Worship Bass Pedalboards

[DistroHopper]

How is the VTDI? I keep toying with getting one to try out for church

Besides my tuner, it's the pedal I've had the longest. It sounds really great, and haven't had any noise complaints or issues with the DI on it, the ground lift helps with that. I mainly just keep it flat, with a slight boost in the mids and treble so I'm not lost in the mix.

 

[Rayjay]

I'm a drummer turned bassist. I know sticks, heads, shell sizes, cymbals etc. Soundgear is still new to me and trying to remain a mystery so pardon ignorance and let me ask a sincere question. I have a bass with two pickups and a 3 band equalizer on board. I have a GK Fusion 550 with so many adjustments it's crazy. Why would I and what would I do with more control options offered by pedals????

Just my $0.02....

If you're feeling like you have enough options right now, keep it simple and don't add anything.

If you feel inundated or intimidated by the options you have now, certainly don't add anything to your chain. Get to know the gear you have well, and the intricacies of all the different tonal options (including left and right hand techniques - those have a bit impact on tone). Start by setting everything flat - get used to that sound.

The most simple setups might start with either a compressor (which doesn't change your tone, as much as it evens it out), or a preamp with a driver for some mild grind.

The best advice I ever got: K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, sweetie!) OK they didn't say sweetie, but still.

 

[SteveC]

I have a bass with two pickups and a 3 band equalizer on board. I have a GK Fusion 550 with so many adjustments it's crazy. Why would I and what would I do with more control options offered by pedals????

Well, my basses are both 2 pickup, 3 band eq as well. I don't use anything more. I have a tuner/mute pedal, an MXR M87 compressor and a Radial JDI. I sometimes think I want more, for variety if nothing else, but when I listen, most worship music sounds like it's coming through a similar set up - maybe a little drive from an amp. I play with a guitar payer who make good/judicious use of effects and a keyboard player using 3 keyboards and a MacBook Pro so there's no shortage of tones and fill. He will set up a pedal pad on the synth, use one foot to sustain that, then play something on one keyboard an maybe even do organ fills or leads on the other. In my situation (as much as I'd like to try some stuff) I think I best serve the music by playing a solid foundation, inserting some tasty fills when appropriate and letting others fill and dress up the rest of the sonic space.

 

[RockinBass85]

I'm a drummer turned bassist. I know sticks, heads, shell sizes, cymbals etc. Soundgear is still new to me and trying to remain a mystery so pardon ignorance and let me ask a sincere question. I have a bass with two pickups and a 3 band equalizer on board. I have a GK Fusion 550 with so many adjustments it's crazy. Why would I and what would I do with more control options offered by pedals????

It begins with the sound you're after and the sound and style of your worship team. Pedals don't have to be complicated.

For a basic clean sound, something as simple as a just having a compressor pedal is enough. The compressor evens out the volume differences in your playing, makes your picking, slapping, and finger style sound more consistent and even. I like my MXR Bass Comp, it was my first "expensive" pedal but it's my "always-on" pedal now.

After that some people like to be able to fine tune their EQ. Whether it's to tighten their bass sound, cut through the band mix better, or to enhance the tone of some other effect further down the chain. There are pedals that do this, and allow the EQ change to be activated and deactivated via foot switch.

Last in the clean setup is a good Preamp/DI like Tech21 NYC, or the Boss BB-1X, or the Aguilar Tone Hammer. This allows you to send your signal to FOH unaffected by your stage rig. It can be necessary if your stage rig affects your bass signal negatively (adds ground noise, stage EQ might sound terrible through the house system, etc). I had those two problems bad.

That's just for a clean setup. You could add a tuner pedal that'll mute your signal while you tune, an added convenience.

Further on down the line, other effects come into play. Effects like overdrive, chorus, and delay all have their purpose; think of it as painting with a more elaborate palette of colors. Effect pedals allow you to be more creative with your musical self expression. Within a band setting, effects can help to tie the band sound together. It boils down to whether you like what you hear, and whether it works with your team's style.

This is an example of how I use my effects. This weekend we played Chris Tomlin's Sing, Sing, Sing. We play it as a pop alt rock tune so I used my Bass Soul Food overdrive with my neck pickup. I had a thick p-bass style tone with a bit of overdrive. Next was How He Loves by Crowder, straight clean soloing my bridge pickup for more of a jazz bass tone, with bass boosted all the way on my Preamp. Never Stop by Urban Rescue, it has a strong driven rock vibe the way we play it, so I used my OBD-3 because it's setup to have a heavier overdrive with some bass boost. Soloed the neck pup and ask the guitarist for a pick. Sounded awesome. Last was Praise You In The Storm by Casting Crowns. Both pups on, clean with a bit of bass and treble boost on my onboard Preamp. All the while, having my compressor on and having my Tone Hammer engaged with my choice of EQ settings on it.

Effect pedals are fun but not necessary. I tried to be thorough with my explanations so i hope it helps.

 

[dmc79]

Besides my tuner, it's the pedal I've had the longest. It sounds really great, and haven't had any noise complaints or issues with the DI on it, the ground lift helps with that. I mainly just keep it flat, with a slight boost in the mids and treble so I'm not lost in the mix.

Thanks, sounds good. In the meantime I've just got an MXR M80 at bargain new price.

Anyone using the M80 for worship? I seem to recall some of you do. . . What settings do you like and do use use the distortion side at all ?

 

[Rocksolid]

Please let us know how these sound when you get you yours.
Johno!

My Neutrik DI arrived yesterday. It's tiny! It's about as long as my Joyo American sound is wide. On my board I could actually run it across the top of this pedal to give me room for other things...but I haven't - yet. I A/B'd it through a Powered Speaker with my Rolls PM351 and also an ART Pre I had handy. The ART Pre is marginally better but the Neutrik one sounds great! Solid tone, seems quiet, no apparent loss of highs or lows. Pretty happy with it!

 

[tprestonbass]

Thanks, sounds good. In the meantime I've just got an MXR M80 at bargain new price.

Anyone using the M80 for worship? I seem to recall some of you do. . . What settings do you like and do use use the distortion side at all ?

I've been using it for a couple years. I typically dont use the distortion side because I have separate pedals for dirt. Ive used the color switch on mostly, but starting to prefer having more mids for cutting through a mix when I'm playing a cool line. Great pedal that has served me well.

 

[dmc79]

I've been using it for a couple years. I typically dont use the distortion side because I have separate pedals for dirt. Ive used the color switch on mostly, but starting to prefer having more mids for cutting through a mix when I'm playing a cool line. Great pedal that has served me well.

Thanks. The color button scoops the mids when pressed in right? So you have to bump them up in the EQ to compensate?

I will play around with it some more, I can't decide if I like the tubey sound of the colored clean channel as I've never had anything tubey before.

I do like the clean channel with just some slight EQ tweaking and volume boost though.

It does seem you get quite a bit for your money with the M80 but opinion is really split on the distortion channel. Seems ok if you keep the blend & gain down low

 

[danster]

I've been using my M80 for a couple years as well. Clean channel with mids boosted. OD channel with minimal gain and blend -subtle OD. Yeah, the color button does scoop mids a little. I go direct to house. Works well. You can also use the parallel out to go to amp...

 

[tprestonbass]

Thanks. The color button scoops the mids when pressed in right? So you have to bump them up in the EQ to compensate?

I will play around with it some more, I can't decide if I like the tubey sound of the colored clean channel as I've never had anything tubey before.

I do like the clean channel with just some slight EQ tweaking and volume boost though.

It does seem you get quite a bit for your money with the M80 but opinion is really split on the distortion channel. Seems ok if you keep the blend & gain down low

I absolutely agree that it is an excellent value. If you can grab it used for $80 like I did, you will be overjoyed with it. I don't have any experience with other similar DI's in the same tier like the sansamp or aguilar, but from a $/tonez perspective it's hard for me to imagine they are worth the additional dollars. I feel like I will likely keep the M80 as my DI until I buy a tube DI like the REDDI or, more likely, the Broughton.

 

[RockinBass85]

Hey y'all I posted about redoing my pedalboard about a week or so ago. I ended up returning the Neunaber Wet Verb. The Wet Reverb was nice, but the way they have me setup at church, the monitor feed became very muddy and undefined with it on. Not what I was expecting at all. I'm repackaging to return the DD-500. Don't waste your money on the DD-500. I think I'm either going to focus on a Zoom CDR or an MS-60B. Can be found on the cheap second hand.

Since then I got a behringer powerplay p1 at a steal on reverb. I also picked up a Squier VM P Bass V in CAR from there too at a good price. Pretty excited about the P Bass. It's going to be my poor man's Mike Lull, since I have a pair of Aguilar Super Doubles sitting around.

 

[Bill A]

You guys inspired me to post my pedalboard.

Bass -> SpectraComp -> 1LoopBox Effects Loop -> DT-1 Tuner -> Zoom MS-60B -> SansAmp VT Bass DI or Bass Driver DI v1

 

[Rocksolid]

You guys inspired me to post my pedalboard.

I assume you are using the Line Selector to take the MS-60B in and out so you can change patches on the fly? IMO this setup makes the MS60B infinitely more useable in a live setting.

Nice board.

 

[RockinBass85]

I assume you are using the Line Selector to take the MS-60B in and out so you can change patches on the fly? IMO this setup makes the MS60B infinitely more useable in a live setting.

Nice board.

How would he be able to do that? I had a zoom CDR and the only way I could change patches was by bending over and scrolling to the next patch via the black buttons. Not trying to be mean, I just don't get how that'd help him switch patches.

 

[RockinBass85]

So something interesting happened today. I was contacted by the vendor I purchased my p bass from. He said the red Squier p bass v I ordered had sold out prior to my order submission. So he offered to order me a brand new p bass. I had two choices, Olympic white or 3 tone sunburst, because Fender has officially discontinued Candy Apple Red. He said he would give me the bass at the b stock price I had paid. I thought that was very cool.

 

[Rocksolid]

How would he be able to do that? I had a zoom CDR and the only way I could change patches was by bending over and scrolling to the next patch via the black buttons. Not trying to be mean, I just don't get how that'd help him switch patches.

On the MS60B you can put all your patches in a sequence (a,b,c,d etc) I can't remember the name of the function. You can tap thru them with the foot switch. With the line selector keeping it out of the chain, scrolling thru the patches doesn't effect the sound. You can then drop it back in on the right patch. It's how I use mine, and it is so useful used like this.

 

[Adamixoye]

So there was a guy on TB who 3D printed a little part that allowed you to access the side black buttons with a foot press. He was selling them for a nominal fee ($10 shipped). I have access to a 3D printer so instead of buying from him I got the file and printed my own. It works reasonably well. It's not for in-song changes but for between songs it's fine. So you can set up your six effects in your chain and then scroll between them with the side buttons.

 

[RockinBass85]

On the MS60B you can put all your patches in a sequence (a,b,c,d etc) I can't remember the name of the function. You can tap thru them with the foot switch. With the line selector keeping it out of the chain, scrolling thru the patches doesn't effect the sound. You can then drop it back in on the right patch. It's how I use mine, and it is so useful used like this.

Oh ok that's pretty cool then! Lol thanks for explaining it to me

 

[Bill A]

Oh ok that's pretty cool then! Lol thanks for explaining it to me

That's how I use it, changing the patches while bypassed. Most of the time I have the zoom bypassed as it affects the tone of the bass.

I mostly use the MS-60B for synth bass patches on certain songs and diamonds, up the grit with the SVT patch for playing with a pick or the Jaco patch for pseudo fretless sounds. You can listen and watch me change the patches on this video. CCF Edmonds, 2/19/2017 Thanks guys!

 

[Rocksolid]

Well getting the Neutrik DI gave me ideas about trying to get my pedal juice on my Nano to power it. I was either going to have to buy a smaller compressor Pedal, or tuner to make it happen, and don't want to buy any more of either of those things. So I've purchased a Dr J Sparrow to replace my American sound and the DI. Pedal juice will fit perfectly across the top of the Sparrow. I can use the Neutrik DI with my PA.