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Worship Bass Pedalboards
- Thread starter Cshanks5
- Start date
So after a week of playing through my new pedal setup I wanted to share some things about the new pedals I recently purchased.
I recently added an SA Aftershock, BOSS BF-2B Flanger, EHX Micro Qtron, and an MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe to my setup.
The MXR BFD really compliments the EHX Micro Qtron. The fuzz gives it a bassballs quality. I was surprised and disappointed with the Micro Qtron. Surprised because it sounds pleasant when you find the sweet spot for your bass and playing style. Disappointed because it's practically a one trick pony for me, and the one thing it does do well was not really the tone I was initially going for anyway. The biggest drawback for it has been that as I play, I get that "pew-pew" feedback as part of the envelope filter. Reminds me of disco music and toy laser blasters from the 80s, but it's not something I find pleasant or useful for our style of music.
The BOSS BF-2B came straight from Japan. Not a fan of it. I purchased it mistakenly, confusing it for a phase effect. Still, not suitable for my needs.
The Source Audio Aftershock is amazing. Great dirt pedal! The plethora of effects and parameters is excellent. I chose to download and install patches from other users and tweak them to suit me. For my tube preset I have a B7K patch which is perfect for a low key dirt, great low end, but can still be pumped up to near full on distortion. For heavy, I kept the stock Heavy setting. Reminds me of the SVT tone stack but better sounding distortion. For fuzz, I loaded a gated octave synth fuzz. Totally awesome effect!
Im keeping the Aftershock but I want to get rid of the other pedals and so I put the for sale or trade on the classifieds section.
I recently added an SA Aftershock, BOSS BF-2B Flanger, EHX Micro Qtron, and an MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe to my setup.
The MXR BFD really compliments the EHX Micro Qtron. The fuzz gives it a bassballs quality. I was surprised and disappointed with the Micro Qtron. Surprised because it sounds pleasant when you find the sweet spot for your bass and playing style. Disappointed because it's practically a one trick pony for me, and the one thing it does do well was not really the tone I was initially going for anyway. The biggest drawback for it has been that as I play, I get that "pew-pew" feedback as part of the envelope filter. Reminds me of disco music and toy laser blasters from the 80s, but it's not something I find pleasant or useful for our style of music.
The BOSS BF-2B came straight from Japan. Not a fan of it. I purchased it mistakenly, confusing it for a phase effect. Still, not suitable for my needs.
The Source Audio Aftershock is amazing. Great dirt pedal! The plethora of effects and parameters is excellent. I chose to download and install patches from other users and tweak them to suit me. For my tube preset I have a B7K patch which is perfect for a low key dirt, great low end, but can still be pumped up to near full on distortion. For heavy, I kept the stock Heavy setting. Reminds me of the SVT tone stack but better sounding distortion. For fuzz, I loaded a gated octave synth fuzz. Totally awesome effect!
Im keeping the Aftershock but I want to get rid of the other pedals and so I put the for sale or trade on the classifieds section.
Have a BF-"B in the loft I've not used for 20 odd years but here's a hint to try. It's very much a flanger and not a phaser but try using it with the resonance control right on minimum and it does a passable impersonation of a Boss Chorus effect. Not as lush as a CE-2B but in the ball park. It might still not float your boat but it's still a chance that it might find a use.
I play bass mostly for the worship band, with electric guitar and mandolin as rare other instruments.
I'm using a Boss GT-100 with a EH Freeze and a EH POG2, followed by a VP Jr with the buffer mod by Dan Burgess in the effects loop. The effects loop is used mainly for pad if we don't have a keys player or an electric guitar. Now and then I use a patch in the POG2 that gives me an octave down in addition to the dry signal when I need a deep synth bass sound like in the Hillsong Y&F stuff. Works great for all my instruments.
I'm using a Boss GT-100 with a EH Freeze and a EH POG2, followed by a VP Jr with the buffer mod by Dan Burgess in the effects loop. The effects loop is used mainly for pad if we don't have a keys player or an electric guitar. Now and then I use a patch in the POG2 that gives me an octave down in addition to the dry signal when I need a deep synth bass sound like in the Hillsong Y&F stuff. Works great for all my instruments.
Sometimes I miss my GT6B, but I think that the GT-100 sounds better than the 6 did, plus it switches patches just noticeably faster (to me at least, YMMV). Wish that the 100 had XLR out like the 6B. Great rig.
Well not spectacular but it gets the job done. The sleeper on this board is the tight drive, it does SVT about as good as anything. I run a Mesa Subway with a 210 cab in church, and run out of the Mesa's DI to the board.
The VT does a pretty good almost great Ampeg B15 but when you push it for heavier sounds it doesn't hold the low end as well. The Tightdrive is an SVT in a box and it will do HEAVY drive tones with a dry low end. I like it for filling in the mix when we don't have a electric guitar player or on a heavier tune when the guitar is playing a solo line. I wanted the closest thing I could get to Dug Pinnock in a box.
My latest. Amazing tones, DI out of my Ampeg PF350 to FOH. Does everything I could possibly need.
I'm debating going "all in" on a board - mostly for my secular band - but it would probably get hauled to church as well as I don't want two boards. I have debated the new Zoom as people seem to really like it. Sure beats having a giant board with 7-8 pedals on it. Don't need multiples of different pedals for different tunes with is nice. One drive for light tube sound, one for distortion, one for fuzz, a chorus, a filter, an octave, a chorus....
As much as I'd like to like the ease and convenience of a multi, I just can't quite get over some of the limitations. It seems having them all available at any time instead of scrolling patches is more useful. I don't know.
The other issue is I rarely if ever feel the need for effects at church, and in the cover band, it's like maybe 1-2 in 10 songs "need" something. Is it with it to have chorus for those couple of 80's tunes. Or the filter for a couple tunes. etc. etc. It seems you are either an effects user or you are clean. Never seems to babe much middle ground. Right now I'm bass, tuner, JDI, board. Pretty simple. really clean. Sounds great...but...
The other issue is I rarely if ever feel the need for effects at church, and in the cover band, it's like maybe 1-2 in 10 songs "need" something. Is it with it to have chorus for those couple of 80's tunes. Or the filter for a couple tunes. etc. etc. It seems you are either an effects user or you are clean. Never seems to babe much middle ground. Right now I'm bass, tuner, JDI, board. Pretty simple. really clean. Sounds great...but...
I had been that way; bass, cable, amp or DI for 25 years plus. Now that I do use some pedals I want ones that sound great and so that means not being satisfied with an all in one box. For me it also meant putting together something I can use in church or elsewhere that I am super comfortable using and doesn't distract me.
Drives/distortion/fuzz is where I get in trouble. Can't find what I want for an "always on" slightly driven tube kind of thing. Just a touch. My guitar player has 4 different whatever's for different levels of drive.
Filter, chorus, octave are pretty easy. I could buy those in town in a heartbeat. The drives...not sure what to do.
Filter, chorus, octave are pretty easy. I could buy those in town in a heartbeat. The drives...not sure what to do.
When I don't plug into my V4b I play always on the Darkglass VMT and the HPF to emulate a tube amp tone.
What you want may or may not exist in 1 pedal. On my big board (I have a couple), I have a bearfoot blueberry, and another drive setup, which uses:
1) A one control blender pedal - splits the signal, and sends part to:
2) a Darkglass VMT, which distorts it. It then goes through:
3) a BMC (bass middle control) where I goose up the upper mids (about 1.5 kHz). Then it goes back to the blender pedal, and gets mixed with the dry signal. I haven't found any pedals that , in one box, do what I want, so at least for now, it's 3 pedals to make just a little of just the right kind of dirt - but not too much. I typically use that when there's only one electric guitarist on a song or two here or there; to fill in some of the spectrum that a second guitar would occupy. It's at a level where noone would say the bass is distorted, but if you took it away, they'd notice "something" was missing.
Right. The "I can't tell it's on but know when it's gone" thing is so hard. I'll keep experimenting. Unfortunately we don't have a huge selection locally and I don't know if I want to start the in and out game with pedals. I;ll keep trying my local options and see. I definitely want control of clean and effect, like the MXR Envelope Filter, most octave pedals, etc. We'll see how it goes. Fortunately I have a guy at a local store (my guitar player) so I can take stuff and try before I buy.
The SA Aftershock can do all that. In fact what you have described is a pretty good description of one of the presets that I have, other than maybe the specific mid bump frequency. But Darkglass emulator, Tweak-able EQ application, and a few ways to blend in this case, either via parallel processing or just a standard blend.
Personally I love playing with lots of dirt and then blending the clean back in so the dirt is just subtle and maybe pops a bit more as you dig in.
