pedal/filter/etc

[jim4237]

Hey all. I play a MMSS 30th with GK 2x10, 1x15. I just practice now and like playing some old R&B, Soul, Funk. I play straight to the amp. What type of Pedal/filters, etc do you all use. And maybe more importantly, Why? I've never used anything before. Compression filters, etc?? Don't really know what sound I get from them, and what type to use. does anyone have any preferences.

Thanks alot,

Jim

[StingRayzor]

I am a bit of a pedal junky myself, so let me take a stab at this. First off, it is difficult to justify using pedals, unless you are attempting to emulate another players work. So why use them? My only answer would be to add variety to your sound. Is this necessary? No, not really, but they are fun.

So, what do I have on my pedal board? A Fulltone Bass Drive, EH Q-tron, EBS Chorus, EBS OctaBass and a Carl Martin Compressor. The compressor is pretty much always on. It has become part of my sound. It really seems to fatten things up nicely.

Seriously though, there are so many different brands of pedals with so many different sounds, that it is hard to say what is best. If you are doing the funk thing, it seems like you may want to first try an envelope filter pedal (I have a Q-tron for this). If you visit the EBS website, you can find links to sound samples of their pedals. It will give you a good idea of what does what.

Good luck, enjoy.

[strummer]

Hi
First in my chain is a EBS compresor, set so that id doesn't mess with the signal unless I do something stupid like pop the B string. It only kicks in occasionally during live shows, and I have it mainly to allow the sound engineer some peace of mind.
Second is an EBS Octabass, which I use for obvious reasons.
Then, there used to be an EBS MultiDrive distortion unit, but that one recently moved permanently to Lowdowndave in the UK. Now distortion comes from my amp.
Last and aguably most importat to me is the Peterson Strobostomp. I have it last, even though I have to shut the octabass off to tune, simply because I take the DI house feed from the box.
I would like a chorus too, and I'll porlly get an EBS box there too.

[high mileage]

In the last year or two I've turned into a bit of a pedal junky myself. Never got into them before but I have material that calls for it sometimes. On probably half our set list or more, nothing gets used...

First I have a Fulltone BassDrive, that goes into a Boss octaver, to an Electro Harmonix Bass Balls and finally into a Yamaha Magic Stomp. The Yamaha is a programmable multi-effect but I'm using it as a flanger, at least for now. The sickest sound is with all of the effects on for part of one song! What I've got seems to be pretty popular among bass players - so that's why I started with these (one by one, list will be changing from time to time). The Boss octaver doesn't seem to hold a note for very long and doesn't understand chords or intervals. That one may get replaced with something else (EBS I've heard is a very good one). They do get addicting.

The big question of why? Well, why not? You probably know what most of them do, but parts of some of our songs work really well with an octaver. This is like playing the note you're on plus one octave below it. I used to wonder why it wasn't the octave above but it's easy to get used to. Once again, I usually don't have anything on. Very easy to get too much of a good thing.

[tkarter]

I am not into pedals but when I go Motown I stick a foam mute in next to the bridge.

tk

[Slim]

Being primary a guitar player I have collected many new and vintage effects and I use some on my bass set up. First in chain is Boss SYB-5 bass synthesizer pedal then Boss OC-3 octaver then Ibanez UE405 multi effects with chorus, delay, eq, compressor, all analog then Electro-Harmonix Tube EQ to add tube warmth to my Ampeg B2RE amp which is solid state. The bass I use is Bongo 4HH. I can get variety of sounds from this set up. I use same set up with few added pedals to my guitar set up by using AB switch to my guitar amp and bass synthesizer sound pretty good on guitar also. Check it out

[mrpackerguy]

For me, pedals are more of a "fun factor." I've been a pedal junkie since I started playing bass in '77. Of course then, all there was readily available was a small stone. Still, I had great fun with it. I was into effects way before most local cover band bassists in my area were. In fact, I can't even remember any other bass player I knew that ran stompbox effects.

Envelope filter-wise, there are many fun pedals. The older (what some call "vintage") analog filters sound great. I run an old 70's Ibanez flanger that is the sound of the bass in "Take This Job and Shove it". Good for ballads too.

You can funkify with an EH Bassballs or Q-tron; personally, I prefer the USA Bassballs. An MXR 90 also is a great phase shifter for bass and won't drop out your bottom end.

I've found the Akai Intelliphase fun and tweakable, but almost too tweakable to use live.

I could kick myself for trading my Akai Deep Impact, but I did trade it for a Fender Sting Precision, then for a Jazz Deluxe 5, then for a Stingray 4, so that deal turned out nicely.

One of my current fav pedals is the Digitech Bass Syth Wah. Excellent octaver for a digital pedal and some really fun envloping as well from slow and deep to vocal simulation. There's nothing more fun than kicking that on and getting hilarious looks from my bandmates.

As to wahs, I had a vintage Morley I loved to death, but it gave way to the Dunlop 105Q bass wah I currently run. You can run it like a slow phase by slowly rocking the expression pedal up and down.

Have fun. Pedals were made for fun.

[soniq]

The Bass POD XT is fun to mess with, especially using the Line 6 Editor. I can tweak the thousands of settings realtime on the computer . It's maddening almost.