bass effects and what they do...

Glitter&Trauma

Hey,
Been playing bass for about two years now. I play in a three piece rock band and currently use a Big Muff pedal on parts of some songs. I am interested in buying some more effects pedals to expand my sound a little and generally give it a bigger, more guitar-like sound. Just wondering if someone could give me a brief overview of what the major types of effects pedals (overdrive/ chorus/ compression etc..) actually do and if they could reccomend any specific pedals.
Thanks.

red_ice

mon the biffy!

sparkthatbled

i have a Boss ME-50B...



It has everything you'll need to get started. I also have a decent synth..



Eventually i plan to get some of the effects on the ME-50B separately because if you use too many at once it tends to cause a differentiation between the time you pluck the note and the time it plays. Its a minor discrepancy but can make you sound a bit sloppy... It only really effects the Filter/Tone but i don't really use them myself apart from the "Slow Gear", otherwise the octaves and wah are on the expression pedal too. The only other disadvantage to the pedal is it has no true bypass... The delay on it is great though, especially when combined with a distortion or synth effect and the slow gear...

david

Glitter&Trauma wrote:

...and generally give it a bigger, more guitar-like sound.

That cracked me up. If bass sounded like guitar, songs would sound like mush. Instruments are supposed to sound different. I recommend getting a cheap multi fx pedal to learn about different sounds, i did that with a zoom 505 when i started. However, I think bass should sound either clean or MAYBE fuzz'd. I only ever use a touch of compression when i play bass.

jcoote

hell no chorus the bejesus out of a bass and i sounds just spiffy...getting a cheap multi fx unit is the way to go or go into a shop and try a few pedals