Your essential bass pedals

[Mudfuzz]

And speaking of the purpose of an instrument seems a bit snooty, though I agree that bass instruments serve an important role.

It's only snooty if you are not looking at music as a whole and not living in a indie/hipster dreamworld

You're all being replaced by modular synths anyway.

Only if you are living in a indie/hipster dreamworld.

[PanicProne]

I really like my Fuzzrocious Cat Tail and Dwarfcraft ECT. Those are prob my faves. For delay I've used an Ibanez DE-7 and then I always put my micro POG on the board whenever I can. I could go on, but those are prob my faves/basics.

[frigid midget]

I don't think I consider any effects "essential" when it comes to bass

Still though, my old bass board had a couple pedals on it.

Dark slightly fuzzy od: Hotcake.

I tried a bunch of booteek dirt peds that are supposed to work well with bass, but nothing really came close to the hocake. For more gnarly angry stuff, an ODB-3 does an okay job. Tweakable enough, and with a cleab blend control.
I passionately hate rats and muffs and whatever else that sucks the low end out of my bass. They can sound sick in yer living room, but they're the best way to make your bass dissapear in a band.

Chorus: Haven't used anything but an old CE-2 on bass. Personally don't need anything more fancy or elaborate
Slowest rate, just to get a slightly wobbly glassy edge that makes you cut through the mix and add some of those lucious subtle swirly artifacts

Delay/verb: Mainly for noisy filler parts or outro's or what not.

Compressor: Always on. I used to get by with just a CS3, though I'm sure there's better alternatives out there.

[Eivind August]

And speaking of the purpose of an instrument seems a bit snooty, though I agree that bass instruments serve an important role.

It's only snooty if you are not looking at music as a whole and not living in a indie/hipster dreamworld

Oh right, I always forget.

On topic, before I had Kent in my life, I usually ran bass through the Fuck od and my AD-9, sometimes with the Raptio in between for simple stutters.

[Jwar]

Hipsters suck and so does indie rock. Come at me bro.

[coldbrightsunlight]

News at ten:

People have different opinions about things.

[qersty]

Some sort of fuzz sound and an overdrive sound, amp drive is superior btw. I play bass with alot of pedals but I don't think it is healthy considering things essential. When I feel I need a pedal to play a song I tend to stop using it, it is hard tho I have yet to feel comfortable without a chorus and I'm probably never gonna leave the house without some delay.

That being said the real essential is a bunch of oscillating fuzz

[sears]

compressor. I use the markbass. HPF for some stages. If you're using distortion you don't need a compressor or HPF because those things take care of it. I am not cool enough to be in a band that would need anything but an old school bass sound.

[rickenbastard]

An amp that gets dirty. Love having a boost and a fuzz to broaden options but for me some degree of middy dirt is the only thing truly essential to my tone

[BoatRich]

This is as good a place to ask as any, but do any of you run a compressor after a blended drive pedal? I don’t have a compressor on hand to try this with, but I’m thinking about picking up an accountant to run after my dirt pedals in a DIY blend loop. The clean tone seems to be heavily lacking by itself and I’m thinking it’ll even everything out and add some weight to the blended clean tone?

[Mudfuzz]

This is as good a place to ask as any, but do any of you run a compressor after a blended drive pedal? I don’t have a compressor on hand to try this with, but I’m thinking about picking up an accountant to run after my dirt pedals in a DIY blend loop. The clean tone seems to be heavily lacking by itself and I’m thinking it’ll even everything out and add some weight to the blended clean tone?

Yes, I do. Comp is my always on, it just makes everything punchier and bouncier for me. What it does with blended dirt is cool, it kind just makes it more unified, you lose a little rawness but gain a thicker overall

[BoatRich]

This is as good a place to ask as any, but do any of you run a compressor after a blended drive pedal? I don’t have a compressor on hand to try this with, but I’m thinking about picking up an accountant to run after my dirt pedals in a DIY blend loop. The clean tone seems to be heavily lacking by itself and I’m thinking it’ll even everything out and add some weight to the blended clean tone?

Yes, I do. Comp is my always on, it just makes everything punchier and bouncier for me. What it does with blended dirt is cool, it kind just makes it more unified, you lose a little rawness but gain a thicker overall

That’s what I was hoping, I’m trying to not dominate the mix constantly with distorted bass and give myself more dynamic range with other boosts and such.

[frodog]

I do mostly run an Accountant after dirt when bassing. What Mudfuzz said basically, though I've noticed that when it's hit with super low frequencies it lops the very bottom off somewhat. But again that tightens the sound. It also adds a little bit of soft jfet hiss, not something you'd notice unless there's a very quiet part or you have a cranked HM-2 after it. But you have a noise gate in case so it's fine.

[BoatRich]

I do mostly run an Accountant after dirt when bassing. What Mudfuzz said basically, though I've noticed that when it's hit with super low frequencies it lops the very bottom off somewhat. But again that tightens the sound. It also adds a little bit of soft jfet hiss, not something you'd notice unless there's a very quiet part or you have a cranked HM-2 after it. But you have a noise gate in case so it's fine.

In this case the cranked HM-2 is in front of it in the blend and yeah, everything is gated. I honestly don’t get how people get away without using a noise gate.

[jrmy]

For me, now, I almost always have some kind of dirt on. For the last 8 or so months, the EQD Westwood at medium gain has been the one. From there, I stack other fuzzes on top (currently a DOD Carcosa or an EHX Sovtek Deluxe because it lets me boost the damn mids), as well as Flange/Phase (the GNI Flanger / Phaser, which is FANFRIGGINTASTIC on bass), and some verb (Caroline Meteore) and octave (in case I'm playing high up and need some heft beneath).

Which of that is ESSENTIAL? For me, a couple of flavors of dirt - a baseline OD, followed by a couple of fuzzes to juggle between.