Looking for advice on effect pedals

[ronbans]

Hey All - This is Roni - hope everyone is having fun with their blades and effects...I need some advice.

I play in local events - I only have a drummer (brother), no bassist - I am looking for a pedal/effect that will give a wholesome sound - something that fills an auditorium and does not sound "empty" - more like a band effect - good bass, ability to play fillers and of course chords.

Any advice is appreciated...

Thanks folks - Roni

[Mark Hammer]

Maybe what you want is a looper pedal so that you can provide all of that ahead of time yourself.
That's not meant as sarcasm. You CAN, buy simple packages that will run from laptops and provide pre-arranged bass patterns and fillers, but they might not be the ones YOU want or suit your style. So why not have a pedal that plays your way?

[cjlectronics]

I bought a Boss DR-880 to act as a backup drum machine as well as bass background. The DR-880 is awesome sounding. Demo one first to see if it works for you and your drummer.

[Brad1]

Yeah...that's a tough one. How do the White Stripes get a fuller sound?

The main problem with using loops, backing beats, drum machine, etc., is that your drummer has to keep exactly in time with them, as few will adjust well to a drummer...even if you have some way to provide a beat trigger. Maybe Ableton Live software (?) and a trigger off the kick/snare mic...but I'm not completely familiar with how well it works. It's supposed to be designed for live manipulation.

There's no easy way to get you to supply more bass from your guitar, either. There are things you could TRY, but it would mean drastically changing the way you play, and/or expensive equipment.

An Octave (down) pedal may supply bass from your two lowest guitar strings, but they generally don't track perfectly, and usually don't like more than one note at a time, or they start glitching. be difficult to play and send that to a bass amp/PA channel. You COULD try a crossover set to only pass everything below a certain frequency to a bass amp (or PA Channel) with the bass cranked up, but it won't send a lower octave through. It's just the same notes as those split off to your guitar amp, boosted in the bass amp/PA channel. Going through a crossover will prevent any highs from going to that amp/channel...but you may get the same effect just lowering mids/highs on the amp/channel, and boosting bass.

Now, if was just you and a bass player, another guitar, a keyboard player...whatever...the backing drum tracks/instruments would be relatively easy. You all just follow the machine. Everybody is used to following the beat. Much more difficult to get a drummer to lock into a backing track, but could be done if he's good enough...and doesn't mind letting a machine drive. (Y'know how those drummers just hate to let anyone else take control of the beat!)

And then, there's the logistics and time-consuming (onstage) task of finding, loading up and starting songs from a machine/computer, unless you just make a predetermined set list to play them all through sequentially. You could just plug an iPod in with recorded backing tracks...but you still have to find and load...or sequence...songs, and maybe provide count-in to the monitors so you'll both no when to start (which, unfortunately, will also blast out the mains in a stereo file).

I'll be watching to see if anything shakes out of this. Could be interesting.

Brad1

[Ronsonic]

This works:

Years ago, I did a few shows with a band called NutraJet who were a guitarist and drummer duo. Guitar player was running a Marshall half stack and an SVT in parallel. That was, uh, full sounding.