Baloney Balderdash Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 (edited) I guess this is not a thing that you can debate much really, as people will have different personal taste and preferences, but this post is in no way intended to stir up controversies either though, really just giving voice to my personal opinion and thoughts on this matter, as well as it hopefully will work as a way for me to toe the water for how common my take on applying distortion to a bass is, and if the fizzy thin distortion layer school is really as widespread and common among bass players as it appears to be to me, and finally perhaps it also might possibly open the eyes for some people to the fact that there are other ways to make bass distortion work than strictly limiting it to the upmost higher frequencies of your signal. I also realize that the way I describe the trend with only distorting the top end of your signal might seem like a provocation, but as said it is honestly not meant to be so, it just happens to honestly represent how it sounds to me, not telling anyone not to do it as they personally happens to prefer and like it, mainly just hope to get some replies from people who share my take on this matter to get an idea of how common it might or might not be. But I just don't get the modern trend with adding a thin fizzy distortion laying on top of your clean tone for your high gain distortion bass tone, I realize that not everything you play will work well with full on distorted bottom end, but there are other ways to prevent your bass ending up sounding like a muddy, undefined, blurry mess, without limiting your distortion to the upmost frequencies of the signal, like for instance as Lou Barlow from Dinosaur Jr. does, using a bass heavy overdriven SVT, mainly, but not exclusively, emphasizing the distortion of the bottom end of his bass signal, then a clean solid state Peavey amp, mainly, but not exclusively, emphasizing the mid range cleans, and finally an overdriven Marshall JCM800, mainly, but again not exclusively, emphasizing the distortion of his top end, and he has a massive sounding overdrive/distortion tone with plenty of supporting bottom end and no issues with cutting through the mix. I guess one of the secrets to get a relatively clearly defined bass signal when using full range distortion on your bass signal, rather than only distorting the top end, would also be to apply less gain than you might think is required, a relatively low gain distortion applied to the full signal, to my ears, will end up sounding considerably more heavy than a high gain distortion applied exclusively to the upper most top end of your signal, and in my experience, at least if applied, voiced and EQ'ed right and having the right amount of clean mix, will sound just as well defined. Edited October 1, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezbass Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 16 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said: this post is in not way intended to stir up controversies We’ll see... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewblack Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 It's not controversial. Also I had no idea it was a trend when I started doing it, it just seemed like it might sound good. It did. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daz39 Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 Can open. Worms everywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 In part I agree and actually my own taste is not to add the drive to the top end (and I can name plenty of examples like I am sure you can) but I prefer to use a band pass method applying the dirt to a wide band area of the mid range. The secret for me is in the blending of the low mids more than the upper mids and top end (though that is also important). Also, my clean tone is never really 100% clean, it helps the two blend even more. I learned this the hard way when recording in the past when it was so obvious it almost sounded like two instruments playing in unison. Interestingly my very top end has very little drive on it. Thats my taste and although I can hear it live through IEMs for definition, by the time it makes it to FOH, even that has blended nicely too! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamg67 Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 1 hour ago, Dood said: In part I agree and actually my own taste is not to add the drive to the top end (and I can name plenty of examples like I am sure you can) but I prefer to use a band pass method applying the dirt to a wide band area of the mid range. The secret for me is in the blending of the low mids more than the upper mids and top end (though that is also important). Also, my clean tone is never really 100% clean, it helps the two blend even more. I learned this the hard way when recording in the past when it was so obvious it almost sounded like two instruments playing in unison. Interestingly my very top end has very little drive on it. Thats my taste and although I can hear it live through IEMs for definition, by the time it makes it to FOH, even that has blended nicely too! This is more what I thought the trend was, multi band distortion so you can choose which bands to apply the distortion to. My Darkglass Vintage Ultra does this in a fairly basic way and it makes it very flexible, and I think that's what the "growl" and "bite" buttons on the Alpha Omega does as well? So maybe things have already moved on from applying the effect to the highs and more gear can now apply the effect to the bands you want to apply it to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 Horses for courses. It's just a different sound that sounds better for some genres / tracks than regular overdrive - I like and use both. It's also been a studio trick for decades, the modern trend is just distilling that into a convenient pedal format. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itu Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 I had few pedals lying around, so I put together one more small pedalboard. Signal chain: Subdecay Proteus - IE Divaricator + Spruce Effects' Old Growth Fuzz in the X-over band (+400 Hz) - Schalltechnik Vong (adjustable HPF & LPF) - Hypergravity mini. The set works very well with my fretted 5-string. I do not think that the X-over frequency is too high. 400 Hz is actually quite low if you consider the harmonics. open G-string, practical approximation: 100 Hz first harmonic, 200 Hz (12th fret G) second harmonic, 400 Hz (24th fret G) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarethFlatlands Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 I first saw it on Spectre Sound Studios Youtube page where Glen doubled the bass track, and then applied a horrendous distortion sound to a very narrow frequency range before sweeping it to find what worked best. Presumably it's one of those tricks that works great in a mix but doesn't always sound very musical on it's own. I guess once you notice it, you can't unhear it and it might start to grate, like how I get annoyed with pop music where everything but the vocals gets compressed into oblivion once the vocals come in and the band sounds like it's been relegated to in another room. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 And will any of this help when you play Mustang Sally? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuzzie Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 1 minute ago, Happy Jack said: And will any of this help when you play Mustang Sally? It’s about the only thing that will make it bearable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuzzie Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 7 hours ago, dannybuoy said: Horses for courses. It's just a different sound that sounds better for some genres / tracks than regular overdrive - I like and use both. It's also been a studio trick for decades, the modern trend is just distilling that into a convenient pedal format. As the gentleman says - Chris Squire, dUg Pinnick - it’s been going on for years. If you think laterally, initially bassists used guitar amps before we had dedicated amps, cabs etc. therefore the break up was always likely to be on the upper register more. Its not new and as someone said earlier - pedals have just come out making it ‘seem’ that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 55 minutes ago, Cuzzie said: If you think laterally, initially bassists used guitar amps before we had dedicated amps, cabs etc. And as soon as there were "bass amps", guitarists started using them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuzzie Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 15 minutes ago, Happy Jack said: And as soon as there were "bass amps", guitarists started using them! Who’d ‘av thunk bass is important to music?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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