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Bass distortion pedals..? 
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Walrus meat
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Post Bass distortion pedals..?
I'm gonna start running a bi-amp bass rig. Been running a Sunn Coliseum into a little 2x10, and unfortunately I have to crank the head to the point of it being maxed and clipping the preamp and power amp to get it to a desirable volume (which is Very Fucking Loud) and I feel like I'm being a little too hard on the amp and have wanted to experiment with a bi-amp rig and have some money to invest in a second amp. And So, I am buying my friend's '67 Bassman 1x15 combo.

AND SO, I'm gonna run the Sunn quite frickin scooped and only getting into dirt when I really dig in as I have and use the Bassman totally fucking distorted. No dynamic range to be had. Fucking Ripping Distortion. And Midrangey. Really Midrangey. I play power chords legitimately more than 50% of the time in this band and want this amp to sound basically a guitar tuned down an octave.

AND SO, this was a very unnecessary elaboration. I'm looking for a high gain overdrive that sounds good and possibly has a highpass switch or just a general shelved cut on the lows built in. I was kinda thinking a TS type pedal might work well for this but I'd want something with more gain, I think.

AND SO, what you got? In terms of suggestions.

I named this thread very poorly in hindsight. I'm looking for a guitar overdrive pedal.

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Fri Aug 03, 2018 12:01 am
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
A TS style might be all you need. But it might not be obnoxious enough as the top end of a two amp setup.

Otherwise, i might look towards some fuzz stuffs for a biamp bass dirt solution.

Or like an HM2-alike. A friend of mine has one of those Lone Wolf LHPs, and it does some cool shit that an HM2 is less into doing, at less than swedish death metal gain ranges. Has some of that fucked up middsy HM2 stuff, but only gets proper HM2 when set like an HM2. As a flavor element in a bi-amp, i could see it working.

Almost anything could work, if it has enough eq section flexibility.

I would think something fuzzy, because some subtler distortions sounds, i think get a little bit lost on bass guitar. If you want edgy, a sharper tooth to the clipping might be what you want.

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Sat Aug 04, 2018 3:44 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Alternately, do you have an MT2 around to play with?

Kind of basically starting to see that pedal as just a super powerful ruined EQ pedal these days. :red:

Distortion might be a bit too smooth, but the EQ is silly flexible. Way more than the pedals needs for guitars.

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Sat Aug 04, 2018 3:47 pm
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
HM-2 I think is definitely going to be worth a shot, and I got one at home so I think that's gonna be the first thing I give a shot when I get back.

My main concern I think is getting that kind of "whizzing" top end that comes with that hard clipping, that really obnoxious stuff up in like 4-6k. I'm thinking I want most of my treble sound to come from the only slightly dirty scoop amp for that kind of piano-y new strings modern pop punk-ish tone. And then just kind of have this narrow bandwidth distortion tone. HM-2 I am thinking, might work well for that because of where that lowish midrange notch is, and then I could maybe just kill the highs at the amp. :idk: I think maybe really, I'm being a dummy for not just immediately thinking of snagging a 10-band. :red:

Probably getting way ahead of myself considering I'm not able to put these things into actual practice but it helps the time go by just thinking about it at work. Very excited to hear what this amp will do when the tubes are pushed hard.

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Sun Aug 05, 2018 9:07 pm
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Walrus meat
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Welp, turns out maybe no pedal at all is the trick. I've been jumping the channels and turning the tone controls all the way down and pretty much does exactly what I wanted. Sounds like a tube amp shitting it's pants with a really focused midrange and not a lot else. Sunn is scooped just before being stupid, but still pretty much just thump and clank. Running my stupid effects like seasick vibrato and delay and bullshit into just the Bassman. Sounds dope as fuck, gonna have to put up some clips soon.

Image

Is that link working? for whatever reason I can't get images to work on my browser or have forgot the trick.

If not, here's the direct link: https://imgur.com/a/wqKPkr6

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Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:47 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
What i did for the pictar is i went to your link.

Right-clicked "View Image" in my browser.

Copied the web address of that image.

Put that image address in our IMG tags.

Removed the "s" from "https" in the address.

That is basically some basic form of what i do with any image to try to get it to show properly.

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Sat Aug 11, 2018 9:18 am
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Also, i didn't realize that the bassman was a combo for some reason. Is that a 15" speaker?

EDIT: you basically answered both of these things in your very first poast. I am dumb.

I demand clips.

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Sat Aug 11, 2018 9:20 am
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Also, what are you splitting the guitar with?

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Sat Aug 11, 2018 9:23 am
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Splitter is just an EHX Switchblade A/B, no crossover stuff happening.

Here is an okay sounding clip: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fma1f1e5yvv53 ... O.wav?dl=0

First is Sunn (obviously), second is Bassman (obviously), third is both and then kinda messing with bullshit after that.

Just threw up some mics in spots I thought might sound okay. D112 on Sunn, Beyer M69 on Bassman. D112 is not a mic I usually like on bass tbh but I figured maybe the slight scoop might exaggerate the distance between the tones for the best but maybe not, seems pretty.. unfocused to me. Will likely try the PR30 or PR40 next time around. M69 is right on the dustcap of the 15". Sounds okay, I suppose. Getting closer to a Lou Barlow-y tone that I am sort of chasing.

Sounds much cooler in the room but this will suffice as a proof of concept.

Poor little speaker in the Bassman is shitting itself as you can hear, but I kinda dig it? Hopefully it doesn't blow too quick.

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Sat Aug 11, 2018 3:14 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Yeah, that is fucking cool.

Speaker does sound a little sad about life though. I have a 2x15 peavey cab that i used for years with guitar, and it kind of always sounded like that. I think it took about 4 years before one of the speakers actually blew out its foam surround bits enough to make me want to stop using it. :red: Which reminds me: i should get some new 15s for that thing. :lol:

Anyhoo, i think that what you have there might even sound cool with a bit more push on the bassman from a tubescreamer/similar, also. Give it a (tiny) bit more fuzz. Doesn't need much, IMO.

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Sun Aug 12, 2018 11:17 am
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Your suspicion was quite right about the the additional push, also the issue of the speaker farting out seems to have been fixed along with it (maybe because of the compression?). Using one of those Nobels Natural ODs, and it is actually really, really good for this application. Not quite as thin as just the cascaded gain build up, but a lot more saturated and by cranking the treble on the amp in combination with the darkness of the pedal I am still getting that bandwidth limited kinda tone anyhow. And the fact that I'm using a fucking Digitech BP200 for the effects helps because it's a big tone sucker. :lol:

Would you use that 2x15 for guitar or bass? I know there's much cheaper options out there but I've had such good luck with the Weber stuff.

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Sun Aug 12, 2018 10:10 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
I mostly used the 2x15 for guitar, but it was bass speakers innit. They sounded so awesome and fucked up middsy.

Super unique cabinet flavor to have around.

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Sun Aug 12, 2018 10:48 pm
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
I've a friend/bandmate who uses a very similar kind of setup, Big Muff -> Mig 100 -> Sunn 2x15 has kinda always been his thing. This was his band, who really quite rock: https://seattlesnewgods.bandcamp.com/

I've had good and bad luck with the guitar through 15s thing. For that kind of upfront drive it works well, but I've had a couple guys who were trying to get really chimey mathrock tones through their 15" rigs and it was quite a challenge and never quite got there.

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Sun Aug 12, 2018 11:22 pm
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
The "Fisticuffs" Blowerbox clone Geoff built me is pretty awesome. I don't know if he's still building them. I did a bass pedal shootout before I moved, and found that to be my favorite of the lot, between the Big Muff, HM-2, Sansamp, and my friend's Boss Bass Overdrive, which is surprisingly good through a nice amp. I don't have an amp with me at the moment, but I do have my 11R and Audient, and I did bring the Fisticuffs pedal and my Warwick.

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Wed Sep 05, 2018 2:28 pm
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Those Blowerboxes seem badass as hell, for sure. The clips I've heard of Geoff's were brutal as shit.

I have stumbled upon using a Rat 2 to drive the Bassman to be very much to my liking for high gain stuff. That thing gets so fucked up and compressed when getting hit hard at the front and the gain cranked. Just like, mad pumpy in a way I have never heard another distortion pedal get. At extreme settings it's a little too unwieldy for my current purposes but it's good to know I can get that kinda sound. I'm sure it'd be cool for processing other kinds of stuff as well, loops and synths and whatnot. Thing can also get convincingly HM-2 like by cranking the shit out of 1k on my Sunn.

Also sidenote, I've been using one of those EHX Bass Soul Foods as sort of a preamp before my splitter/other effects. It's handily got a -10db pad on it cause my bass is so hot, so I kinda split the difference by running that on all the time a bit above unity gain with the pad engaged. Clean blend function on it is badass, and even fully wet doesn't low end but can simultaneously get wildly toothy. The guitar Soul Food never got along with my guitars because it seems impossible to dial out those Katana-ass highs, but this thing seems like the ticket for bass.

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Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:09 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
That makes sense, the Soul Food for guitar is supposed to be a straight up Klon clone.

The Klone i built, i kind of fucking hate. REAL weird mids squawk thing built into it. Not quite cocked wah, but something related to it. I have a lot of different amp flavors here right now, and i basically hate it with evry one of them. :red: I actually was pretty careful about building that one just right too. It uses some slightly odd value components, that normally i might be inclined to use the next closest common value for, but i didn't want to mess up its "special" vibe. It sucks though.

I wonder what the bass soul food looks like, schematically. I will look it up and see if it has been drawn out yet. Hopefully it is just some component/filter tweaks to change from the regular old (shitty) Klon circuit.

Hmm.

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Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:01 am
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Does the Soul Food work any better with your humbucker guitar(s)? I figured that'd be the ticket because my Teles wanted to have nothing to do with that pedal. I'm thinking maybe a really dark git/amp could see the benefit but it was total overkill with all the shit we have here.

Bass Soul Food I assume must be quite different because it does not have the highpass-y sound to it at all, which was the main thing with the normal one, IMO. I could have dealt with the sharpness if it was not at the expense of the low end. Bass one is good about that, you can put a lot of teeth on it but it seems to have no effect on the sub frequencies. The "treble" boost seems to sit in a similar spot though, it's a very metallic upper mid kind of thing.



Only sort of related; a test of Alex and I's bi-amp rigs in prep for the record we're gonna be recording soon: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vhvz356tvqdk ... T.mp3?dl=0

Still not particularly happy with either, but close-ish. Alex has a bunch of options with the three pickup SG, probably too many. This was the middle and neck I think. A little bit too cloudy, IMO. My bass I think is lacking something as well, I gotta mess with different mics and positions and all that shit still for both. Weird experiment in seeing what one can get away with.

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Wed Sep 12, 2018 3:05 pm
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Post Re: Bass distortion pedals..?
Snaxocaster wrote:
The "Fisticuffs" Blowerbox clone Geoff built me is pretty awesome. I don't know if he's still building them. I did a bass pedal shootout before I moved, and found that to be my favorite of the lot, between the Big Muff, HM-2, Sansamp, and my friend's Boss Bass Overdrive, which is surprisingly good through a nice amp. I don't have an amp with me at the moment, but I do have my 11R and Audient, and I did bring the Fisticuffs pedal and my Warwick.

I am not making them anymore as I was making a kit from a place that shut down.

I can still make them though. If money is an issue I'd use a different opamp. I can make other opamps sound like an LM308.

But yeah, the fucking Blowerbox ROOLZ.

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