Check out Fuzzlord. Bass players seem to enjoy their pedals more than guitarists. I'm a little bit of both so there's alot of experimentation going on.
It's what we are used to as bass players. Locking in with our drummer. I remember once a drummer told me: "I'm not used to someone looking at me. The guitar players don't even notice me"
one more thing that could have been mentioned are loop pedals like the Xotic X-Blender. I'm using a lot of guitar pedals that don't work well for bass. The X-blender allows me to mix the effect with my clean tone to get my low end and some clarity back. Especially nice for RATs and MuTrons
Seconded. A loop/blender pedal is a must-have for bassists, mainly for the reasons you suggested, but also great for blending in compression -- if you are using the Diamond compressor as an example, which doesn't have a blend control... problem solved! Radial Tonebones & their Mix-Blender (mix two inputs + a blendable loop) are great options, the Xotic is cool too!
The Xotic is a brillant solution with a brillant price. The Boss LS-2 can also be mentioned as a good and solid budget solution to keep up the lo end in the mix with the effect signal and the original bass signal.
For over 20 years I have never found the right light drive for bass. Then I saw this, saw Roy using a Morning Glory, realized I also had a Bluesbreaker style pedal (Wampler Pantheon) that I somehow never tried on bass (even though I use "guitar" pedals on bass all the damn time), plugged it in and holy shit it's the sound I've been looking for for forever and I had a pedal that could do it for literally over a year. Kicking myself a little, but thank you.
Can we please just take a second to recognize how amazing the drum sound and production is here? Stereo! So clear and rich. No only played well, but the recording of the kit is just awesome.
There are three aspects that get in the way of a pedal being as good for bass as it is for guitar. All of them are remediable, though. 1) Bandwidth. As discussed. Often, this can be resolved by changing one or two capacitor values. Bring the pedal to your local repair guy, along with the schematic, and 8 minutes after unscrewing the lid, it can be optimized for bass...well, assuming the soldering iron was already plugged in. 2) Sensitivity. Basses usually put out a hotter signal than guitar, making it easier for them to overdrive a guitar pedal in undesired ways. The solution can involve changing the gain of the input stage in the pedal, or simply turning down the bass's volume a bit. 3) Spectral emphasis. Most relevant to autowahs, but also true of things like EQ pedals, flangers, chorus, and phasers, all of which shift stuff over a bit to complement the part of the spectrum most meaningful to bass. F'rinstance, whenever I build or mod a chorus, I always include a lo-cut switch for the wet signal, that makes the pitch-wobble inherent to chorus less obvious for the bass, where you want the swirl, but still have more dependable pitch.
You know what else gets in the way? Manufacturers not listing the frequency response so you have some idea of what you are getting into before you blow loads of cash. The low B guys are not amused.
Since youtube generously banned my other account, I have to repeat a comment I already left on the previous bass episode: A deep dive on Darkglass pedals would be greatly appreciated. They don't seem to be based on any existing style of distortion and they are designed specifically for bass. Despite the countless promotional demos, no one has yet to explain their features and examine how they're clipping, what their components are etc, etc
After the last couple of episodes all I want is for my bass to run through a Klon or Morning Glory into a Colour Box. Now I just need to get a Color Box, Klon and Morning Glory....... I regret spending my last paycheck on that crate of vintage Hewlett Packard computer speakers but I was chasing that "1995 Dial Up Internet" sound.
Oh snap, I started playing bass about a year ago. I moved from guitar to bass ......oooooo I know I know. The church I play for needed some bass players and I said I'd pick it up and help out when I can. Short story longer I basically grabbed my over drive compressor and verb from my guitar rig and the rest is history at this point. No one has booed me off stage yet so I'd say it's a win. Also, I'd like Roy to be my spirit animal if I can choose that sort of thing.
It's not just pedals. You can use ANY standard guitar pedals, amps, cabinets with bass guitar. The only catch is that some gear designed for standard guitar doesn't have the right frequencies for bass, but that's just for you to decide.
actually never heard of him, went to check mouthwhatever and first thing I found is this radiohead ripoff ruclips.net/video/7XVWR-5fiG0/видео.html I actually don't like much Victor Wooten, but I'd say he is or could be " most influential bass player in past 20 years"....but surely not this guy (y)
“I’m standing right here.” -Nick 2020 Next week: “Do bass pedals work on guitar?” 😂 My bass pedal line up is (in no particular order): an MXR Bass Innovations Envelope Filter and chorus/flanger, a Barber tone press, a Catalinbread Echorec, a Pigtronics Disnortion (I use both outs (clean and dirty) and blend them), a JHS Clover... and a Korg tuner (honestly I just slapped together a bunch of leftovers from my guitar boards over the years, and added in the MXR pedals.)
The Talking Math jam might have been my absolute favorite jam in the shows history!! Making bass boards is one of the best things ever, hope everyone starts giving their bass players pedals!
I'm not imaging things, right? This is a real bass episode and not just a lucid dream I've stumbled into? 😲 Finally did it. Now, if we yell loud enough, we'll get the Sovtek episode 😆🤣
Some overdrives and fuzzes do suck out some of the low end on bass. If you're going for hi-gain distortion you might want to think about a bass booster or using some clean blend before overdrives
Roy: You don't need "bass" specific pedals. Guitar pedals work just fine. Also Roy: I put a Boss Bass EQ pedal at the end of my chain to boost back in low frequencies (100-200Hz). Now, imagine a world where you don't need the bass EQ pedal...because...the pedal takes in to consideration the loss of those lower frequencies. We will call them "bass pedals."
The choice then is (depending on how deep into the pit of pedal purchases you are) do you buy bass versions of everything or just a bass boosting pedal
Bassist here. Been using my TU-2 as a splitter and using the Morley ABY Mix pedal to mix my Line 6 M9 and Mojo Mojo back in with my clean signal. It works great but a Morning Glory sure would be a great addition!! 😁. Thanks for another great show!
I was the touring bassist for the Motown group The Miracles a few years back before Covid hit. So obviously I really needed to nail that Jamerson bass sound as the guys insisted on the music sounding like the original recordings. I used a mic’d SVT that ran clean into the console then on my pedal board I used a Bass Soul Food on very light overdrive and then also used my Ampeg SCR DI preamp to EQ the bass back in but also used the Scrambler ever so lightly that I blended with the Soul Food to even it out a bit. For that extra JJ punch I also engaged my noise gate just enough to add that attack. String mute of course. It’s not exactly the way I’d do it in a studio but live it sounded spot on. At one concert in St Louis we had one of Michael Jackson’s former sound guys with us and he was blown away at how he was able to take my pedalboard sound and blend it with the mic’s clean sound to recreate that epic bass tone. I’m not a big pedal guy but they can be used very creatively to come up with some great sounds. Today I have 13 pedals on my live board and loving it!
Josh! I'm a guitar player (not entering the contests). I just want to say that what you are doing on your channel this year and this episode in particular is the pinnacle of music orientated content creators on RUclips. Well done! I'd love to see you do acoustic guitar pedals someday. Love Nick's drumming too.... he's _Really_ good and a lot better than Ok :)
This has got to be my favorite video of yours so far Josh. I've been a big fan of JHS pedals for years but I have been listening to MuteMath since before the beginning. Back when Earthsuit was still playing local gigs circa 1994-95. I got invited to their CD release party at The Howlin Wolf in New Orleans for the first MuteMath full album. I love every album. I pity anyone who never got to see them live. This was such a fun episode to really see stuff used in a different way.
I appreciate that all the people working on this episode have far more experience, knowledge, and success than me. That said, in all my years playing bass with bands I've found that in smaller live situations bass drive pedals absolutely need a clean blend to avoid having the bottom end of the entire band drop out. A dedicated sound-person can help, but even then he/she can't be expected to readjust the bass' eq every time you kick some dirt on off. If the drummer is playing without mics in a small place, you can just forget about it all together!
As both a guitar player and bassist, Roy is so inspiring to me! The way he fits in the feel is PERFECT and his ideas are so tasty. I’m putting my Morning Glory into my bass rig because of him!
I love that driving mid bass sound. Just cuts thru the mix, like great bass sounds if the late 60's/early 70's (think top 40 tuned-for-car-radios compression). The bass becomes a real voice not just a feel.
I'm a vocalist, that LOVES playing Guitar, but the bass is my mistress. Awesome conversation , very inspiring and makes me glad I've remembered my old mistress again, after 15 years of neglect. I wish I knew about this channel years ago .. keep it up ... BTW Tight as fuck jams ! loved it
I find a good work around with loosing low end is getting a good splitter with phase control. Blending a dry signal with any effects allow u to use all the great dirt pedals without sacrificing lows. The phase control is to fix phase issues with certain circuits that flip your phase. Take it one step further and use a crossover splitter. The KMA Tyler Deluxe is a phenomenal example. Most "bass" pedals simply just have a clean knob to fix the problem of loosing low end and clarity. I think more guitar drives should have blend knobs too. Adding cleans back into your dirt tones adds so much clarity to your tone. Its amazing.
This was really a great episode. I always figured that because the pedals cut the low end, it wouldn't be enough to just boost them after the fact. It's always cool to learn new things.
I have played bass over 30 years in many local bands. Have used fuzz and flanger with eq. Great swamp bass sound that went over well. Your videos or great and I'm a big fan. Thanks for guiding us musicians in pedal greatness...DJ
I'm a guitar player first but in the band I'm in I play bass. I've got a board with 22 pedals on it and run them through a Mig-50 (bassman). When I'm playing guitar its through a 4x12, bass its through two 2x10's. Thought about picking up certain "bass" pedals to interchange out until the last time Roy was here and showed us the EQ trick. Now I'm confident in plugging my bass or guitar through this behemoth. One Love Homies
Always a clean blend! As long as there’s a hint of that clean signal coming through, you can boost it back up later either in the chain or in the mix. Thank you for my “FINALLY” episode 🙏😻
So many people have it in their heads bass pedals "have to" have blend knobs. Once you get that out of your head, there are so many great drive pedals to use, fuzz pedal possibilities, and what not. When I first started looking at effects, I'd look up frequency responses and most pedals have enough low end frequency to work on bass. Some bass effects marketed in the day had lower frequency responses than bass amps... not necessary.
Here's my take on this : a tool is a tool, you decide what to use it for. That's called being creative. Everything else is just marketing : when there's no real need for a product that you want to sell, make people believe the IS a need for it and THEN sell it to them. Guitarists (and maybe bassists by proxy) are crazy vulnerable to that tbh.
There are records that define an era in your life and Odd Soul is one of them for me... Right out of college starting my career, meeting my wife to be and taking the “next step”. Glad to see Roy again on the show and highlighting this awesome album. - Also, was there not a missed opportunity here with “Math Heads” as the song title???
Amazing! Among my top ten “Subscribed, allowed notifications and will watch again “ list, coming in at a solid 4 with a bullet. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to witness the dynamics between professionals being creative. Thanks for that.
the high pass filter (made with a simple capacitor) on the input of most pedals is a good reason why bass players typically don't like guitar pedals for bass. changing out the cap to something much larger can help with recovering some of the low end lost. for instance, instead of a .01uf cap, you can change that to a .1 uf cap...or even as high as 1uf.
Some old mate from work show me the "mutemath (album)". That was mindblowing. Than odd soul came out and makes me believe that some the world could be better after all... that was incredible! One of those great albums that you can repeat non-stop. Thanks, just it.
So many "bass specific" type pedals do in fact have features a bassist will want. Bass effects pedals often have a "wet/dry" or "blend" control to regulate how much pure direct bass you want in your signal along with the effect.
It's so weird to see Roy on the JHS Show. I remember the ol' Victory Fellowship days. That was over half a lifetime ago. I miss the days of seeing him, Darren, and Paul. This has me reminiscing. Anyway, thanks for having him on the show, Josh.
You are welcome. Please do bass amps next, and I would love to see Josh talk about his axe-colection. My favorite pedal for bass is compressor, I have an noisy old DOD bass compressor, and I use it for evrything, like moving the lawn or to pick up some groceries. I have this EQ pedal that cuts out the low-range, so I would recomend to get a EQ pedal that can actually boost that low end for all bass players.
Not sure how I missed this episode when it came out, but this was the best collection of jams ever on this channel. Roy is very much my kind of bass player and Josh and Nick were up to the task he presented.
Thanks for the rundown. Even though there are plenty of great bass gear review channels, I have yet to find one that goes into the kind of meticulous depth that you guys do for guitar-specific pedals. More of these low-end lowdown lectures would be very much appreciated.
As a bassist I tried quite a lot of compressors, and I have to admit that the Pulp N Peel is one of the best. Especially because of the blend knob, which gives a lot of control on any saturation coming from an overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedal. Also, I do believe most guitar pedals work great on bass. Quite a lot of guitar overdrive pedals kills low end, and this can be corrected with EQ, for sure, but if you find an overdrive pedal that keeps low ends, well, keep it.
When I was young Roy was the first bass player that I saw using pedals, I was so motivated that I went to my local music store and bought a Behringer a ultra bass chorus thinking it was some tipe of dirt pedal. But now I know better jaja
Great sounds! Nailed the imapala sound. I got to meet Roy when he checked out my band in Murfreesboro several years ago and we completely geeked out. Very nice guy and amazing bass player.
I’ve been using a Kodiak Tremelo on my bass pedalboard for about the last 6 mos. and it sounds absolutely incredible. Blend knob makes all the difference!
Armistice (the song and the album) has some of my favorite bass work ever. Honestly though there isn't a single Mutemath song I'm aware of that hasn't had excellent bass work. Roy is awesome, he keeps it tight with the drums while still keeping it super interesting. Definitely my favorite bassist.
Great epi. That stream was so good too. Dat 506!!💥 😄 My bass board has always had >75% "guitar" pedals. Current (stripped) bass board has no bass specific pedals, but all sound perfect without EQ - Empress Comp> OC-2> Pork Loin> TU2.
Great episode! Do you think you guys might ever do an episode on Radial? As a bassist, their Bassbone pedals are must-have preamps imho, total swiss-blades when it comes to utility + great tone (I use my Bassbone OD as a dual channel pre at the end of my gain staging to dial in the tones of two basses, or a bass and pedalsteel guitar depending on the stuff I'm doing, can use its loop to blend in effects + apply a high pass filter to it -- it's super versatile, helps tie my entire board together not unlike an EQD Swiss Things would), and their DI's are legendary for good reason but they have a lot of great under-rated pedals. Example: the Elevator is an *excellent* boost with some neat settings like their 'Drag' impedance control (really useful when using a guitar with a bass amp in a pinch, not that many people would do that -- I play pedalsteel guitar through my bass rig and it sounds way better than it has any right to), yet I haven't found anyone who seems to even know it exists irl yet lol. Radial aren't as creative as y'all at JHS or Earthquaker Devices, but I love 'em all the same. It would be nice to see them get a little bit of the spotlight on their stuff aside from their excellent DI's, super-useful 'Stagebug' pedals, and other utility stuff they are pretty well known for. Also maybe a Diamond episode some day? Their compressors are delicious (no other comp has knocked my diamond bass comp off my board), and I know you've shown that plus the Memory Man before, but they have soooooooo many dank pedals.
All pedals are bass pedals. Only thing that matters is weather you like it or not. I have a ton of effects, bass and guitar. Least we forget...Bassist number one go to pedal, OC2, was a guitar pedal at first. More importantly though. Bassplayers finally getting some love here!
So this is the greatest and bestest JHS video of all time. It caters to the unsung heroes of music (bassists) with one of the top 3 bass players of all time (and generally all around fabulous human being). Thank you Josh and Nick AND ROY!!!! PS I swear I'm a bassplayer...
Well one half of my pedals are made for guitar but work perfect on bass, the other half are for bass guitars. The guitar pedals are my modulation section containing a stag blaxx chorus, a stagg blaxx phaser and a Boss RV-6 reverb. The other half are an EHX bass Battalion as a pre/drive, an EHX Bass Soul food as overdrive and an EHX Bass Big Muff. They keep the low end frequencies, especially the fuzz. A lot of fuzzes kill the low end, but you can switch the dry signal to the fuzz sound to keep it low. With the Battalion you can push the high and mid frequencies down and boost your basssignal.
I started out as a bass player and my first rig was a bass big muff (for heavy riffs) and a Chuck's Creamer by Chuck Electronique (tube screamer type circuit) for feedbacks and leads. I was alway louder and dirtier than my guitarist friends. Bass Big Muff is still in my top 5 favorite pedals and I used it on guitars countless times because yeah: it goes both ways🤘
Perfect episode. I am a bass player that is just getting into pedals and was wondering if guitar pedals would work just a few weeks ago. I love the demos and playing on this episode. Keep up the great work!
Finally some (more) Bass guitar love! I would have loved to have seen the dirt function of the Pulp 'n' Peel demoed. That pedal is such a great one stop shop for live bass guitar rigs... DI, comp, little bit of EQ and a little bit of grit!?!?! YES please!
All pedals are bass pedals, no one can stop us.
Getting buried in the mix will certainly stop you. That said, only drive pedals carry that risk
Not if the cut all lowend
Some pedals don’t track bass frequencies but whatever sounds good.
Never use "bass" pedals live and never had loss of lows. A good bass amp covers the lows, and a good mixer makes it work
Check out Fuzzlord. Bass players seem to enjoy their pedals more than guitarists. I'm a little bit of both so there's alot of experimentation going on.
I felt so bad for Roy around 8:08 when he nailed that fill and looked over at the drummer and got nothing, looked at Josh, nothing. I felt it, Roy.
The fact that it happens at 808 is kind of telling!!
Such is the life of a bass player. Only other bass players hear ridiculous fills.
Yep... kicked out of the pocket lol
Could feel that set-up coming, but beautiful recovery 😸👍
It's what we are used to as bass players. Locking in with our drummer. I remember once a drummer told me: "I'm not used to someone looking at me. The guitar players don't even notice me"
one more thing that could have been mentioned are loop pedals like the Xotic X-Blender. I'm using a lot of guitar pedals that don't work well for bass. The X-blender allows me to mix the effect with my clean tone to get my low end and some clarity back. Especially nice for RATs and MuTrons
Seconded. A loop/blender pedal is a must-have for bassists, mainly for the reasons you suggested, but also great for blending in compression -- if you are using the Diamond compressor as an example, which doesn't have a blend control... problem solved! Radial Tonebones & their Mix-Blender (mix two inputs + a blendable loop) are great options, the Xotic is cool too!
You need to try the Lil Trees "Synesthesia" on bass.
The Bloop is nice, so is Broughton's Fx Loop
Another "blender" for consideration is the Lazy Bear effects (UK) Active signal blender pedal. Compact size for around £80.
The Xotic is a brillant solution with a brillant price. The Boss LS-2 can also be mentioned as a good and solid budget solution to keep up the lo end in the mix with the effect signal and the original bass signal.
Mutemath = One of my favorite bands
Roy = My favorite bass player
JHS = My favorite pedals
This video = PURE GOLD
Same!!
great episode!
The "Talking Math" jam needs to be a real thing, love it
PLEASE GOD!!! For the love of 2020
🙏🏻😭🙏🏻
It reminded me of Holy F*ck in the best possible way.
they absolutely killed it!
For over 20 years I have never found the right light drive for bass. Then I saw this, saw Roy using a Morning Glory, realized I also had a Bluesbreaker style pedal (Wampler Pantheon) that I somehow never tried on bass (even though I use "guitar" pedals on bass all the damn time), plugged it in and holy shit it's the sound I've been looking for for forever and I had a pedal that could do it for literally over a year. Kicking myself a little, but thank you.
I thought the harassment-level episode was the sovtek one
Nah... it's gone full on assault now.....
I think th Sovtek episode is just a running joke at this point. They've been talking about a Sovtek for years now.
Sovtek episode will be for the channel's 50th anniversary, no big just have patience /s
@@benjiboy69420 by then Josh wil have some sort of holographic 3D surround sound tech. Will be a worthy episode
“February Stars” and “Hey Johnny Park” from The Colour and the Shape don’t get talked about enough.
Can we please just take a second to recognize how amazing the drum sound and production is here? Stereo! So clear and rich. No only played well, but the recording of the kit is just awesome.
100%
There are three aspects that get in the way of a pedal being as good for bass as it is for guitar. All of them are remediable, though.
1) Bandwidth. As discussed. Often, this can be resolved by changing one or two capacitor values. Bring the pedal to your local repair guy, along with the schematic, and 8 minutes after unscrewing the lid, it can be optimized for bass...well, assuming the soldering iron was already plugged in.
2) Sensitivity. Basses usually put out a hotter signal than guitar, making it easier for them to overdrive a guitar pedal in undesired ways. The solution can involve changing the gain of the input stage in the pedal, or simply turning down the bass's volume a bit.
3) Spectral emphasis. Most relevant to autowahs, but also true of things like EQ pedals, flangers, chorus, and phasers, all of which shift stuff over a bit to complement the part of the spectrum most meaningful to bass. F'rinstance, whenever I build or mod a chorus, I always include a lo-cut switch for the wet signal, that makes the pitch-wobble inherent to chorus less obvious for the bass, where you want the swirl, but still have more dependable pitch.
Exactly. Guitar pedals DO work on bass and will often sound good, but they won't sound as designed and you can't know until you try
You know what else gets in the way?
Manufacturers not listing the frequency response so you have some idea of what you are getting into before you blow loads of cash.
The low B guys are not amused.
Actually a good comment!
Just bought my first ever bass after 20 years of guitar and then I remembered this episode because of how good Roy is on bass... amazing.
Since youtube generously banned my other account, I have to repeat a comment I already left on the previous bass episode: A deep dive on Darkglass pedals would be greatly appreciated. They don't seem to be based on any existing style of distortion and they are designed specifically for bass. Despite the countless promotional demos, no one has yet to explain their features and examine how they're clipping, what their components are etc, etc
I have a compressor of theirs, though i dont know much about it. use it for guitar.
Don’t feel bad, since March of 2020 I’ve lost eight accounts. Fucking insanity.
@@smelltheglove2038 how?
After the last couple of episodes all I want is for my bass to run through a Klon or Morning Glory into a Colour Box. Now I just need to get a Color Box, Klon and Morning Glory....... I regret spending my last paycheck on that crate of vintage Hewlett Packard computer speakers but I was chasing that "1995 Dial Up Internet" sound.
Damn, so I have to get a crate of HP speakers to get that tone? The ones that are attached to the monitor or the free standing speaker sets?
When you talked about rolling off the low end all I could think of is the line from the Incredibles.
If everything has bass then nothing has bass
Corn!
Oh snap, I started playing bass about a year ago. I moved from guitar to bass ......oooooo I know I know. The church I play for needed some bass players and I said I'd pick it up and help out when I can. Short story longer I basically grabbed my over drive compressor and verb from my guitar rig and the rest is history at this point. No one has booed me off stage yet so I'd say it's a win. Also, I'd like Roy to be my spirit animal if I can choose that sort of thing.
It's not just pedals. You can use ANY standard guitar pedals, amps, cabinets with bass guitar. The only catch is that some gear designed for standard guitar doesn't have the right frequencies for bass, but that's just for you to decide.
*most influential bass player in past 20 years walks in*
Josh: "He'll do."
"most influential bass player in past 20 years walks in"??!!! 4 real? have to disagree
actually never heard of him, went to check mouthwhatever and first thing I found is this radiohead ripoff
ruclips.net/video/7XVWR-5fiG0/видео.html
I actually don't like much Victor Wooten, but I'd say he is or could be " most influential bass player in past 20 years"....but surely not this guy (y)
@@rolojeldres I hope your ego keeps you warm at night.
@@phillipemery572 hahahaha hurt too much?? Adrian Feraud or someone like that in that case...btw, I don't play even close enough to those jazz guys ;)
@@phillipemery572 Linley Marthe!!!! here you go!!
ruclips.net/video/eaGD7zUpSU4/видео.html
I don't even HAVE a "bass pedal."
Even when I do play bass, it is running through my guitar pedalboard, and it is every bit as useful.
"Tell use your favorite Mutemath song"
This can only lead to evenings of relistening albums and changing my mind every 4 minutes
It took this video to realize I've really only listened to their first album with any regularity. Diving deep into Old Soul thanks to this video.
you guys **CONSISTENTLY** PLAY THE BEST JAMS ON RUclips.
And this week is no exception.
“I’m standing right here.” -Nick 2020
Next week: “Do bass pedals work on guitar?” 😂
My bass pedal line up is (in no particular order): an MXR Bass Innovations Envelope Filter and chorus/flanger, a Barber tone press, a Catalinbread Echorec, a Pigtronics Disnortion (I use both outs (clean and dirty) and blend them), a JHS Clover... and a Korg tuner (honestly I just slapped together a bunch of leftovers from my guitar boards over the years, and added in the MXR pedals.)
I believe Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins uses a bass distortion on his guitar.
Mutemath is one of the most underrated bands around. Odd Soul is an amazing record. I’m convinced Roy is largely responsible.
The Talking Math jam might have been my absolute favorite jam in the shows history!! Making bass boards is one of the best things ever, hope everyone starts giving their bass players pedals!
So - JHS Sessions. Why isn't this a thing?
I'm not imaging things, right? This is a real bass episode and not just a lucid dream I've stumbled into? 😲
Finally did it. Now, if we yell loud enough, we'll get the Sovtek episode 😆🤣
Some overdrives and fuzzes do suck out some of the low end on bass.
If you're going for hi-gain distortion you might want to think about a bass booster or using some clean blend before overdrives
Roy: You don't need "bass" specific pedals. Guitar pedals work just fine.
Also Roy: I put a Boss Bass EQ pedal at the end of my chain to boost back in low frequencies (100-200Hz).
Now, imagine a world where you don't need the bass EQ pedal...because...the pedal takes in to consideration the loss of those lower frequencies. We will call them "bass pedals."
Exactly
The choice then is (depending on how deep into the pit of pedal purchases you are) do you buy bass versions of everything or just a bass boosting pedal
He does say this at 2:48. Guess it depends if you are happy to run a pre amp or an EQ. Or even some adjustment on the head.
I would love an episode where you compare some of the most popular bass direst boxes. Loving these bass videos!
Bassist here. Been using my TU-2 as a splitter and using the Morley ABY Mix pedal to mix my Line 6 M9 and Mojo Mojo back in with my clean signal. It works great but a Morning Glory sure would be a great addition!! 😁. Thanks for another great show!
I was the touring bassist for the Motown group The Miracles a few years back before Covid hit. So obviously I really needed to nail that Jamerson bass sound as the guys insisted on the music sounding like the original recordings. I used a mic’d SVT that ran clean into the console then on my pedal board I used a Bass Soul Food on very light overdrive and then also used my Ampeg SCR DI preamp to EQ the bass back in but also used the Scrambler ever so lightly that I blended with the Soul Food to even it out a bit. For that extra JJ punch I also engaged my noise gate just enough to add that attack. String mute of course. It’s not exactly the way I’d do it in a studio but live it sounded spot on. At one concert in St Louis we had one of Michael Jackson’s former sound guys with us and he was blown away at how he was able to take my pedalboard sound and blend it with the mic’s clean sound to recreate that epic bass tone. I’m not a big pedal guy but they can be used very creatively to come up with some great sounds. Today I have 13 pedals on my live board and loving it!
I really liked "Chevy Impala", you should lengthen it a little and put it on vinyl.
Roy from my favourite band in JHS pedals show, Christmas came early this year!
Josh! I'm a guitar player (not entering the contests). I just want to say that what you are doing on your channel this year and this episode in particular is the pinnacle of music orientated content creators on RUclips. Well done!
I'd love to see you do acoustic guitar pedals someday.
Love Nick's drumming too.... he's _Really_ good and a lot better than Ok :)
Acoustic pedals: good idea, and agreed about Nick.
This has got to be my favorite video of yours so far Josh. I've been a big fan of JHS pedals for years but I have been listening to MuteMath since before the beginning. Back when Earthsuit was still playing local gigs circa 1994-95. I got invited to their CD release party at The Howlin Wolf in New Orleans for the first MuteMath full album. I love every album. I pity anyone who never got to see them live. This was such a fun episode to really see stuff used in a different way.
I got to see them live twice, and it wasn’t enough times...
I appreciate that all the people working on this episode have far more experience, knowledge, and success than me. That said, in all my years playing bass with bands I've found that in smaller live situations bass drive pedals absolutely need a clean blend to avoid having the bottom end of the entire band drop out. A dedicated sound-person can help, but even then he/she can't be expected to readjust the bass' eq every time you kick some dirt on off. If the drummer is playing without mics in a small place, you can just forget about it all together!
As both a guitar player and bassist, Roy is so inspiring to me! The way he fits in the feel is PERFECT and his ideas are so tasty. I’m putting my Morning Glory into my bass rig because of him!
Use an EQ. Of course! Time to go try all my new "bass" pedals.
I love that driving mid bass sound. Just cuts thru the mix, like great bass sounds if the late 60's/early 70's (think top 40 tuned-for-car-radios compression). The bass becomes a real voice not just a feel.
Anyone else feeling the pressure for Nick? Darren King is a hard act to follow. Great job Nick!
Bass really makes every song so much more groovy.
I'm a vocalist, that LOVES playing Guitar, but the bass is my mistress. Awesome conversation , very inspiring and makes me glad I've remembered my old mistress again, after 15 years of neglect. I wish I knew about this channel years ago .. keep it up ... BTW Tight as fuck jams ! loved it
Excited to try the Pulp and Peel on bass!
I find a good work around with loosing low end is getting a good splitter with phase control. Blending a dry signal with any effects allow u to use all the great dirt pedals without sacrificing lows. The phase control is to fix phase issues with certain circuits that flip your phase. Take it one step further and use a crossover splitter. The KMA Tyler Deluxe is a phenomenal example. Most "bass" pedals simply just have a clean knob to fix the problem of loosing low end and clarity. I think more guitar drives should have blend knobs too. Adding cleans back into your dirt tones adds so much clarity to your tone. Its amazing.
This was really a great episode. I always figured that because the pedals cut the low end, it wouldn't be enough to just boost them after the fact. It's always cool to learn new things.
I have played bass over 30 years in many local bands. Have used fuzz and flanger with eq. Great swamp bass sound that went over well. Your videos or great and I'm a big fan. Thanks for guiding us musicians in pedal greatness...DJ
Thank you guys so much for connecting with the bass players following you guys!!!! ❤️
I'm a guitar player first but in the band I'm in I play bass. I've got a board with 22 pedals on it and run them through a Mig-50 (bassman). When I'm playing guitar its through a 4x12, bass its through two 2x10's. Thought about picking up certain "bass" pedals to interchange out until the last time Roy was here and showed us the EQ trick. Now I'm confident in plugging my bass or guitar through this behemoth.
One Love Homies
Always a clean blend! As long as there’s a hint of that clean signal coming through, you can boost it back up later either in the chain or in the mix.
Thank you for my “FINALLY” episode 🙏😻
So many people have it in their heads bass pedals "have to" have blend knobs. Once you get that out of your head, there are so many great drive pedals to use, fuzz pedal possibilities, and what not. When I first started looking at effects, I'd look up frequency responses and most pedals have enough low end frequency to work on bass. Some bass effects marketed in the day had lower frequency responses than bass amps... not necessary.
Here's my take on this : a tool is a tool, you decide what to use it for. That's called being creative. Everything else is just marketing : when there's no real need for a product that you want to sell, make people believe the IS a need for it and THEN sell it to them. Guitarists (and maybe bassists by proxy) are crazy vulnerable to that tbh.
There are records that define an era in your life and Odd Soul is one of them for me... Right out of college starting my career, meeting my wife to be and taking the “next step”. Glad to see Roy again on the show and highlighting this awesome album. - Also, was there not a missed opportunity here with “Math Heads” as the song title???
The ehx battalion is the most under appreciated bass pedal hands down.
This is the absolute best content on RUclips. I’m in for 4 JHS pedals since I started watching these.
I feel like Boss LS2 is my best pedal friend
I was also expecting for them to suggest something about using the LS2.
It’s the secret weapon to keep that low end on the bass. 💯
Record time recommendation: Check out the artist "Bahamas". His albums "Earthtones" and "Sad Hunk" are simply perfect.
Aw man the DOD bass grunge just sitting there unused... Such a tease. One of my all time favorites.
"Bass pedals" apart, those where some juicy jams. Really enjoyed this one
Amazing! Among my top ten “Subscribed, allowed notifications and will watch again “ list, coming in at a solid 4 with a bullet.
I thoroughly enjoyed being able to witness the dynamics between professionals being creative. Thanks for that.
Q: How do you know a bass player is ringing the door bell?
A: because no one is answering
Q: what's the difference between a bass player and a toilet seat.
A: a toilet seat takes it from one ass at a time
Stephen Hammond hahah, poor bass players. But the world needs humor! (And bassists)
You don't need to worry about us. We're laughing our asses off. Especially when people are asking us to fill another gig.
B(ass)
the high pass filter (made with a simple capacitor) on the input of most pedals is a good reason why bass players typically don't like guitar pedals for bass. changing out the cap to something much larger can help with recovering some of the low end lost. for instance, instead of a .01uf cap, you can change that to a .1 uf cap...or even as high as 1uf.
Some old mate from work show me the "mutemath (album)". That was mindblowing. Than odd soul came out and makes me believe that some the world could be better after all... that was incredible! One of those great albums that you can repeat non-stop. Thanks, just it.
When the drums come in for the Talking Math jam tho *chefs kiss* Everything sounds amazing btw. Mixing and playing is top notch.
So many "bass specific" type pedals do in fact have features a bassist will want. Bass effects pedals often have a "wet/dry" or "blend" control to regulate how much pure direct bass you want in your signal along with the effect.
It's so weird to see Roy on the JHS Show. I remember the ol' Victory Fellowship days. That was over half a lifetime ago. I miss the days of seeing him, Darren, and Paul. This has me reminiscing. Anyway, thanks for having him on the show, Josh.
You are welcome. Please do bass amps next, and I would love to see Josh talk about his axe-colection. My favorite pedal for bass is compressor, I have an noisy old DOD bass compressor, and I use it for evrything, like moving the lawn or to pick up some groceries. I have this EQ pedal that cuts out the low-range, so I would recomend to get a EQ pedal that can actually boost that low end for all bass players.
Not sure how I missed this episode when it came out, but this was the best collection of jams ever on this channel. Roy is very much my kind of bass player and Josh and Nick were up to the task he presented.
I love JHS even more now, Roy is my favorite bass player from my favorite band! Mutemath is criminally underrated!
Roy is an absolute gem!
Awesome episode Josh and crew!!! Informative, as always. But those had to be some of the tastiest jams yet!!! Bass should pedal more often!
Just got my first bass yesterday then this pops up! Great timing.
Id like to see them try these pedals with an active bass. It makes a huge difference.
I'm glad you guys changed the title. Respect.
Thanks for the rundown. Even though there are plenty of great bass gear review channels, I have yet to find one that goes into the kind of meticulous depth that you guys do for guitar-specific pedals. More of these low-end lowdown lectures would be very much appreciated.
I really loved this episode, and I'm sure I'll be watching it a few more times just to hear that wonderful music you guys were playing!
As a bassist I tried quite a lot of compressors, and I have to admit that the Pulp N Peel is one of the best. Especially because of the blend knob, which gives a lot of control on any saturation coming from an overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedal. Also, I do believe most guitar pedals work great on bass. Quite a lot of guitar overdrive pedals kills low end, and this can be corrected with EQ, for sure, but if you find an overdrive pedal that keeps low ends, well, keep it.
When I was young Roy was the first bass player that I saw using pedals, I was so motivated that I went to my local music store and bought a Behringer a ultra bass chorus thinking it was some tipe of dirt pedal. But now I know better jaja
Great sounds! Nailed the imapala sound. I got to meet Roy when he checked out my band in Murfreesboro several years ago and we completely geeked out. Very nice guy and amazing bass player.
Every new video 1 ups the last. Great watch, thank you.
I must’ve missed the videos with Roy last year but seeing them has given me insights that I’ve been searching for . Superb video series
YES. More episodes with Roy please? It's prescribed medication for 2020. Great pedalboard...I've got a P with flats waiting to plug in!
I’ve been using a Kodiak Tremelo on my bass pedalboard for about the last 6 mos. and it sounds absolutely incredible. Blend knob makes all the difference!
Those pedals sound so good. That Impala tone, nice.
I may have to straight up steal that Talking Math jam. That was killer!
Armistice (the song and the album) has some of my favorite bass work ever. Honestly though there isn't a single Mutemath song I'm aware of that hasn't had excellent bass work. Roy is awesome, he keeps it tight with the drums while still keeping it super interesting. Definitely my favorite bassist.
Great epi. That stream was so good too. Dat 506!!💥 😄 My bass board has always had >75% "guitar" pedals. Current (stripped) bass board has no bass specific pedals, but all sound perfect without EQ - Empress Comp> OC-2> Pork Loin> TU2.
Roy, Josh, Nick, you guys rock in every sense of the word. From the heart, thank you!
Great episode!
Do you think you guys might ever do an episode on Radial? As a bassist, their Bassbone pedals are must-have preamps imho, total swiss-blades when it comes to utility + great tone (I use my Bassbone OD as a dual channel pre at the end of my gain staging to dial in the tones of two basses, or a bass and pedalsteel guitar depending on the stuff I'm doing, can use its loop to blend in effects + apply a high pass filter to it -- it's super versatile, helps tie my entire board together not unlike an EQD Swiss Things would), and their DI's are legendary for good reason but they have a lot of great under-rated pedals. Example: the Elevator is an *excellent* boost with some neat settings like their 'Drag' impedance control (really useful when using a guitar with a bass amp in a pinch, not that many people would do that -- I play pedalsteel guitar through my bass rig and it sounds way better than it has any right to), yet I haven't found anyone who seems to even know it exists irl yet lol.
Radial aren't as creative as y'all at JHS or Earthquaker Devices, but I love 'em all the same. It would be nice to see them get a little bit of the spotlight on their stuff aside from their excellent DI's, super-useful 'Stagebug' pedals, and other utility stuff they are pretty well known for.
Also maybe a Diamond episode some day? Their compressors are delicious (no other comp has knocked my diamond bass comp off my board), and I know you've shown that plus the Memory Man before, but they have soooooooo many dank pedals.
Ive been waiting for this day
All pedals are bass pedals. Only thing that matters is weather you like it or not. I have a ton of effects, bass and guitar. Least we forget...Bassist number one go to pedal, OC2, was a guitar pedal at first. More importantly though. Bassplayers finally getting some love here!
So this is the greatest and bestest JHS video of all time. It caters to the unsung heroes of music (bassists) with one of the top 3 bass players of all time (and generally all around fabulous human being).
Thank you Josh and Nick AND ROY!!!!
PS I swear I'm a bassplayer...
Well one half of my pedals are made for guitar but work perfect on bass, the other half are for bass guitars.
The guitar pedals are my modulation section containing a stag blaxx chorus, a stagg blaxx phaser and a Boss RV-6 reverb.
The other half are an EHX bass Battalion as a pre/drive, an EHX Bass Soul food as overdrive and an EHX Bass Big Muff. They keep the low end frequencies, especially the fuzz. A lot of fuzzes kill the low end, but you can switch the dry signal to the fuzz sound to keep it low.
With the Battalion you can push the high and mid frequencies down and boost your basssignal.
Hands down my favourite episode of my favourite pedal show
I started out as a bass player and my first rig was a bass big muff (for heavy riffs) and a Chuck's Creamer by Chuck Electronique (tube screamer type circuit) for feedbacks and leads. I was alway louder and dirtier than my guitarist friends. Bass Big Muff is still in my top 5 favorite pedals and I used it on guitars countless times because yeah: it goes both ways🤘
Those jams were magnetic.
Merry Christmas! ✌
Perfect episode. I am a bass player that is just getting into pedals and was wondering if guitar pedals would work just a few weeks ago. I love the demos and playing on this episode. Keep up the great work!
Make a bass player demo an MXR Blue Box
Finally some (more) Bass guitar love! I would have loved to have seen the dirt function of the Pulp 'n' Peel demoed. That pedal is such a great one stop shop for live bass guitar rigs... DI, comp, little bit of EQ and a little bit of grit!?!?! YES please!
The best video ever on this channel. Just my favourite.
My guitarist sent me. Glad he did. Just interred that give away. 🤙🏼ima watch that 2 hour live stream.