Backround. My ideal bass tone is a slightly overdriven one, just enought to add some grit and harmonics. Then I've always dreamed of getting MORE of that tone, so the obviously thought is to add more gain! But we all know, more distortion = bass loss, no way around it. Any dirt pedal advertised as retaining your low end is BS. A well designed pedal may not lose "as much" lows as another pedal, but once you distort the lows, they will sound anemic and buzzy. This might be less of an issue if you have distortion in your tone 100% of the time, because you can adjust your amp settings to simply add more bass (but you're just raising the volume of the anemic lows). This is why your bandmates always give you that look when you come into rehearsal with the new dirt pedal of the day.
A way around retaining the lows is adding a blender pedal, or purchasing a dirt pedal with a blend option. The caveat is that the blend knob works in a ratio: more you blend in the wet signal, the lower your dry signal will be. So if you blend in 50/50, the wonderful lows that you worked so hard in setting on your amp in now cut in half. For a while, I ran a 90/10 blend and just turn up the volume on my dirt pedal to compensate the volume discrepancy, but your lows are still 10% lower than your bypass signal. What's 10%? 10% is everything when you're the bassist holding down the lows! Again, not a complete solution, but you don't lose "as much" lows.
Now comes the Boss LS-2 Line Selector. I did my research and thought great, there are two loops and each loop has their own independant volume knob, but the manual did not state that you could blend the wet and dry signal. So the A+B MIX mode was the closest setting to what I'm after. I figured a dirt pedal in loop A and a compressor pedal in loop B. I would bring up the volume in loop B to match my dry volume ADD the volume of loop A (not blend) to taste. When I did experiment with the LS-2 in A+B MIX, I learned that if you do not plug anything in a loop, then the volume knob for that loop would control your dry volume...WOW. Finally a solution.
This is interesting that I am prasing a Boss pedal because I never liked the tone of Boss pedals. Built like tanks and have very recognizable dirt and chorus selections, but they're not the tone I have in my head. So the funny part is that I finally found a Boss pedal I like, and it's a non-tone pedal! LMAO.
Now in the past month or so I have amassed quite a large slection of dirt pedals. A little of everything from germanium, silicon, FET, and LED diodes to symmetrical to asymmetrial clipping. I can buy ANY dirt pedal out there and not be limited to a select bass-designed pedal that don't lose "as much" lows. The pedals that do have an inherent low cut when engaged sounds even better that those that retains some of the low end! It doesn't matter be cause my bass tone is always there at full volume. I can now focus on purchasing a dirt pedal for their TONE, and not worry about how they affect the lows.
How this little rant helps someone in achieving that tone they hear in their head. Never give up in achieving anything you want!
A way around retaining the lows is adding a blender pedal, or purchasing a dirt pedal with a blend option. The caveat is that the blend knob works in a ratio: more you blend in the wet signal, the lower your dry signal will be. So if you blend in 50/50, the wonderful lows that you worked so hard in setting on your amp in now cut in half. For a while, I ran a 90/10 blend and just turn up the volume on my dirt pedal to compensate the volume discrepancy, but your lows are still 10% lower than your bypass signal. What's 10%? 10% is everything when you're the bassist holding down the lows! Again, not a complete solution, but you don't lose "as much" lows.
Now comes the Boss LS-2 Line Selector. I did my research and thought great, there are two loops and each loop has their own independant volume knob, but the manual did not state that you could blend the wet and dry signal. So the A+B MIX mode was the closest setting to what I'm after. I figured a dirt pedal in loop A and a compressor pedal in loop B. I would bring up the volume in loop B to match my dry volume ADD the volume of loop A (not blend) to taste. When I did experiment with the LS-2 in A+B MIX, I learned that if you do not plug anything in a loop, then the volume knob for that loop would control your dry volume...WOW. Finally a solution.
This is interesting that I am prasing a Boss pedal because I never liked the tone of Boss pedals. Built like tanks and have very recognizable dirt and chorus selections, but they're not the tone I have in my head. So the funny part is that I finally found a Boss pedal I like, and it's a non-tone pedal! LMAO.
Now in the past month or so I have amassed quite a large slection of dirt pedals. A little of everything from germanium, silicon, FET, and LED diodes to symmetrical to asymmetrial clipping. I can buy ANY dirt pedal out there and not be limited to a select bass-designed pedal that don't lose "as much" lows. The pedals that do have an inherent low cut when engaged sounds even better that those that retains some of the low end! It doesn't matter be cause my bass tone is always there at full volume. I can now focus on purchasing a dirt pedal for their TONE, and not worry about how they affect the lows.
How this little rant helps someone in achieving that tone they hear in their head. Never give up in achieving anything you want!
