Traditionally, bass players didn’t use as many effects as guitarists, but I’m on a mission to change all that.

Used badly, bass effects can render your tone unsubtle and tiring to listen to, and result in you being totally lost in the mix. But use them well and you can achieve sonic nirvana and create brave new bass tones of your very own.

I think much of the bad rap comes from the terrible mess that guitar effects can make of a bass signal, but specialist bass manufacturers now make superb ranges of pedals, turning all that tradition on its head.

Boom and Bust

The place to start, before applying any effects, is your EQ. Setting the bass, mid and treble balance on your bass itself (or your amplifier) gives you control of the trade-off between articulation and low-end thump which is always key to a good bass tone. For example, dub bass calls for a thick, gloopy, neck pickup tone that will flap the bass bins and get the reggae girls bogling.

Players who favor high-register melodic or chording approach, like Chris Squire of the band Yes require a toppy sound without too much low end getting in the way of the speedy runs.

In this example I play a Sting style dub reggae riff with a dub tone, and then with a trebley tone

In the second example, I play an intricate and fast Chris Squire-style riff first with the dub tone, and then again with the trebly tone

As you can hear from that example, each tone suits a particular style of playing. There is no bass tone magic bullet!

Squish

Many bassists use a compressor or limiter. Unlike with guitar, which uses these to increase sustain and make picking sounds clean and level, on bass it is normally used to tame the percussion-like peaks that result from slap techniques.

A compressor (more precisely called a “dynamic range compressor”) is a device that Click to read the rest…

Recent talk of the possibility of a new Queens of the Stone Age album before the end of 2011 has me certifiably giddy. I’m a big fan of lead-Queen Josh Homme’s side project Them Crooked Vultures, and their 2009 self-titled LP spent some serious time on my turntable. So, I suppose that has helped to tide me over.

But the Queens were so prolific for so long – they never went more than about two years between albums since they released their debut – that I’ve been hardwired to expect new music from them on a consistent basis. Now it’s been four years since they dropped their last LP, Era Vulgaris, and I’m going through withdrawals.

So maybe that’s why I’ve been obsessively rediscovering Era Vulgaris so much as of late. When the album came out in 2007, I listened to it quite a bit, but for one reason or another I never fully gave myself over to it. I liked it a lot; I just didn’t leave it in my car stereo for a year straight.

Fast-forward to 2011, and it’s one of the three albums I need to have within arm’s reach while I’m driving, lest I feel uneasy. I need to know I can reach for it, find it, and have it tunneling itself into my ear holes within seconds of the need arising. (I have it on my iPod, but I keep a CD copy on hand just in case. It’s a sad state of affairs.)

In large part, this is due to my seemingly unending love for the first track on the album, the densely layered – and awesomely unconventional – “Turnin’ On the Screw”. I don’t want to say that it’s radically unlike any other Queens of the Stone Age song, because the band has a history of exploring way more sonic ground than they’ve ever received credit for, and it’s not like this tune suddenly finds them unrecognizably genre-switching. It’s clearly Queens of the Stone Age.

Queens of the Stone Age – Turnin’ on the Screw

But there’s something gut-wrenchingly exciting about it, and it seems to stem from the band consciously exiting their comfort zone.

The reason I want to talk about it here is that, while it’s on the most base level a bludgeoning rock song, it’s also a track that demands to be listened to on headphones so you can really appreciate how well the band uses stereo mixing to add incredible texture to its many different sections.

Click to read the rest…

Picture a band rocking out and it’s likely you will see a wall of roaring amps behind them: huge eight-speaker cabinets pumping out maximum-volume rock and roll. We bass players have a rather more dependant relationship with our amps than guitarists, as an unplugged bass doesn’t make very much sound at all. Over the last few years, the range of technologies, shapes, and sizes of the bass amp has become almost overwhelming. In this article, we’ll explore the impact of amps on the quest for that elusive perfect bass tone.

One of the key differences between electric bass and electric guitar is the approach to amplification. An electric guitar recorded directly into the mixing desk sounds thin and uninspiring, while a bass can sound quite acceptable (especially if it has on-board EQ). We’re about to get pretty technical, so if you need a refresher on amps and distortion try these articles:

• Wired For Sound: Amps and Speakers
• Hearing Effects: Distortion

For an electric guitar, the amplifier and speaker are integral parts of the sound. Guitarists love the harmonics that hard-driving valve amplifiers bring, and the tonal shaping that the speakers apply. In contrast, bass players typically favour a more hi-fi approach to amplification. Valve amplifiers with sufficient power to drive a stage rig, due to their massive size, weight, and cost are relatively rare. Even the majority of professional bassists still choose solid-state amplification rather than valve amps.

Example: Guitar Amp vs. Bass Amp

To give us an idea of how bass amplification differs from guitar amplification let’s compare the set-up of a rock guitarist (in this case, Queen’s Brian May) to a typical bass set-up.

Click to read the rest…