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Worship Bass Pedalboards
- Thread starter Cshanks5
- Start date
Most Church worship teams I know of plug in "direct" and sound very "canned" to the point that they might as well just have a pre-recorded track! The bass is usually horribly squashed and compressed with little highs or mids so it is lost in the kick drum and both are horribly EQ'd to the point that it is completely muddy with standing waves and resonant frequencies drowning everything else out! Adding any effects to something like that would be like polishing a turd!
First get your sound man squared away and then I personally would keep the effects very simple. A Sansamp Pre-DI or something similar would be essential. I would add something that would warm it up for a nice "Tubey" sound, a compressor, and a tuner - that's pretty much all you need IMO. The rest would be "Gear Candy" that may look impressive but rarely if ever use.
First get your sound man squared away and then I personally would keep the effects very simple. A Sansamp Pre-DI or something similar would be essential. I would add something that would warm it up for a nice "Tubey" sound, a compressor, and a tuner - that's pretty much all you need IMO. The rest would be "Gear Candy" that may look impressive but rarely if ever use.
Adamixoye
A PT Pro is cool for worship, right?
- Apr 9, 2012
- 18,158
- 69,338
- Disclosures
- Occasional Beta Tester for Confusion Studios, Singular Sound, and Source Audio
I guess I've been wasting my life for 87 pages.
We are DI/IEM and I wouldn't say we sound canned at all. Our sound guy is there every week with us and has us mixed just fine. He also mixes our cover band.
I generally agree about effects. I have a Boss TU-2, into a slightly driven Boss BB-1X, into a Radial JDI. I don't use a preamp as I find my Roscoe (3 band active Bart) gives me enough control of my tone. I have used an Avalon in the past - not really a SansAmp fan - and if it were more compact I'd probably still use one.
I like to keep my "rig" as small as possible. A Pedaltrain Nano+ (I use the same board for church and secular so I need room for a Filter pedal and my Rolls IEM receiver) and a couple cables and I'm good to go.
I'm debating using my old Nano as my "secular" effects board and just add it on to my church board when I do those gigs. That way my church board could be just those few things I need and when I do a cover gig I could bring the effects board and add it in the chain. Might be more trouble than it's worth as I use so few effects. Filter is all right now, but I could see an octave and anther more driven drive as well.
I think if you are mixed well and know what you're doing, effects can add a lot. I haven't in the past but that doesn't mean I 'm not curious and well done videos like the one I shared are fairly inspiring.
The bass on the first Petra album has some of the best tone ever! Not sure if it is well suited for the average "Worship Team" setting today but it is definitely what I would be going for! Probably very simple too - P-Bass straight into an old Ampeg Fliptop would be my guess.
I don't have a SansAmp either, just saying some sort of preamp/DI where you can control your tone somewhat before it goes over to the sound guy. Ampeg has something out right now that I would probably look into if the need arose. Avalon preamps are really nice but really expensive and don't they go in a rack? I have been using an ART Studio V3 which gives me a really nice, warm tone and when I put it through my bass head, I get some killer tone that is the envy of other bass players! Haven't used it in a Church setting though. Been years since I was on a "Worship Team."
They can be racked but it takes 2 full spaces and is fairly heavy - about 12 pounds.
ummmmm just a bit of trolling in the "Worship Pedal Boards" thread. Let's see:
1) keep effects to a min
2) most churches sound awful
3) anything beyond the basics is a waste of time
Did I get all of it? You might mean well, and might even be correct on some level, but a thread about pedal boards in the context of worship music is not really the place to weigh in against the basic theme.
Now that I have basically limited myself to one bass (for the forseable future anyway) I need to have something else to research for a while. Nothing wrong with a little experimentation and research to kill some time and learn a little. I learned a lot while cycling through 70+ basses over the last 15 years or so.
Here's what I liked (never thought of) from that video I posted of the guy who plays with Jesus Culture:
I don't use dirt at church but I could use some for the cover band. May try a Big Muff in the smaller form. May find a use for a couple tunes at church.
The way he uses his EQ pedal as a hi cut of sorts. I could see using that where everyone drops out for the inevitable slow build. Take some edge/highs off until everyone is back in.
The delay/volume thing sounds very cool. If we did a song that had a part like that I'd consider buying all the things just to do that. Maybe I can find other tunes where that could be applied.
I don't use dirt at church but I could use some for the cover band. May try a Big Muff in the smaller form. May find a use for a couple tunes at church.
The way he uses his EQ pedal as a hi cut of sorts. I could see using that where everyone drops out for the inevitable slow build. Take some edge/highs off until everyone is back in.
The delay/volume thing sounds very cool. If we did a song that had a part like that I'd consider buying all the things just to do that. Maybe I can find other tunes where that could be applied.
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My church uses IEMs, an electric kit, and no bass amp, and while the awful sterility is there, the tradeoff of playing with an electric kit and quiet guitarists is wonderful. My personal mix (thank you Lord for Avioms) is click, cues, me, and a smidgen of kit. There is enough house bleed to suffice for everything else. Sure, it's canned music, but hey... And yes, it's horribly compressed, but we're a great band (if I say so myself) so swings and roundabouts.
Oh, in keeping with the theme of the thread, I used to have a plethora of effects, but I've whittled it down to just chorus and delay, but I'm ALL for effects and experimentation, so long as it serves the song, the music and (in this context) the Lord.
That's all that you need
Nice board!
What do you use the programmable EQ for? Do you use more than one setting?
I've been doing a worship team gig pretty steady since 1990. I've played through an amp for most of my tenure, ampless D.I. for part of it, but recently we went to running bass into the p.a. again. Right now, my SABBDI, the older version without the mids tone section, with a Whirlwind Bass 10 e.q. pedal to further tweak what I need, and cut what I don't need, is working fine for the F.O.H. mix, and giving me what I need to hear in our old school wedge monitors. I sometimes use an older Zoom multi-effects pedal every so often, as the chorus and other modulation effects aren't half bad. We talk of going IEM down the road, and that might come about in a year if we merge with another church in our congregation to form a new church, which doesn't have a contemporary worship team at the moment. I'm probably gonna' rethink my current pedal line up anyways, as going ampless D.I. seems to be where this is going to stay.
I use the SVT setting that is so widely praised in the mega thread. When I get a chance to pull it up I'll post more.
My church use to run IEM only, the music leader left. We went almost 1 1/2 years with the music leader duties split between two guys who did a great job. One of the leaders actually suggested I bring my amp (at the time I had an old, borrowed, HEAVY, Yorkville combo) and it worked great, still sent my signal from a Sansamp and used the Amp for a monitor. Surprise, We had several bass players suddenly volunteer, one of whom was a very good player, and he left his rig there for all the players (Quilter/ 112). We grew during that time period from about 300 to about 1100 and actually merged with another church and much larger auditorium. The guy who was leaving his rig moved, so I bring mine now. We are about to start with a new full time leader, so it will be interesting to see his feeling on the amp on stage, but I've already talked with him and suspect it won't be a problem. I still keep a pedalboard rig, with modern church music, with tracks, heavy synth, sometimes you need some good color. But my basic tone, Sadowsky MV5 into a subway works. Ultimately I plan to get a Tech21 Q strip, Broughton or if I hit the lotto a Noble for a pre, but here's the rig now.
Yet another adjustment to my Nano board... I've got a Darkglass AOm (Omicron) in-coming, which will go on my Classic Jr...but the VMT worked great on my Nano today, for just a little fatter tone (and volume) when I want it.
I've been preferring taking the Nano (over my Classic Jr) board and running it into my Jule Monique tube preamp...a really nice "buttery" bass tone!
I've been preferring taking the Nano (over my Classic Jr) board and running it into my Jule Monique tube preamp...a really nice "buttery" bass tone!
Here's the pedal board I use with our worship team. Signal chain is: MXR Bass Compressor -> Boss TU3 Tuner -> TC Electronic Corona Chorus -> Mesa Subway DI. I send a direct signal to the front of the house (post EQ) and a reference signal to the effects return of the GK. Generally, I use a Fender 5 string Jazz Bass with Duncan quarter pounders and hipshot high mass bridge type A. The board is homemade.
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