHX pedal the same as well.

 

[Blille]

I imagine most of us on this thread are.

I'm not… I also play the Wednesday services lol

 

[Blille]

I've taken screenshots of three Bethel bassists' Tone Hammer settings… Tanner Erickson, Adam Kiser, and David Funk. All three guys set their mid frequency dial between 9:30-10:30, and the mid level knob around 9:00-9:30.
View attachment 7014376View attachment 7014377View attachment 7014378

This is great, I've been saving screenshots here and there and noticed the same.

 

[Killens84]

I have a Tone Hammer DI on the way. I've owned one before, but I used it clean with no AGS back then. I'm planning on using it with AGS for some breakup this time (for the core Bethel tone). It'll go on my church board.
I'm trying to decide two things:
1. Do I want to keep a compressor on my board? I'll have to experiment and see. The AGS circuit on the TH will compress the signal a bit already.
2. What do I want to use as a secondary drive pedal, going into the TH? I'm leaning towards the Schaffer Replica Bass-X. I already own an MBD-2, so I'll try it first before purchasing anything new.

 

[wolffire99]

2. What do I want to use as a secondary drive pedal, going into the TH? I'm leaning towards the Schaffer Replica Bass-X. I already own an MBD-2, so I'll try it first before purchasing anything new.

TH is a pretty "flavored" pedal, I personally wouldn't want to stack another "flavored" pedal with it. I think the DCX would go great stacked with the AGS circuit because of how transparent it is, especially in the low end. It also adds subtle 2/1-3/1 ratio of compression to my ears. I actually think it would sound even better with the Tone Hammer going into the DCX where you'd get the benefit of the adaptive EQ at the end of chain, but that wouldn't be an option of the TH was your DI.

I love the DCX so much I'll be running two on my board soon, so take the above as a pretty biased opinion.

 

[MascisMan]

I've taken screenshots of three Bethel bassists' Tone Hammer settings… Tanner Erickson, Adam Kiser, and David Funk. All three guys set their mid frequency dial between 9:30-10:30, and the mid level knob around 9:00-9:30.
View attachment 7014376View attachment 7014377View attachment 7014378

My guess is that is the dreaded 500Hz

 

[Zbysek]

My guess is that is the dreaded 500Hz

9 o'clock should be 385Hz according to post No. 4 in the following thread:

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/tone-hammer-di-appreciation-thread.1488330/

 

[MikoFX]

I have a Tone Hammer DI on the way. I've owned one before, but I used it clean with no AGS back then. I'm planning on using it with AGS for some breakup this time (for the core Bethel tone). It'll go on my church board.
I'm trying to decide two things:
1. Do I want to keep a compressor on my board? I'll have to experiment and see. The AGS circuit on the TH will compress the signal a bit already.
2. What do I want to use as a secondary drive pedal, going into the TH? I'm leaning towards the Schaffer Replica Bass-X. I already own an MBD-2, so I'll try it first before purchasing anything new.

As far as the 'core Bethel tone' goes a Bass tuned Rat is very much a part of the Bethel sound. Cali76 > OC-2 > EHX BMS > Modded ProCo Rat >TH AGS > RNDI

Having personally tried the 'Bethel Modded' Rat, as well as 12 or so other variants, I've found that I like the Blue Colander Tremond Mini the best.

Tanner @ Bethel added a Schaffer Bass-X to his board about a year ago, although I'm not sure if he's still using it. I picked one up on Black Friday last year and gave it a solid try for several months— I found it to be less of a drive and more of a tone sweetener with an emphasis on the upper mids. I ultimately decided to move it along due to the fact that it has side jacks & it being pretty darn subtle in the grand scheme of everything else I was running on my board.

 

[Killens84]

As far as the 'core Bethel tone' goes a Bass tuned Rat is very much a part of the Bethel sound. Cali76 > OC-2 > EHX BMS > Modded ProCo Rat >TH AGS > RNDI

Having personally tried the 'Bethel Modded' Rat, as well as 12 or so other variants, I've found that I like the Blue Colander Tremond Mini the best.

Tanner @ Bethel added a Schaffer Bass-X to his board about a year ago, although I'm not sure if he's still using it. I picked one up on Black Friday last year and gave it a solid try for several months— I found it to be less of a drive and more of a tone sweetener with an emphasis on the upper mids. I ultimately decided to move it along due to the fact that it has side jacks & it being pretty darn subtle in the grand scheme of everything else I was running on my board.

This is very helpful, thanks. That definitely takes the Schaffer off my radar. I'm going to look into the Blue Colander. I see Adam Kiser uses the Ages before his TH, but I've heard people say that pedal cuts a little bit of low end.

 

[Blille]

I have a Tone Hammer DI on the way. I've owned one before, but I used it clean with no AGS back then. I'm planning on using it with AGS for some breakup this time (for the core Bethel tone). It'll go on my church board.
I'm trying to decide two things:
1. Do I want to keep a compressor on my board? I'll have to experiment and see. The AGS circuit on the TH will compress the signal a bit already.
2. What do I want to use as a secondary drive pedal, going into the TH? I'm leaning towards the Schaffer Replica Bass-X. I already own an MBD-2, so I'll try it first before purchasing anything new.

I recently moved to a TH and I'm loving it. I still have a Compressor though. I was close to getting a Fuzzistor but for a bit of dirt stacking over a little bit more from the AGS I ended up with the EQD Special Cranker. As long as what you get doesn't have a lot of color I think you'll be fine.

I did consider getting a second Tonehammer and I still may. I don't understand how nobody has done a clone of the Tonehammer focusing on the AGS. Take off the DI, Bass and treble and you have an amazing AGS dirt pedal.

TH is a pretty "flavored" pedal, I personally wouldn't want to stack another "flavored" pedal with it. I think the DCX would go great stacked with the AGS circuit because of how transparent it is, especially in the low end. It also adds subtle 2/1-3/1 ratio of compression to my ears. I actually think it would sound even better with the Tone Hammer going into the DCX where you'd get the benefit of the adaptive EQ at the end of chain, but that wouldn't be an option of the TH was your DI.

I love the DCX so much I'll be running two on my board soon, so take the above as a pretty biased opinion.

Glad to hear that level of endorsement. I thought the DCX would be "too much" so I didn't really consider it.

As far as the 'core Bethel tone' goes a Bass tuned Rat is very much a part of the Bethel sound. Cali76 > OC-2 > EHX BMS > Modded ProCo Rat >TH AGS > RNDI

Having personally tried the 'Bethel Modded' Rat, as well as 12 or so other variants, I've found that I like the Blue Colander Tremond Mini the best.

Tanner @ Bethel added a Schaffer Bass-X to his board about a year ago, although I'm not sure if he's still using it. I picked one up on Black Friday last year and gave it a solid try for several months— I found it to be less of a drive and more of a tone sweetener with an emphasis on the upper mids. I ultimately decided to move it along due to the fact that it has side jacks & it being pretty darn subtle in the grand scheme of everything else I was running on my board.

What is that "Bethel" mod in normal pedal terms? Is it changing the caps for more bass?

I saw a Fuzzistor in Mat Ogden's board I think which would not be very different.