Effects for flatwounds?!?

[Bill Mountain]

I play a bass with super hot pups and some down tuned flatwound strings.  I'm not sure how many of you folks use flats with effects but more often than not the effects just don't sound as good.  I play flats for a lot of reasons that are more important to me than pedals but, I'm always looking for effects that can handle the increased fundamentals my bass puts out.

Unfortunately, not many effects pass the test.

Right now the only trick that works really well is using a lot of fuzz/distortion but, this doesn't solve the problem it just covers it up.  Light overdrive effects are always too farty with my bass.

Raising the supply voltage has always been an idea but it seems like lazy circuit design to me.

Is there something so fundamentally different between these styles of strings to make them react so differently to the same effects?

Are there any tricks besides just rolling off the low end or throwing away 1/2 of my signal before I hit a gain stage?

Is it possible to successfully bias a transistor or op amp using 9v for any intended purpose or is higher voltage sometimes necessary?

Any other thoughts or comments?

[alparent]

One thing I know about effects and bass is that alot of them don't sond as great as one would like.

The trick I think is to build something like this http://moosapotamus.net/THINGS/paraloop.htm

It will allow you to bring some live back into you sound.

Not an effect per say ...... but stile an important build for a bass player.....then try other effects with it.

[Bill Mountain]

One thing I know about effects and bass is that alot of them don't sond as great as one would like.

The trick I think is to build something like this http://moosapotamus.net/THINGS/paraloop.htm

It will allow you to bring some live back into you sound.

Not an effect per say ...... but stile an important build for a bass player.....then try other effects with it.

Clean blends always get brought up and they do indeed sound good when implemented properly but to me it just seems like another lazy design.  Now if your stated goal was not low end preservation but instead the blending of clean and dirty signals for another non-bass-guitar-related-mod then loopers are indeed great options.

[Mark Hammer]

Ironically, octave-dividers generally work better with flatwounds because of the absence of harmonic content, and because pitch tends to be more stable.  I say "ironically", because with a bass you're not really looking to derive even lower tones much of the time.

One thing that can punch up an otherwise dull tone is something like an exciter circuit.  This routes the harmonic content off to a second parallel path, via high-pass filtering, and cranks it up, generally to the point of clipping...which will get you lower-order harmonics of your existing lower-order harmonics.  That additional harmonic content (and the bottom does NOT get fuzzed) gets blended back in with the unaltered clean signal.

There are a number of such circuits foating around, but the traditional application of these is really for livening up acoustic instruments/tracks like acoustic guitar, snares, etc.  Maybe folks use the effect on acoustic bass, but I'm largely unaware of that going on.  Even if they did, 1) there's a world of difference between an acoustic bass and electric flatwounds, in terms of harmonic content, and 2) the circuit would have to be changed substantially, simply because of where the harmonic content "lives" on your instrument.

That said, it is not entirely out of the realm of possibilities.  At the very least, it might get you a little more meat t work with for thigs like envelope filters, flangers, etc., that like having more top end to work with.

[Ben N]

I was gonna say an exciter/enhancer, but even a treble boost would be helpful--or something like a graphic eq, boosting the treble. Take a look at STM's design: Bass Boost & Enhancer

[earthtonesaudio]

With the parallel looper you have the option of a customizable harmonic exciter that utilizes any distortion/fuzz/overdrive you want, plus any number of series elements with it.  With the dedicated harmonic exciter you're locked into one specific distortion circuit with no options for changing or adding to it.

On the other hand if you're worried about "lazy design", you can build 1000 harmonic exciters, each slightly different from the next, to mimic a fraction of the parallel loop pedal's abilities.  That would require much more effort for the same result.

[Bill Mountain]

These are some great ideas.  I noticed the lack of harmonic content (I guess this is one of the reasons I like my clean tones) but I never thought about adding it back in.

I guess I should have used a better term than "lazy design".  What I mean is when it comes to dirt pedals I could take a circuit and change nothing else but the voltage to get more headroom.  I've done this in the past and it does work.  But, I don't learn anything by doing this.

I'm under the (maybe false) impression that I can bias anything to give me the headroom I need at 9v but I am just not having any luck with the circuits I've been tweaking and before I give up and on 9v, I just want to make sure I'm not raising the voltage when lowering a few resistors values would so the same thing.

And about the blends.  That is a cool design but I'm getting a little sick of manufacturers using the "take-a-guitar-pedal-and-add-a-clean-blend-to-make-it-a-bass-pedal" mentality.

I don't mean to sound so angry.  Sometimes I'm bitter this early in the morning.  Don't mind me!

[Bill Mountain]

Also, I was surprised when my phaser didn't work so well with flats.  I've never looked at the schematic but I never figured there was anything in there that relied on the missing harmonic content.

I just picked up a graphic eq to run after some of my pedals without tone controls but I'm definitely going to try it in front of a few dirt and modulation effects as well.

[petemoore]

  No particular place here, just a ramble of thoughts...
   Bass speaker and string have LF, this means it's a long way between Xmax's or the usual speaker excursions, a diode acts very quickly on guitar or bass clipping [as do other clipping methods], but the speaker will see extended 'flatzones' where the diode conducts longer than it would for guitar because of the length of time between phase +/- peaks.
   The long period during which the diodes conduct [the lowest note of bass is 2x or >2x that of guitar] cause the amp to have to hold 'this' voltage, the longer period of time may co-exist with trying to overcome the kinetic energies involved in controlling the cone. Ie the longer 'stop period' which the speaker and amp are asked to follow aren't followable ''smoothly'', whether a case of hearing interpretation or great amp/speaker expectation.
   Just fuzz through the bass set seems to always equate or lean towards a buzz-sound, one way to avoid this is to not clip the LF's hard in some way or another.

[Earthscum]

Also, I was surprised when my phaser didn't work so well with flats.  I've never looked at the schematic but I never figured there was anything in there that relied on the missing harmonic content.

If you ever come across one, or you wwant to DIY a phaser, check out the schems for my KMD phaser. I bought it as my first effects pedal, pawned it, and happened to find it again years later and snatched it back. It worked wonderfully when I was playing half-rounds, not as lifeless as phasers I tried out (it actually is almost too much for me... crazy pedal).

I'm gonna be facing a similar problem soon, I fear... my girlfriend really wants half-rounds on her bass (she doesn't play enough to get callouses). I think the EQ pedal will help out a lot, but there's dynamics lacking in flats and halfs that you can't boost back in with a pedal.

[Bill Mountain]

Also, I was surprised when my phaser didn't work so well with flats.  I've never looked at the schematic but I never figured there was anything in there that relied on the missing harmonic content.

If you ever come across one, or you wwant to DIY a phaser, check out the schems for my KMD phaser. I bought it as my first effects pedal, pawned it, and happened to find it again years later and snatched it back. It worked wonderfully when I was playing half-rounds, not as lifeless as phasers I tried out (it actually is almost too much for me... crazy pedal).

I'm gonna be facing a similar problem soon, I fear... my girlfriend really wants half-rounds on her bass (she doesn't play enough to get callouses). I think the EQ pedal will help out a lot, but there's dynamics lacking in flats and halfs that you can't boost back in with a pedal.

Those dynamics come from the fingers.  My hands are the worlds greatest mid boost!

[earthtonesaudio]

How about this "outside the box" idea:

Use a polyphonic pitch shift to bring your bass up an octave (or 2), send it through some standard guitar effect pedals, then a second polyphonic shift back down at the end.  The end result would not sound quite like the usual sounds those guitar pedals make, because all the harmonic content would also be down-shifted.  Could be a musically valid sound.  Expensive though, to implement two pitch shifts.

Another thought experiment: Use part of the "autotune" algorithm on the bass signal to split the fundamental (and its harmonics) from the fret/finger noises.  Then you can process them separately, which could be very cool.  You don't actually have to shift the pitch at all, the main point is separating the "notes" from the "sound".
...A thought experiment only, because I don't think such hardware is available to consumers.

[Uma Floresta]

I've got flats on my guitars and my bass. I use the ROG professor tweed for both. I should note, however, that my bass is a Bass VI type guitar, with not as much low end as a proper bass.