What's a cool box for the bass player? Suggestions please...

[vortex]

My guitar friends are pretty happy checking out the pedals I've built but now the bass players are trying to get in on the fun.

I am having trouble thinking of what would be a quality build for them. I don't think these particular guys would be too receptive to fuzz or overdrive.

Who knows, I saw Stanley Clark last summer and he had the nastiest old school fuzz thing going on. Absolutely ragged and misbiased. Personally, I think that's too cool!

I am thinking of working up a Germanium based design. It might be interesting as they use solid state amps.

Maybe a cool preamp? Bass comp?

I know that the input and output cap values should be higher than guitar FX.

Any suggestions or other general advice for bass effects? Thanks!

[Hal]

autowah

[bwanasonic]

I was always a sucker for fretless bass and a EH Bassballs. Fernando Saunders had a solo album back in the 70's that featured that combo. You could try that Acoustic 360 preamp in a pedal. The fuzz on that is pretty cool. Compressors can be pretty handy for bass.

Kerry M

[RickL]

Bass Balls or any other envelope controlled filter. You may want to experiment with the filter caps if you build anything other than the BB. If you do build the BB search for Mark Hammer's comments on modding it. I've done all his suggested mods on my latest BB build and they're all worth trying.

A compresser is definately worth a try for bass, especially one with a variable attack control.

One of the attack controllers like the Slow Gear or PiAI Gator might sound cool on bass as might Mark Hammer's Woody.

An EQ or wah tuned for bass frequencies is also worth thinking about.

[guitarhacknoise]

State Variable Filter with an envelope generator option that has an output for the control voltage to drive future modulation projects.
as in, maybe a C.A. based design or of course R.G.'s Neutron.
-matthias

[nelson]

As a bass player I would have to say a Preamp/DI, I would love to clone the TEch 21 BASS DI myself, heard alot of good thigns about it, and the bassist from At the Drive in Uses one.