Your Bass Guitar Signal Chain?

[stk]

Personally I've been running an unknown MIJ pbass through Studiodevil VBA or VGA and crushing it with Density II. Sometimes a touch of Big Muff Pi or Marshall Guvnor.

[jsterne]

Bass guitar is one place where I still rarely use amp models (more likely for synth or guitar, or to use Speakerphone for something that's not an amp but sounds good in the mix).

For bass, I usually run my Modulus Bassstar directly into a great River 500NV, though there are often analog effects inbetween, like the Fulltone Bassdrive or Moogerfooger low-pass filter.

Speaking of the low pass, if you don't want to shell out for Moog, get yourself a a DOD FX 25 or 25b and set the filter so it doesn't open. Compress the hell out of it either inside or out (I sometimes use a DBX 119, sometimes the Stillwell plug that's DBX like) and you get a massive dub sound. Different from the Moog, enough so that I still use it even with the Moog.

Once in the box, it depends on what I want to do. Sometimes it's just LA2A and an EQ, but if I want to make it interesting, some of my favorites are:

--Soundtoys Echoboy. I start from the "bass guitar tone machine" presets and tweak from there. Great for adding a little something "extra" when a song needs the next level.

--Ohm Force Ohmicide. In concert with some kind of speaker simulator, this is just an absolutely amazing distortion for creating interesting textures.

--SoundToys PhaseMistress. I love phasers.

--any decent granular synth. I've used Riverrrun, various Reaktor ensembles, TimeFreezer, and lately DensityGS. Instant rumbles, pads, textures, etc.

Hope this helps someone.

PS -- for treble instruments and voices, I'm moving more and more to IRs and Speakerphone over traditional amp sim plugins. More interesting, unique sounds, but I guess it all depends on genre whether that will work or not.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Well that is the great thing - so many options box outside and inside the box that the possiblities are pretty much endless which admittedly can sometimes be a little overwhelming like the SoundToys bundle which if you insert say the echoboy or crystallizer - hours later and lots of pure fun but nothing on disc/tape. Then i am like that was awesome i just wish i had hit the record button! That UAD Moog filter is sick for bass and the moogerfooger pedal range are very tempting bar the price, same as the eventide 'factor' range of floor processors as i do not have the cash for any of eventide's rack units as good as they are I have got some pretty interesting ideas from this thread though to try out even if it not something i would normally go for or find practical for the style/tone i need - Always ready to give things a try. Thanks for all the info - i appreciate it

At the moment i am mostly favouring a yammy with stock active soapbar type pickups and/or a passive 7ender J-type > depending on tone/brighness fingers or plectrum > ART AB/Y box or Morley 4-way routing/switching pedal > then one feeds into an MXR BlowTorch bass distortion into an Ampeg BR-1e and a Custom compact Wienbrock 1x15" & a Marshall 1936 2x12" with a few mics on the cabs (prototype tayden speaker which handles guitar and bass well which i asked for when ordering specifaclly as i like having a FET/Solid-State bass amp with the 1x15" and a Marshall 1936 2x12" with my guitar setup for very tight and precise low-end and ultra shapeable mid-range which runs along with a Marshall JCM2000 DSL50 with a regular but 3/4 sized 4x12" laced with deliberately mis-matched celestions. On the bottom row are two G12100K brutes and on the top are a G12V30 Vintage30 and G12H Heritage or Century model. A High-Gain Distortion pedal feeds the Ampeg and a Boss NS-2 with a few overdrive pedals feed into the marshall, of course only one of the OD pedals is used but that is off-topic ). So as well as the ampeg chain mics, another feeds a Line-6 BassPODXT, third feeds a Rothwell Audio Love Squeeze compressor/buffer/line driver pedal and all three plus the clean unprocessed DI go into either mic amps or line inputs. Then blend it all together depending on what i am after

Dean/Nekro

[Bevoss]

I split the signal via a Valvulator, and track a Ampeg SVT with a Heil PR30.

I track a Trace Elliot V6 tube head through a Bergantino NV610 (ampeg fridge clone+), usually with a Precision Deluxe through 2 Millennia STT-1 pres, instrument input for D.I. and preamp input for mic.

I initially used the PR30 to mike this, which I had already for guitar recording and liked it a lot, but on Bob Heil's recommendation, I got the PR40 too...imo, it is perfection for bass recording! Perfectly EQ'd if your source sound is right, I love it! Just wanted to give you that heads-up if you haven't heard it, it's like the PR30 only better! (for bass...although, it makes a great room mike also.)

[dubbelQ]

VANDAL is the shit for BASS. AT3 sucks for it (I don't get why people like AT for bass TBH, but that's just me. Don't want to start some discussion, not interested).
Another one that is great is Bass Amp Room.
VANDAL works great also with Scarbee PreBass (a VSTi).

+1 I agree. The distortion in Vandal is the only software I get a convincing distortion with. AT3 bass amps sucks. I think Audiffex ampsim sounds a lot better than IKs. I have tried Bass Amp Room. I didn't like the disorted sound but otherwise it was a great bass plugin.

[dickiefunk]

I've been really liking the sound of bass guitars through my Golden Age PRE-73 DI.
My favorite EQ's on bass are BootEq mkII, Vibe EQ or IK Pultec and Classic EQ's.
For compression I tend to use either Stillwells The Rocket or IK Fairchild 670.

I then add a little saturation from Bootsies Ferric TDS. I recently tried the demo for 112db's Redline Preamp and prefer this for saturation. Will be picking this one up sometime in the future!

[docdued]

I use the Line6 POD X3, some nice bass amps in there. But then I'm really a guitar player, so maybe I miss some of the subtleties...