Extra bass dirt/growl

MichaelZodiac · December 08, 2011, 07:17:41 PM

I was thinking about adding some extra dirt to my bass rig. Right now the only dirt is my Supercollider which I love but I'd like to run some kind of boost in front of it. I though someone here has used the Tech 21 Oxford on bass and it had great results? Or maybe the VT pedal? Or should I go budget and buy a DOD250 just because it will suffice?

chille01 · December 08, 2011, 07:20:54 PM

I'm in the process of modding a Big Muff to be more bass friendly. There are plenty of tricks you can do to it to make it so.

MichaelZodiac · December 08, 2011, 07:27:07 PM

Actually I love my Supercollider for what it is. It's just that my amp is really clean and I some kind of growl before the fuzz. Because now the fuzz is always on and I want something for some parts that don't really need that kind of saturation.

Mr. Foxen · December 08, 2011, 07:27:34 PM

The VT bass is really great, the colour and the mid between them (colour is a post gain mid) do all sorts of interesting tricks.

grimniggzy · December 09, 2011, 10:39:52 AM

What kind of amp do you have?
Some OD's and boosts really depend on the application.
From experience the VT Bass is awesome but I usually run it as a preamp at the end of my chain so its not really much of a boost. Since your amp is pretty clean though it would make sense to grab it if you know you like the sound of Ampegs.

grimniggzy · December 09, 2011, 10:43:40 AM

I currently use a 90's RAT with LM308 chip as a kinda boost/OD and it sounds pretty great in all applications. I don't really turn the distortion up but it can get into gobs of dist territory too.
The DOD 250 I've heard sounds better with a tube head than solid state.

VOLVO))) · December 09, 2011, 11:03:08 AM

Well, most overdrives sound better with tubes because they're designed to push tubes, not diodes. It's easy to overdrive diodes. That's why 99% of pedals are solid state. Tube snobs who use dist/fuzz/od and bitch about those Musicman amps having solid state preamps are idiots.

/strawman beatdown

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

zachoff · December 09, 2011, 11:53:12 AM

What do you want to boost? I put an EHX Mole in front of my disto pedal and it turned awesome.

moose23 · December 10, 2011, 09:56:38 AM

I use the Oxford to great results (have sold the VTBass I had). I also run it after my Muff and as a preamp. Even if I wasn't using it as a pre I reckon I'd still run it last in the chain. The idea being that you're running fuzz into a dirty amp rather than overdrive then fuzz then clean amp.

mawso · December 11, 2011, 06:48:39 AM

the DOD takes out a buttload of your low end. it rules on guitar but i'd be skeptical about how well it'd go for bass.

MichaelZodiac · December 11, 2011, 08:50:30 AM

Amp is SS, will probably upgrade next year but will still probably be SS (something along the line of a GK or a cheap Behringer that can push some watts through a 2*15).

I checked that Oxford on bass, unfortunately there seems to be only 1 short clip online with the settings Tech 21 printed for bass in their manual. It sounds good though and more to my liking than the VT demos.

0:30

grimniggzy · December 11, 2011, 10:17:21 AM

I've never heard the Oxford on Bass. Always seemed like guys on Talkbass always were into the Leeds (& the VT of course.)
The VT doesn't seem like it has a lot of different sounds but I think it is awesome, even for guitar and you can get within inches (IMO) to almost all the awesome Ampegs ever made. The Character & Drive knobs have a ridiculous amount of gain on tap making it a go to for me on guitar and any bass amplification scenario I'm unfamiliar with or has a clean or uncharacteristic amp. I'm rocking solid state as well and it makes my amps come alive. I don't always need it but I can never take it off my board. Just wish it had a DI I'm not buying this...
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/tech-21-sansamp-character-series-vt-bass-deluxe-distortion-effects-pedal/423708000000000
I hope

I need enough shit already.

Lumpy · December 11, 2011, 10:40:37 AM

Quote from: mawso on December 11, 2011, 06:48:39 AM
the DOD takes out a buttload of your low end. it rules on guitar but i'd be skeptical about how well it'd go for bass.

Really? That could suck, if your amp didn't have EQ

Also, bass "growl" is mids, by definition. You want more growl (topic) then you need more mids. Unless it's an "everything louder than everything else" situation (humor... you can't emphasize everything).

So, DOD 250 is still a good low-budget suggestion.

moose23 · December 11, 2011, 05:01:58 PM

I must get some sound samples recorded with the Oxford and post them up. If you're going the sansamp (be it VT/Oxford/Leeds) route you could pick up a cheap D class solid state power amp and use the sansamp as your main pre. that'd be a super compact and light set up.

BaseApe · December 12, 2011, 06:02:24 AM

Quote from: Lumpy on December 11, 2011, 10:40:37 AM
Quote from: mawso on December 11, 2011, 06:48:39 AM
the DOD takes out a buttload of your low end. it rules on guitar but i'd be skeptical about how well it'd go for bass.

Really? That could suck, if your amp didn't have EQ

Also, bass "growl" is mids, by definition. You want more growl (topic) then you need more mids. Unless it's an "everything louder than everything else" situation (humor... you can't emphasize everything).

So, DOD 250 is still a good low-budget suggestion.

so maybe just turn up the mids on the amp rather than buy a pedal which sucks out all the bass and then fix that problem with EQ?

moose23 · December 12, 2011, 06:51:11 AM

You cannot add in bass with the amp eq when it's been removed by a pedal. ie you cannot boost what isn't there.

You could however mod a 250 to allow more bass through.

Lumpy · December 12, 2011, 10:05:17 AM

Quote from: moose23 on December 12, 2011, 06:51:11 AM
You cannot add in bass with the amp eq when it's been removed by a pedal. ie you cannot boost what isn't there.

I suppose that's true, but the DOD 250 isn't a high pass filter. If somebody says DOD 250 removes "all the bass" he's exaggerating just a little. There's still plenty of bass there to boost. If you want more growl, that is in the Mids. Lots of people use the DOD 250 for bass and don't sound trebly or whatever. Dudes just need to make up their minds what they want, and take it from there... if somebody wants the ultra low subsonic bass, then don't ask for mids growl. This guy wants mids growl. So if the DOD doen't give him subsonic bass, who cares, because that's not what he asked for.

zachoff · December 12, 2011, 10:22:03 AM

Quote from: moose23 on December 12, 2011, 06:51:11 AM
You cannot add in bass with the amp eq when it's been removed by a pedal. ie you cannot boost what isn't there.

You could however mod a 250 to allow more bass through.

...or boost the crap out of the bass before the pedal strips out what it needs.
...or split your signal & run one clean and one dirty to preserve the lows but you do sacrifice total fuzz or distortion when you do this.

Honestly, I've never gotten awesome results w/o splitting my signal. YMMV

If you have a 2 channel amp it's easy to split and mix, but you can do it w/ a one channel as well. ABY pedal at the front, Y cable at the end, and whatever pedals you want in-between.

moose23 · December 12, 2011, 10:40:39 AM

Quote from: Lumpy on December 12, 2011, 10:05:17 AM
Quote from: moose23 on December 12, 2011, 06:51:11 AM
You cannot add in bass with the amp eq when it's been removed by a pedal. ie you cannot boost what isn't there.

I suppose that's true, but the DOD 250 isn't a high pass filter. If somebody says DOD 250 removes "all the bass" he's exaggerating just a little. There's still plenty of bass there to boost. If you want more growl, that is in the Mids. Lots of people use the DOD 250 for bass and don't sound trebly or whatever. Dudes just need to make up their minds what they want, and take it from there... if somebody wants the ultra low subsonic bass, then don't ask for mids growl. This guy wants mids growl. So if the DOD doen't give him subsonic bass, who cares, because that's not what he asked for.

I think you'll find that the input stage the dod250 acts a high pass filter. If losing bass isn't a concern then it's not a problem, I use a modded one on occasion myself and don't mind the bit of bass lost and it's well known that Al Cisneros uses a stock one to great affect in Om. Not sounding "trebly" with the 250 has nothing to do with the fact it does cut bass that cannot be added back in afterwards which is what I said in the first place, sure you could cut as much treble as you want after it. Also bear in mind that you'll have a very different experience with running one into a tube vs an ss amplifier due to tube compression et al. I'd nearly put money on all the bass players that use a stock 250 successfully use tube heads but I'm open to correction on that one...

@zachoff Boosting bass before the effect isn't going to help at all, the effect will still cut the same amount of low end no matter how much you hit it with.

zachoff · December 12, 2011, 10:45:05 AM

Quote from: moose23 on December 12, 2011, 10:40:39 AM

I think you'll find that the input stage the dod250 acts a high pass filter. If losing bass isn't a concern then it's not a problem, I use a modded one on occasion myself and don't mind the bit of bass lost and it's well known that Al Cisneros uses a stock one to great affect in Om. Not sounding "trebly" with the 250 has nothing to do with the fact it does cut bass that cannot be added back in afterwards which is what I said in the first place, sure you could cut as much treble as you want after it. Also bear in mind that you'll have a very different experience with running one into a tube vs an ss amplifier due to tube compression et al. I'd nearly put money on all the bass players that use a stock 250 successfully use tube heads but I'm open to correction on that one...

@zachoff Boosting bass before the effect isn't going to help at all, the effect will still cut the same amount of low end no matter how much you hit it with.

Not true, man. I boost ~15db @200-400Hz before my disto pedal and it makes a huge difference. Everything less than that is maintained through splitting my signal.

moose23 · December 12, 2011, 11:24:40 AM

It mustn't be cutting those frequencies so.