I've had it with effects pedals

[Guest MoJo]

I used to have a modest number of effect pedals (chorus, exciter/limiter, compressor, overdrive)...then I convinced myself I just had to have a Boss GT-6B. About a month later, I questioned why I would need the choice of umpteen different distortions, compressors, choruses etc etc and the Boss went on eBay. Back to my pedal board then....

This morning however, I set up my pedal board, amp and cabinet and started to experiment with different settings on my Tech 21 VT bass pedal and my Exciter/Limiter, but the more I twiddled, the further away I got from a sound I liked. In frustration, I unplugged from the board and plugged directly into my amp....eureka! That's the sound I'm looking for....

Why do I have all these pedals when I only use a little bit of chorus for about 30 seconds in one song? It's madness The pedal board will definitely be staying at home tomorrow when I set off for the gig.

[Legion]

I've got very limited experience of using pedals myself but I always come to the same conclusion as you have.

I'm not sure if it's just that I don't fully understand how best to utilise the pedals, or that I love the straight sound of a bass without any tinkering. I'm sure that compression etc has a great part to play, I can only guess that the fact that I play zero slap means I might never need it. Even when I try distortion I just cant seem to get on with the sound, it always seems to take the "bass" element away.

I find I prefer to play harder and softer or with a bass setup a certain way (like a nice low action on my fretless) to get certain sounds.

Maybe I just need educating...

[Born 2B Mild]

I find FX are great ...at home. I plug them in when sound-checking at a gig, and when the rest of the band gets going, I realise they get in the way.

But hey, we got to have toys eh what?

[Kiwi]

The problem i find with a lot of effects is that i can't hear the pitch properly after they've been applied. However, I do have some patches where the signal is pitch shifted up and octave and I apply effects to the shifted path in the same way I might with a guitar. Works out really well.

I also use a fair bit of synthbass too, but when I add chorus to it the sound gets a bit muddy.

[Delberthot]

Yip, I bought said Boss GT6-B and have just sold it.

Utterly fantastic effects (don't even think about it) but I found myself using them on about half a dozen songs meaing that the rest of the time it was as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

Every so often I buy effects, probably just to remond myself how I don't need them and that my direct sound is so much better.

Same reason I get myself a fretless bass every now and then.

[lemmywinks]

Agree to a certain extent but my gigs require a clean boost and a tuner pedal, so the pedalboard comes out every gig, although not in a massive sound-altering way.
Also i'm a sucker for fuzz so it has to be done i'm afraid!

[M4L666]

I like the idea but am too poor to experiment.

Edited December 12, 2008 by M4L666

[KennysFord]

[quote name='M4L666' post='353095' date='Dec 12 2008, 08:27 PM']I like the idea but am too poor to experiment.
[/quote]

+ to the 1 hehe.

[WarPig]

ive done the pedal thing, been through a few, have whittled down to just my sansamp and presonus comp.

[burno70]

You crazy fools!

Joking aside - I think it all depends on how much you need them / want to use them. Personally I use a fair number of effects these days - especially when compared to my "dry" sound of 2 years ago and I feel that the band benefits as a result. It all depends on how well they're incorporated into the songs and whether they're a nice optional extra or whether they become an intrinsic part of the song. I couldn't imagine playing some of my bands songs now without distortion and wah or envelope filter as required.

But it's definately a "horses for courses" kind of thing - nothing wrong with naked bass!

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='bassman2790' post='352773' date='Dec 12 2008, 02:56 PM']I used to have a modest number of effect pedals (chorus, exciter/limiter, compressor, overdrive)...then I convinced myself I just had to have a Boss GT-6B. About a month later, I questioned why I would need the choice of umpteen different distortions, compressors, choruses etc etc and the Boss went on eBay. Back to my pedal board then....

This morning however, I set up my pedal board, amp and cabinet and started to experiment with different settings on my Tech 21 VT bass pedal and my Exciter/Limiter, but the more I twiddled, the further away I got from a sound I liked. In frustration, I unplugged from the board and plugged directly into my amp....eureka! That's the sound I'm looking for....

Why do I have all these pedals when I only use a little bit of chorus for about 30 seconds in one song? It's madness The pedal board will definitely be staying at home tomorrow when I set off for the gig.[/quote]
+1

After 2 years of trying out different FX pedals, my conclusion is that in the end, they take more away from the tone of your bass than they add. Even a couple of very expensive pedals I've heard/tried that are supposed to be 'completely transparent' aren't really to my ears...

A month or so ago I bought a Nomad Bassman from the Beedster, which is an old 80's FX unit, and whilst it's fun to use at home I just haven't been able to use it at gigs because it thins out the sound too much.

So now I just plug my 2 gigging basses (Roscoe Beck V and a BC Rich Eagle, both passive..) straight into a Radial Bigshot I/O pedal which balances the different output levels and from there the signal goes direct into my amp, which is an Eden Nemesis 650. I use a DBX MC 6 compressor via the FX loop on the amp and that's it; keeps the tone from the basses as pure as possible and the whole thing through an SWR Triad sounds great!

Happiest I've been with my sound for years

[Monz]

I run through a planet waves tuner and ebs multicomp (which is transparent on the settings I use) bit it gives the soundman a lot easier time during the second (rockier) set when I tend to dig in more. Just bought a bottom feeder which I use for "Shot the Sherrif" but it does add to the sound and it actually boosts rather than thins

Am going to play with chorus and octave at some point as we do a few numbers that would benefit from filling out the sound as we have no keys.

I am of the mindset that less is more... having the pedals just effecting seems good to me and although the effects are on they are not in ya face

[The_D]

I have a few pedals. I dont use them on most songs but the ones I do use them on just wouldnt sound right without them. I cant see Spread Your Love by The Black Rebel Motorcycle club sounding even close without some heavy fuzz. Problem is though that the pedals I use (Big Muff, SD-1) are so noisy when switched on I need a noise limiter so then I am forced into having that there too.

I did recently stop using my Compressor though so might try experimenting with a flanger when I use my Fuzz pedal.

Sorry got a bit rambly there. I do like a good clean tone but there are just some songs in our set that I NEED pedals for. I dont mind though as I love toys and its always funny having more pedals than your Guitard

[Mickeyboro]

Have never used pedals and can't see the need. A Precision sound has never let me down, and iut doesn't need anything adding or subtracting, for rock and soul at least.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='352808' date='Dec 12 2008, 03:38 PM']The problem i find with a lot of effects is that i can't hear the pitch properly after they've been applied.[/quote]

Yeah I avoid delay-based effects for that reason, they sound too messy to me.

I do use a lot of filter effects, fuzz, a couple of VCOs, octavers, but currently nothing in the way of modulation. I have a phaser on my board but I think I'm selling it.

[Mr. Foxen]

I've generally ended up borrowing rigs at gigs, so I try and get 'my sound' on my board with a Sansamp and a distortion/octave divider for drone parts.

[ped]

I agree, I kind of got tired of amplifiers, too. I found a single unit which does everything was the answer for me - superb clean sound with no extra anything, but literally anything else I need is available if I want to play or have a laugh, it is light, drives my IEMs and there are no messy patch cables and things to leave behind.

Cheers
ped

[alexclaber]

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='353230' date='Dec 12 2008, 10:58 PM']After 2 years of trying out different FX pedals, my conclusion is that in the end, they take more away from the tone of your bass than they add. Even a couple of very expensive pedals I've heard/tried that are supposed to be 'completely transparent' aren't really to my ears...[/quote]

A misapplication of effects methinks! Pedals don't add or take away from the tone, they change it, usually very blatantly, so it can fill a different sonic space, create a different feel or even have a totally different function. A completely transparent pedal would be a very pointless thing indeed! You can't just play bass and then add an effect for 'more tone', you have to play the bass AND the effect. Saying that when I started singing I temporarily sidelined my gigantic pedalboard and then the FX never came out to gig again - it's since been split up and mostly sold off.

Alex

[Adrenochrome]

Okay, so I'm a heavy-handed player who switches between fingers, pick and playing over the bridge for some songs to up the frets for others (right hand). We play a lot of pubs with BAD electrics.
So I use a Zoom multi FX with compression and noisegate on all the time. This also has a handy muted tuner. Out of about 30 songs we do I use chorus for 1 or 2 songs and distortion for 1. The clean sound with comp still sounds like my bass and really evens things out. A simple set-up that works for me.

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='alexclaber' post='354271' date='Dec 14 2008, 03:13 PM']A misapplication of effects methinks! Pedals don't add or take away from the tone, they change it, usually very blatantly, so it can fill a different sonic space, create a different feel or even have a totally different function. A completely transparent pedal would be a very pointless thing indeed! You can't just play bass and then add an effect for 'more tone', you have to play the bass AND the effect. Saying that when I started singing I temporarily sidelined my gigantic pedalboard and then the FX never came out to gig again - it's since been split up and mostly sold off.

Alex[/quote]
Hi Alex,

I know what you mean and agree that if you want to use effects to [i]"fill a different sonic space, create a different feel or even have a totally different function"[/i] then find the very best pedals you can that will do that.

What I was trying to say in my original post is that in my recent experience, almost all the pedals I've used don't give me enough of something new sonically to merit using them as I've found that they change or degrade the natural tone of my bass too much for my liking..

The only pedal I still use during a gig is a Boss FT-2 which gives me a realy cool auto wah effect for use in 'Superstition', but I have to add a bit more bass e.q. from my amp in order to compensate for the fact that the FT-2 thins out the low end when it's working.

So, for me, it's a trade off between preserving the sound I like of my un-effected bass and adding an effect occasionally to create something new!

Nik

[cheddatom]

Nik - You should try a blender with your effects.

[BassMunkee]

I use them all the time and I love them.
But the sort of music I make requires that I use them, so I guess it's horses for courses...

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='cheddatom' post='354905' date='Dec 15 2008, 11:50 AM']Nik - You should try a blender with your effects.[/quote]
never used one but worth looking into I suppose though ideally, what I'd really like to do is have another small rig, maybe with a 210, just for some effects... But the car's pretty full already at gigs as it is!

[cheddatom]

Lots of people advocate the use of two rigs - clean, and effected. I tried this, sending purely clean bass to my peavey 1 x 15" combo, and purely effected bass to my johnson 2 x 12" guitar combo. It sounded OK. I messed with it for ages trying to get a great sound, but nothing I did got close to the sound I was getting using a blended pedal board running into the peavey AND the johnson on a crossover.

[The Funk]

[quote name='Born 2B Mild' post='352791' date='Dec 12 2008, 03:16 PM']I find FX are great ...at home. I plug them in when sound-checking at a gig, and when the rest of the band gets going, I realise they get in the way.[/quote]

The only thing I'd add to this is that all my effects pedals sound great in the studio - they record really well and do exactly what I want them to do. Live, it's a different matter. I set my pedals up to sound great through my cabs - I can't control how they sound out front and a lot of the time the notes just become indistinct (from what I've been told afterwards).

I do like gigging with my Mu-Tron III though. That tends to work nicely and stay clear.