Anyone have recommendations for essential pedals for a bassist? Besides a tuner, of course.
I was thinking about adding a compressor, but wondered how essential those were
I have a rack mount compressor that I adore. Some rooms really need a bit of compression.
Beyond that, I think essential is a moving target for what styles of music we find ourselves playing.
For years I had nothing but my tuner and compressor, so that’s more than enough. However, i play a great deal of southern, retro, amd blues/soul rock, so I’ve since added two fuzz pedals (bass big muff, bass soul food) and a bass chorus. Those are covering most of my needs right now, but I’ve definitely had my eye on a flanger.
I have tried the bass big muff but not the soul food. What would you say are the differences between those fuzz pedals and when would you use one over the other?
I basically leave my soul food on at all times. To my ear, the soul food is like a soft, warm buzz compared to the big muff which, at times, can sound like a buzz saw coming through the room. They both have their place, but for my purposes one is a permanent piece of my tone whereas the other is “press button to kick ass.”
Compressor definitely. An EQ and something to else to define the sound like a SansAmp pedal are useful too.
Any compressor pedals you’d recommend?
I’ve haven’t used loads, but I’ve stuck with Electro-Harmonix Bass Preacher Compression for quite a while. Does the job.
To me, no pedals are essential. The pedals I find most useful are probably a fuzz and an octave pedal.
Compressor pedals encompass a pretty big variety of pedals and many of them have features beyond just compression like tone shaping and sustain control. A pure compressor is going to have a pretty subtle effect for controlling frequency levels and not really essential, especially playing live, especially if you are just starting out, where you get more benefit from just learning to control your sound with technique.
Not an essential pedal, but I bought a EHX Tri Parallel Mixer a year ago, it’s such a fun toy to play around with. It also works really well converting guitar distortion / drive pedals to bass pedals with the dry mix button. At least for me punting at both guitar and bass it allows me to reuse the same pedals better with both without buying really expensive bass versions.
Oh cool! Haven’t heard of this before, will check it out
My chain has always had Boost Comp and dirt. Youre probably fine without the boost pedal with an active bass. I originally added it when I turned my active into a passive
