Q&A: Do guitar pedals sound okay on bass guitar or do you need special bass effects?
Question by Gio: Do guitar pedals sound okay on bass guitar or do you need special bass effects?
Hey, I am a bass guitarist and I was looking for some effects I could incorporate in my music. We have a pretty good sized music store but I’ve only seen guitar pedals.
Is this because they sound the same on both guitar and bass? Or do I need to buy special bass effects pedals?
Thanks
Best answer:
Answer by Andrew Jokerst
You can use guitar pedals for bass. And a lot of them might sound pretty good on bass. But they do make a lot of effects that are specifically designed for bass. But if you like the way the guitar effects sound on your bass, then by all means get them, there’s nothing really wrong with that. I have occasionally used my guitar distortion on bass and my bass envelope filter on guitar, and they sound different, but still sound cool. Basically, do whatever you need to get the sound you want.
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Reader Comments
You can actually damage a guitar amplifier as well as some effects pedals by playing a bass through them. Why? Because the electronics were designed for guitar which has a completely different range of notes that vibrate at much higher frequencies than a bass. That is why companies make both guitar and bass effects. I play the bass and if you are looking to acquire a really good bass effects processor, I have actually played them and compared them to one another and I can tell you that the very best sounding bass effects are the BOSS effects. You are also much better off buying a multieffects processor especially for bass because with the bass you typically need compression, and an expression pedal in addition to what ever other effects you think you need and you get both of those with a multieffects pedal and when you add up the price of two or three additional effects that you might want, you will have already spent more money then if you had purchased the multieffects pedal in the first place. There is also no need to figure out which pedal to place first or last, etc, in your effects pedal chain. For bass, here is what I recommend (I play through a BOSS GT-10)
ME-20B – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzAE-mSeev0 – $ 200
ME50B – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX7VcgYkJ-Y – $ 300
GT-10B – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEGpQzhzpAM – $ 500
When you consider that one effects pedal can cost from $ 50 to $ 150 or more, it makes no sense at all to purchase your effects separately. You want distortion, delay, synth … you need compression and a expression pedal so, you are already right at $ 500 just for a hand full of effects. That is why I chose the GT-10B. It’s simply the best bass sound you can find. I saved money buy not buying a bass amplifier and instead, I play my bass through the GT-10B which is amplified by a QSC GX5 (500 watts per channel) stereo power amplifier that drives twin JBL speaker cabinets and the sub output on the GT-10 goes to twin JBL ES250P (400 watt) powered subwoofers (25 Hz low end response) for a truly awesome bass sound that you now only hear, you can feel it.