Bass guitars operate in lower frequencies and need to be distinct from the other instruments in a mix. Some pedals can blur the tone or change pitch in a way that works against the role of a bass player.
However, a well-placed pedal can expand your tonal palette and inspire new ideas for songs and grooves.
1. Distortion
Distortion effects, like overdrive and fuzz pedals, provide a grit and saturation that helps bass cut through dense mixes. While guitar-specific distortion pedals tend to sound better with electric guitars, most of them will work just fine on bass, providing an aggressive and punchy tone that’s ideal for many styles.
Compression pedals work the same on bass as they do on guitar, normalizing high and low frequencies into a balanced, consistent signal. They’re especially useful for sculpting your tone and providing more sustain than what your amplifier can deliver alone.
Reverb and delay pedals also offer a variety of options for bass players. Using a short delay can add a subtle echo effect to your bass, while more generous settings can transport the listener to a cavernous space for an expansive, atmospheric quality that’s perfect for creating depth and movement in your bass lines.
Filter pedals are another great choice for bass, as they allow you to shape your EQ with precise control and can help compensate for frequencies that may be lost by distortion pedals. You can use envelope filters to turn your bass into a synth monster, or go all the way with a wah for that quacky R&B tone. Pedals like these can give you a huge range of sounds that can dramatically alter your compositional possibilities, so don’t be afraid to experiment!
2. Modulation
Modulation pedals work by altering a guitar’s signal. They can be quite trippy and include effects like chorus, tremolo, flanger and phaser. They vary in how they do this, but all of them use a method of delaying and subtly pitch-shifting a copy of your guitar’s original signal, and then bringing it back together in different ways.
Overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals all do variations on this idea. Overdrive pedals replicate the light breakup of a good tube amplifier and are the foundation of many rock tones (check out Jimi Hendrix’s classic sound with a Foxy Tone or RAT2). Distortion pedals push overdrive into heavier territory, and can give you that searing, riff-driven sound of ’70s heavy metal or Seattle grunge. Fuzz pedals, on the other hand, turn a guitar’s signal into a buzzy, sputtering mess. They’re common in genres like stoner rock and are a favorite of Jack White and Queens of the Stone Age.
Other pedals like loopers and compressors are less of an effect, more so a tool for adjusting a bass player’s overall volume level on stage or at home. However, if you were to ask most bass players which pedals they would keep on a desert island, chances are that one of these will be among them.
3. Reverb
While most pedals can be used with bass guitar, some are specifically designed for the lower frequencies. These can either be variations of existing pedals (such as the EHX Bass Big Muff or Ibanez TS9B Bass Tube Screamer) or new designs (like the Darkglass Microtubes b3k and the TECH 21 Geddy Lee YYZ Sansamp).
Some pedals have hidden parameters that offer additional control over their sound, such as mix, decay and tone. This allows you to tailor the effect to your specific bass playing style or musical expression. This is especially useful for reverb pedals, which can have many different types of reverb and delay available.
Like distortion, reverb can give your bass a more full and dynamic sound. But unlike distortion, reverb can also be used to add depth and space to your sounds. This can help your bass slot into the recording or mix realistically and not feel too isolated in a dense arrangement.
However, be careful not to overdo it with the reverb. It can easily become muddy and obscure the bass. This is particularly the case when using a longer delay or reverb time, which can cause the low frequencies to become overwhelmed by the reverb’s reflections. This is why most players prefer to put their reverb or delay pedal at the end of their pedal chain, after any compression pedals. Alternatively, if your amp has an effects loop, you can also place your reverb or delay at the beginning of your signal chain.
4. Chorus
Chorus is another class of modulation effects that can be great on bass. Chorus mimics the sound of a choir, so it splits an incoming signal into multiple voices and then adds slight variations in timing and pitch. This results in a shimmery effect that works well on bass. Chorus pedals usually have three adjustable parameters: Voices (how many times the signal is duplicated), Delay (how much time the duplicated signals are delayed) and Pitch (how much the pitches of the individual voices vary).
When pushed to extreme settings, chorus can sound out of tune, but it’s also perfect for creating a vibrato-like effect or a warble that adds character to long basslines. Chorus can be a real asset for bassists who want to create unique riffs and songs that stand out from the crowd.
A chorus pedal is at its best when used sparingly and placed later in an effects chain. It’s a good idea to place compression, overdrives, distortions and octave pedals before chorus.
A great way to check out the potential of a chorus pedal is to listen to it with the Rate and Width knobs set to low settings. Bassists at Sweetwater suggest setting these two controls to around noon so that the chorus effect is subtle. If you like the effect at higher settings, try listening with the Feedback knob turned up a bit. This will cause the chorus to have a metallic resonance that works well with driven amps and dirt pedals.
5. Flanger
Unlike overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals that amplify your guitar’s signal, modulation pedals change the timbre of your signal with slight variations. The effects include chorus, flange and phaser (or, to be more precise, phase shift). Flanger, in particular, sounds great on bass.
It works by delaying and subtly pitch-shifting a copy of your input signal, then recombining it with the original. This results in a swirling, psychedelic effect that’s instantly recognisable. Think Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’ for example.
This effect can be subtle or intense, depending on how much you set the rate and regen control, as well as adjusting the depth and intensity controls. Using a slow speed will yield a languid, dreamy effect that can be used as a background element, while high-speed settings can create a dizzying flange for lead lines and drum fills.
There are a number of good flanger pedals on the market, including the Mooer MFL1 Electric Lady and TC Electronic Vortex, both with simple 3 control layouts. If you want more variation, try a multi-effects pedal like the Boss ME-70, which packs a range of different effects into a single powerhouse pedal.
6. Filter
Pedals are metal enclosures that house circuitry that you can step on to activate them. They can amplify, distort, modulate, reverberate and more. They add new creative dimensions to your sound that can help you stand out from the crowd.
The first pedals that you should have on your board are compressors, EQ pedals and filter effects. These are the pedals that should come before any tone-producing ones like distortion and fuzz. This way the sonic integrity of your bass guitar’s original signal is preserved.
Next come modulation pedals, which are not tone-producing but change the signal itself with slight adjustments that create new variations in sound. Chorus, flanger and tremolo pedals are all examples of this type of effect. Bass players often place them after the distortion and fuzz pedals in their chain to keep their bass EQ intact.
Lastly, you should have a wah pedal and/or an envelope pedal. These types of pedals can also be used for rhythm, but they tend to have their best results when placed earlier in the chain so that you can control the volume and intensity of your wah or envelope effect with your foot.
Other effects that work on bass include compression pedals (which can make your playing more consistent by slowing down the peaks of your tone) and octave pedals, which split your bass guitar signal into a lower or higher version to create different variations in sound. You can even use a looping pedal to record and repeat phrases over and over to build dense layers of music.