Pretend this title is a witty joke about BASS TOAN.

[psychic vampire.]

I just couldn't think of one in the moment.

I joined this band after their first two demos were written, they were somewhere between synth punk, surfy sounds, and 80s pop, more emphasis on the punk. After recording the second demo and playing out a few times, everyone decided to hell with the old songs (and band name) and we are shooting to change our sound to be more synth driven and have more effected, textural guitar. Chairs Missing by Wire, early Cocteau Twins and Clan of Xymox, and later Rudimentary Peni were all mentioned, along with drone/noise parts and "ballads". To this end I am thinking of changing what I do with bass. My fretless T-40 and amp are likely not changing much, but I was until now using a Blower Box and a 141G.

I want interesting sounds that will sit well in a larger band context, but that will give movement or texture to sparser basslines, or a different sound to more frenetic basslines. A lower gain overdrive would be nice, and a flanger/chorus/vibrato that is capable of both subtlety and wildness also sojnds interesting. Especially any modulations that don't kill or even boost the low end would be nice. I feel like I have most of the other effects I want covered already or coming in soon, but I love to consider oddball left field suggestions, and I think this band revamp is meant to be an "anything goes" sort of period of experimentation, so by all means tell me I need to try an audioslime pedal or a cyber psychic or some clone of a polivoks filter. Looking to entertain weird ideas.

TL;DR: band is going punk to more interesting who the fuck knows what, bassist wants soundz. Bassist is aware that bass is supposed to be rhythmic foundation and leave that shit for guitars, doesn't care.

[UglyCasanova]

I'll probably post my board and write a full response for this thread, as I believe me and Eivind make pretty experimental music with basically just bass and guitar, hence relying on pretty big boards. I mean, my bass board probably has twice the amount of pedals that Eivind has on his guitar board. The idea the board being less of a bass board and more of a sound board that emphasizes the low-end side of the spectrum. A lot of oscillations and droning and freezing and sounscapinh and mangling. But yeah, will post my board and the idea behind the setup, hopefully that might spark some inspiration.

[jrmy]

As a bassist who "is aware that bass is supposed to be rhythmic foundation and leave that shit for guitars, doesn't care" too, I applaud you in your search!

Off the top of my head: Earthquaker Devices Sea Machine - really cool, and can get way more movement than the regular ol' chorus.

If you can find one, the Subdecay Baby Quasar is FANTASTIC on bass - it has freq and voice controls that really let you shape what parts of your sound get hit by the phasing.

Even though it's a cheap plastic case pedal, the Arion Stereo Chorus has TONS of bass on tap, and can get a really cool "whooshy" sound going. For a long time, it was considered a "secret weapon" for nailing Leslie Rotating Speaker sounds. Very cool.

I've had great luck with a Boss BF-2 flanger on bass - I've tried plenty of others, but always come back to it. Mine has some mods (a random pitch mod that I rarely use in the band context, and apparently upgraded delay chips), but I'm not sure it matters.

For overdrive, the DOD Boneshaker is pretty badass. TONS of tone-sculpting control and low end.

If you can find an Ibanez DML-10 or 20, it's capable of shittons of whacky delay-pitch-flange insanity, and the sweep on the pitch/flange can get crazy low.

I'm gonna have to ponder some more options...

[Derelict78]

Behringer bsy 600 and an expression pedal

[lordgalvar]

I'm interested too. My wife finally wants to jam and she enjoys more what you all are talking about. I think I am going to be more rhythm in that project haha. For me, I am just thing about using a dirty boost and pep box. Going to watch this thread...haha

Anyway, at the moment she is using an analog delay to fill space and the lal 46 for low end sustain. Amdek, ad9, sad-1 would all work fine [she likes the moog 104z around 300ms or so.

Thunder boxx might be good to add some bass, high end and percieved clarity [sometimes].

The ibanez dmls I have good things about from ST [jrmy made a ton of good suggestions].

I guess yellow version of lordgalvar was like this too...I kinda accented rhythms and let bass keyboards fill in and do their space filling magic. Lots of filter sweeps, random arp, and layering.

Maybe a robotalk or Proteus...and why not a polivoks or b-filter for sweeps? Morley phaser in chrome would be good...I'm rambling now...

Dirty Doper maybe? Here revolver for sampling and random?

[Chankgeez]

TL;DR???

Was gonna suggest Blower Box until I read.

Look into the new pedal board friendly A/DA flanger. Probably couldn't go wrong there.

DBA (and/or Glass Hero) Sound Saw

Bass Whammy???

[Uncle Grandfather]

Mountainking Electronics all day erryday

[coldbrightsunlight]

Look into the new pedal board friendly A/DA flanger. Probably couldn't go wrong there.

The A/DA is great call, cool pedal.

Lovetone Meatball (Ian at Gigahearts FX makes a great clone) is really fun, goes a hell of a lot further than the standard auto wah type pedals.

[ThurberMingus]

The other day I was rocking my (other) guitarist's bass setup, which was P Bass > Sunn Coliseum > Acoustic 2x15 with my pedalboard in between.

I was mainly using a Fuck, CE-2 clone, and RV-3. It was post-punk heaven.

[repoman]

CE-2 baby. So simple. So perfect.
Boss HF-2 is pretty cool and can make some clanky noises which sounds neat with a chorus and reverb.

A treble booster on a Bass sounds really cool....makes it sound like a grandfather clock bonging, I think boosting the highs makes the modulation stuff come out a lot more.

It's fun to wade through the ocean of cheap 80s made in Japan effects on ebay and think about 80s toanz.

[SoaringTortoise]

Where's the punch line?

[D.o.S.]

Misty Cave.

[grindonomicon]

I really like the Digitech - Hardwire CM2 Tube Overdrive / Distortion (it was branded and called both, same pedal) and the EQD Monarch for bass overdrive. They work fantastic together and you can get anything from post-punk punchiness to all out fuzzstortion mayhem between the two.

For modulation I love the Hardwire SP7 Stereo Phaser and TC Electronics Hall of Fame reverb. Upper end commercial pedals, very reasonable price on the used market, tons of great sounds. My pal swears by his $120 Zoom pedal for bass, and he does get some amazing experimental - new wave weirdness out of it.

[psychic vampire.]

Y'all! Thanks for so many quick and brilliant responses. So many things I would not have thought of! Taking a quick break from making ten pounds of tomato jam at work to sorta respond.

@jrmy: your ideas sparked so much, thanks. I had never before even really heard or thought of the arion stereo chorus, but it seems great. Also, the sea machine was something I would not have thought of but that should have been on my radar all along. I wish either of these pedals had more bass demos kicking around on the internet, because in my experience choruses seem to hit bass very differently than guitar. Still, both are worth considering, and I guess this is part of why I want to start recording demos. Likewise, the Ibanez DML-10 was high on my radar for a minute after someone here did some demos of it. No clue why I forgot about it except that maybe it is super pricey, but that thing is absurd. I love it. The BF-2 was similarly on my radar before I forgot it.

W/R/T the DOD Boneshaker and Blower Box (and Mountainking) suggestions: I love my blower box, and I really have come to love the sound of "metal" distortions on bass at low gain as well as high gain (thanks to the blower box). I currently have a Blower Box and a Megalith clone among other weirder fuzzes, was wondering if there were any interesting lower gain drives that did weird shit. The Fuck has my curiosity piqued, but is substantially more money than I can put into a single OD at the moment. But everything about it seems marvelous; I love envelope sensitive effects.

Lordgalvar, for some reason every time I saw the Thunderbox I wondered what the hell it was for, but your suggestion makes so much sense. As does repoman's treble boost suggestion. Obvious ideas that would have went right past me. Will look into them. Also all the phaser suggestions, have to look into them but thanks!

Misty Cave.

This is number one on my list. Looking at it for my more metal/whatever personal project, but I'll def see if I can fit it in a weirdy sorta post-punk context.

Ugh, so much more than I can respond to while cutting vegetables. Will keep reading, thanks y'all!

[goosekevin]

Most of what I wanted to suggest has already been said but I really rate the driving notion on bass and think that sound would fit super well
Fuck/mini is always good too
Behringer vb2 clone? Love vibrato on bass
Wilson freaker wah is fun