Rickenbacker bass with effects

[superdick2112]

My pedalboard is fairly simple, and I use my effects sparingly.
The Boss CE-20 chorus is always on, (at a very light setting), as is the EQ pedal. The EQ is my favorite pedal because I can store 9 of my favorite eq curves for instant recall - a big help for those few occasions when I only bring one bass to a gig, or just for copping several different tones in the same song. The noise gate is only on when I'm playing a passive bass with single-coil pickups (my 4001, 4003 & Jazz basses), and, not shown, is my Tech-21 VT pedal, used for Rush covers & select classic rock songs - i.e. Sabbath, Cream, Zepplin, etc.

[bitzerguy]

I am considering getting a Blackstone Appliances MOSFET Overdrive pedal, Dean Steliga has one he loves for guitar, and I spoke with Jon Blackstone the other day about it's use for bass and checked out youtube for any videos for such. It just may be my Christmas gift to myself this year.

We tried it with a Dingwall Combustion, SVT3Pro, custom folded horn cab this weekend. Pretty cool. We had to do a lot of tweaking because I had it all set for the small strings. The controls are ultra sensitive, so it takes a while to get the sweet spot, but it had some growl and grunt when we spent the time. It really came alive after going to the active mode and reducing the bass tone controls a bit, the Dingwall got very Ric-like in tone (the clank was there) and this pedal really came alive with the mids up. It is an overdrive and not a fuzz, and behaves very much like a good amp. Backing off the attack or volume and it cleaned up a lot, even with the bass. I wish we had another twelve hours or so, I think we could have dialled it in very nicely, but we got some smooth useable tones in the few minutes we had. It is very thick, and can get really muddy when the bass tone comes up. Much better with mid boosted tone.

[jps]

Thanks for doing that, Dean. I came a cross a youtube video that seemed to show the BAMO will work well for bass:




Does the unit come with a supply of alternate capacitors to try in the internal sockets for altering the tone? Another question, are the level controls for the two channels post drive controls, so that I could set a desired amount of distortion with the drive controls and then use the level controls to balance that with the bypassed signal, matching the in/out volume levels?

I had a nice talk with Jon Blackstone last week but I didn't think to ask him these things.

[hieronymous]

It's been a mild winter here in the San Francisco Bay Area, so a couple of weeks ago I took some outdoor pictures of my 4001:





And to keep on-topic, here's an old track - my 4003S/8 with delay:
8 Echo Dr.

[Tronman]

My '74 walnut 4001 likes the Ric-O-Sound. Bridge pickup goes through a Wattson SuperFuzz (now called Classic Fuzz) on the scooped midrange setting and into a Fender Rumble 60. Neck pickup goes through a Boss CE-5 Chorus, Boss TR-2 Tremolo and DigiTech Synth Wah into a Fender Rumble 100.

[rickomania1970]

boss bass parametric eq->fulltone bass drive mosfet->keeley 4 knop comp->boss bass flanger is main setup.i use xotic rc booster or sansamp vt bass or boss be-5b a little.HEAVY METAL 4EVER

[hieronymous]

Nice to see people using distortion - I think that the 4001/4003 are great with distorion, metal or otherwise!

[psychomatthias]

I like to use an SWR Interstellar Overdrive (full OD) with Peavey Valverb in the effects loop on the bridge pickup of my 4003-8 and an Ampeg SVPCL (ultralow setting) followed by a dbx 120a Subharmonic Synthesizer on the neck pickup. Chris Squire and John Wetton may have wanted to sound like a piano, but I'm going for a more ORGANic sound.

[grygrx]

Thanks for doing that, Dean. I came a cross a youtube video that seemed to show the BAMO will work well for bass:




Does the unit come with a supply of alternate capacitors to try in the internal sockets for altering the tone?

This is a little late in coming, but since I made those videos (and just happened in now... joined when I started lusting for a Ric). The unit does not come with any extra capacitors for altering the default, I have a set that I use for building and modding effects and I just played with a bunch until I settled on "the best."

[rickenbrother]

Welcome to the forum, Adam!

[jps]

Welcome, Adam! I like your reviews and the website, it is nice to see someone compile and review these kinds of pedals. I am still interested in getting a BAMO, but over the New Years weekend went to my local shop and picked up a EHX Bass Big Muff π (BBMπ), which has got some great tones in it. Being able to run my clean bass signal through the pedal and and the desired amount of distortion is something I have been looking for for a while. I can cop a Brassmaster kind of sound with the BBMπ, and get a nice synthy tone to use on Muse's Uprising, which my band does.

[grygrx]

Welcome, Adam! I like your reviews and the website, it is nice to see someone compile and review these kinds of pedals. I am still interested in getting a BAMO, but over the New Years weekend went to my local shop and picked up a EHX Bass Big Muff π (BBMπ), which has got some great tones in it. Being able to run my clean bass signal through the pedal and and the desired amount of distortion is something I have been looking for for a while. I can cop a Brassmaster kind of sound with the BBMπ, and get a nice synthy tone to use on Muse's Uprising, which my band does.

The BBMπ is THE starting point for bass effects in my opinion. It's cheap, solid, and sounds pretty great.

[thor]

I tend to use effects occasionally and my pedal board consists of the following:

Chunk Systems Brown Dog (Gated Fuzz) - Chunk Systems Agent 00Funk MKII (Envelope Filter) - Dunlop 105Q Wah - Fender SubLime Fuzz - RAT Distortion pedal - MXR Bass Octave Deluxe - MXR Carbon Copy (Analogue Delay).

(Couple of Fuzz pedals for different songs) - I tend to use all of them regularly during gigs.

[jps]

I have gone through lots of pedals over close to 40 years of using effects, starting with a Heathkit fuzz box (that I built) in the early '70s. Actually, before that even, I occasionally ran my old Jazz Bass through a friend's Leslie.

Currently, I am down to the BBMπ, a MXR Analog Chorus (I still have the case only of my old mid -70's script logo MXR Phase 90), and my trusty Ernie Bass VP Jr.

[grygrx]

I tend to use effects occasionally and my pedal board consists of the following:

Chunk Systems Brown Dog (Gated Fuzz) - Chunk Systems Agent 00Funk MKII (Envelope Filter) - Dunlop 105Q Wah - Fender SubLime Fuzz - RAT Distortion pedal - MXR Bass Octave Deluxe - MXR Carbon Copy (Analogue Delay).

(Couple of Fuzz pedals for different songs) - I tend to use all of them regularly during gigs.

+1 on the Brown Dog. I'm actually using a fuzz bass FZ002 (pre-Brown Dog) on the board for my current band.