No bassist, important gig - what to do gear wise?

[rfurtkamp]

The only thing I've seen that tracks fast and reliably enough to do bass duty is the Roland VG-99/GR-55.

And that is not a sudden, instant thing eitehr since you have to then figure out how to play like a bass player with it and somehow mix guitar too.

I would just use the gear you know and bullshit your way through it.

[Bassus Sanguinis]

...the last time I was in that situation I opted for an extra member to do simply a wall of low end drones by Moog and fx. Oscillator and delay take off noises. Weird space sounds layered on that, while the drummer and I blasted through the songs as if nothing special was going on. Worked perfectly for us and it sure as hell was as intentional as trippy.

But if You want to do it Yourself do as Aen says. I'm doing it the other way around, filling in for lack of guitarist with bass gear. Consider two amp set up, borrow a bass DI or what ever to split the signal and have EQ set up for no treblz-full-on-mud on bass channel, that might do the trick. The good deal with active bass DI is that with active EQ You can dial out some unwanted frequencies. Like the high end. And perhaps some bad mud freqs that might resonate bad or simply not work so good.

[goroth]

Gotta love my local gear store - ended up with a Boss LS-2 because they didn't have any Bass DIs or ABYs... cool. Heading into the rehearsal room at 8 am tomorrow to try everything out. And as I have no use for a Boss LS-2 I'll try and treat it all nice and hand it back "unused" for a refund. My conscience is ok with this because I hate the store I bought it from.

[Bassus Sanguinis]

Gotta love my local gear store - ended up with a Boss LS-2 because they didn't have any Bass DIs or ABYs... cool. Heading into the rehearsal room at 8 am tomorrow to try everything out. And as I have no use for a Boss LS-2 I'll try and treat it all nice and hand it back "unused" for a refund. My conscience is ok with this because I hate the store I bought it from.

that's a good signal routing tool for lots of different needs and funny situations. This time You might want to place the sensitive fuzzes run before it (see, the Boss buffer inside).

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

keyboard player.

[D-Rainger]

obligatory bassist joke...

Don't, on any account, say anything about 'missing bass-player'. The audience have turned up to see whatever's there and be entertained, and don't want any excuses.
This line up is the perfect, ideal way that your music is meant to have (... at least for tonight).
Maximum attitude!

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

Maximum attitude!

wise words!

[coldbrightsunlight]

obligatory bassist joke...

Don't, on any account, say anything about 'missing bass-player'. The audience have turned up to see whatever's there and be entertained, and don't want any excuses.
This line up is the perfect, ideal way that your music is meant to have (... at least for tonight).
Maximum attitude!

Great point, acting the part is almost as important as making it sound decent; if you're confident and don't mention there's a problem I doubt most people would notice much. If you go up there apologising and play hesitantly it'll be more noticeable.

[goroth]

Good call David, we're totally going to attitude it up. Brian, I ended up getting into fx because we couldn't find a keyboardist - so I spend most of my days making my guitar sound less like a guitar. I'm still stupidly partial to metalling it up with The Elements (so it's not all filters and synthy stuff), but yeah, we've struggled and given up with the keyboard thing.

I'll try and get some audio of the gig and post it here just cos you guys have been so helpful.

Bassus - I'm considering keeping the LS-2 because of it's "I could need this one day" factor. But then I paid 950 SEK for it, ie 147 usd, which could purchase me a whole lotta fuzz...

[hbombgraphics]

obligatory bassist joke...

Don't, on any account, say anything about 'missing bass-player'. The audience have turned up to see whatever's there and be entertained, and don't want any excuses.
This line up is the perfect, ideal way that your music is meant to have (... at least for tonight).
Maximum attitude!

this is such great advice: Too many people throw out the "I'm not prepared thing" when they play music or do public speaking, and no matter how good they are people are already second guessing them.

[Tristan]

I'd say the same: "balls to the walls and pedal to the metal!"

As for the actual sound the only thing I can add to what already has been said is that you could have a look whether the bass amp you're playing on has a DI itself (lots of times it does), if so look for a post eq switch or something similar near the DI port (usually the DI port has a XLR output but sometimes it also comes with a standard 1/4" jack, but I guess you probably know what I'm talking about).
EDIT: Oh yeah, turn the sucker on, uh, the post eq switch I mean, well, you know...
This will send the signal of the DI after the eq you have set on the bass amp, if you turn up the bass and maybe turn down some of the high mids and highs on the amp the FOH guy should be able to get a lot more bass through the PA speakers.

Another thing, in my experience most distortion boxes actually do cut quite a bit of low end below the usual guitar spectrum and boost a bit of the high mids / highs as well so try all the dirt pedals you have and see which one gives you the deepest and tightest sound.
You could even check it direct in the mixing desk during rehearsal (that way if the amp you're going to be playing on is really really shitty you'll at least know you're getting the bassiest and tightest signal you can).
I'm saying this because in my experience each bass amp, like a guitar amp, reacts differently to your dirt boxes too.

[theavondon]

Once, half of my band couldn't show up for a show, so it was me, and one drummer. We just played total noise for like three minutes, and then ran through four songs. Just fucking own it. That's all I can say.

[dubkitty]

this is such great advice: Too many people throw out the "I'm not prepared thing" when they play music or do public speaking, and no matter how good they are people are already second guessing them.

at least 90% of the "mistakes" in typical shows are totally unnoticeable by anyone except the band unless you have fans that are total trainspotters. they don't know what it's "supposed to sound like," so you're free. and if you have a guitarist who plays fairly strict rhythm parts, all you have to do is turn his treble down and his amp up and you're good. i don't personally like most bands who make a habit of playing without a bassist (The Doors, the White Stripes) but you can certainly make it work, especially if you tune the drums down too. if you have something going on in the bass frequencies, people's psychoacoustic response will lead them to fill in what seems logical.

[rfurtkamp]

Either that or you could open up with "We fucking killed our bassplayer this morning for Satan, fuck yea!"

I think that would work just fine.

[AndyTran]

obviously you need to buy a bass vi