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What? No Overdrive?


Hobbayne
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Guest bassman7755

If someone criticised my sound at a gig I'd at least checkout what they were saying for myself to see if they had a point, maybe do a recording or get someone I know and trust with good ears to come and have a listen. So far though I've never had anyone complain and had plenty of complements on the sound.

Edited by bassman7755
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[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1451586667' post='2941717']
Thanks for all the comments.
I have ordered myself a cheap Behringer pedal to see if I like the overdriven sound. If not then its no great shakes at that price.
[/quote]


If it's the purple one... I doubt you'll like it much. It was my first overdrive for bass too and I was very disappointed at least.

I'd recommend something like the EHX Bass Soul Food. It is not expensive (about £55-60 new) and is good at the low gain overdrive sounds (but would do higher gain ones too).

The Danelectro Transparent Overdrive is cheaper (£35-40 new), and *can* give you some very good sounds if you take your time to work with it. It has a 2-band EQ that ensures you don't lose bottom end - a common problem on overdrives when used with bass unless designed for bass. But I'm talking about the CTO-1, the first version. The second version, available these days, is a little different and I don't know what it would be like with bass.

The Digitech Bad Monkey also has the 2-band EQ and can be made to produce some decent sounds. I prefer the Danelectro, but these may be easier to find (used, I don't think it's in production anymore) and sub £30 too.

I'd look for a used Bass Soul Food, personally. By the way, the youtube demos don't do a good job showing off this pedal, they don't really show low gain sounds, and even the higher gain ones can sound a lot better (to my ears!) than the tones they choose on the videos... but maybe that's just my taste. I just wanted to emphasise that it does a wide range of sounds, and my favourite ones are not on those videos.

Edited by mcnach
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[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1451686546' post='2942558']



If it's the purple one... I doubt you'll like it much. It was my first overdrive for bass too and I was very disappointed at least.

I'd recommend something like the EHX Bass Soul Food. It is not expensive (about £55-60 new) and is good at the low gain overdrive sounds (but would do higher gain ones too).

The Danelectro Transparent Overdrive is cheaper (£35-40 new), and *can* give you some very good sounds if you take your time to work with it. It has a 2-band EQ that ensures you don't lose bottom end - a common problem on overdrives when used with bass unless designed for bass. But I'm talking about the CTO-1, the first version. The second version, available these days, is a little different and I don't know what it would be like with bass.

The Digitech Bad Monkey also has the 2-band EQ and can be made to produce some decent sounds. I prefer the Danelectro, but these may be easier to find (used, I don't think it's in production anymore) and sub £30 too.

I'd look for a used Bass Soul Food, personally. By the way, the youtube demos don't do a good job showing off this pedal, they don't really show low gain sounds, and even the higher gain ones can sound a lot better (to my ears!) than the tones they choose on the videos... but maybe that's just my taste. I just wanted to emphasise that it does a wide range of sounds, and my favourite ones are not on those videos.
[/quote]

Pretty much exactly this - especially the Bass Soul Food. Wouldn't be without mine.

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[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1451512572' post='2941206']
Strange experience today. Played an afternoon pub gig with my classic rock covers band which went rather well. Until I was approached by a man in the toilets :blush:
Turns out he was the bass player with another classic rock band who came along to listen.
Basically, he told me that my bass sound was sh*t and I should use an overdrive on the bass guitar albeit subtely.
I dont really use effects apart from a chorus pedal and dont see the point of having the bass overdriven when we have two guitars fighting it out for supremacy.
I had my Nate Mendel Precision into a Markbass CMD 121 with a NY 121 ext cab.
What do you guys think? Maybe some overdrive for classic rock bass?
[/quote]

Should have turned towards him suddenly with a look of shock and horror and 'accidentally' pissed all over his Cuban heels

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A lot of bass players don't like overdrive because they've only ever tried pedals like the Boss ODB-3 (and I assume the Behringer is probably similar) which is a horrible sounding distortion. I love mine though, but I only use it when I want to sound horrible!

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I'm not sure whether I really like "classic rock" all that much myself...or at least, I'm very selective. More than one person has suggested the offender in this story has been listening with his eyes, and I think my problem with "classic" rock is that a large chunk of its audience have become incredibly conservative about what they deem to be "correct*" - i.e., thou shalt play only Fender/Gibson/Rick, thou shalt play an SVT, thou shalt run it into a back-breaking fridge of a cab, thou shalt use the word "party" as a verb. For a genre that was supposed to be all about breaking the rules, it's amazing how many unwritten ones they've put in place. I say this as somebody who's perfectly happy to run a valve head hell-for-leather, but is very aware that it's personal preference. If you like your MarkBass amp then just ignore him!


[size=2]*See [url="https://thecrowfrombelow.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/living-in-the-past/"]https://thecrowfromb...ng-in-the-past/[/url] for a longer rant on that subject...[/size]

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Whilst tone is a very personal thing... it [u]is[/u] worth experimenting. Today's ultra-clean amps are light-years away from the classic '70s amps in terms of tone, so if you're playing in that genre, you should at least investigate...

Personally I find this over-driven tone glorious... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwhMw5lwzNg

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There are so many threads complaining about other band members' inappropriate tone settings, so maybe we shouldn't be so quick to slag of the punter and his comments without actually hearing the band in question for ourselves.

I was very much a clean sound only bass player (except when I was using it fuzz or distortion as a specific effect) for the first 20 years. That was until, in a previous band I swapped to guitar and noticed that my replacement on bass was always dialling in a touch of overdrive on his bass sounds and even when he was playing exactly the same bass lines as I had been doing his sound sat far more comfortably in the band mix. Since then unless the song calls for an ultra-clean bass sound I always have at least a tiny amount of drive to my bass tone.

And after seeing T M Stevens at one of the Manchester Bass Days, and hearing how punchy and well defined his bass sounded in the band mix but when he was playing without the rest of the band just how much distortion he was using...

It may well be that the OP's bass sound is perfectly fine as it is, but I am sure that a small amount of the [b]RIGHT KIND [/b]of drive/distortion will make it even better in the context of the overall band sound.

Edited by BigRedX
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I fancy we're more slagging off the manner of the criticism, not necessarily the content. Saying someone's tone is 'unpleasant' is hardly good etiquette. Asking if said player had tried using overdrive is a far less confrontational way of making your thoughts known.

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  • 2 months later...

Having been using overdrive for a few months now, I was wondering how subtley people use it. For example, our 2 guitarists both use overdrive so would using it on the bass as well, be too much??

Edited by Hobbayne
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[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1451745942' post='2943027']
For a genre that was supposed to be all about breaking the rules, it's amazing how many unwritten ones they've put in place.
[/quote]

+1

People who consider themselves outsiders or anti-authority are always much more concerned about pedigree/credibility than everyone else.

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I once had a guy come up after a show to slag off my guitarist. The bloke seemed to be a clone of "Brittas" from the telly.

I politely listened for 5 mins as he told me I needed to replace the guitarist with someone who knew how to play. He then said he would be happy to come along to a rehearsal to help....

Then I took great pride informing him that said guitarist was beyond grade 8 standard and played in one of the military bands and that I wasn't actually aware of a single piece of guitar music in existence she couldn't sight-read flawlessly. (She was a bit of a non-improv sight reading robot, but I've never had a punter complain about nailing solos perfectly!).

She really was phenomenal and the bloke was a twat.

I loved that band. The drummer was great. Not in a particularly technical way, but there was that wonderful bassist & drummer shared intuition that happens far too rarely.

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[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1458419248' post='3007557']
Generally, if you are doing covers and you have the ability to switch tones during a gig you just choose a tone similar to the original tune for each song?
[/quote]
[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1458463739' post='3007696']
You'd be surprised! Many don't.
[/quote]

I just modify my plucking style and use my tone control to suit the bass tone to the song. I don't obsess about exactly replicating the sound on the original recording, I just go for something that works and sounds 'right' to me in context.

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I like overdrive from time to time, but I found in a metal band with 2 guitarists filling the sound with distortion that a clean fat bass tone worked better for me. I would definitely recommend trying a nice drive or distortion pedal, but only use it if or when you feel it's appropriate.

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