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Trying to get a good bass fuzz tone, need help


njglover
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I am very close to being able to use the Helix by itself as my entire rig, but one thing that is holding me up is fuzz. There just aren't a lot of good options on the Helix, particularly for bass players. I have found something that I can make work for guitar, but bass... What I am trying to mimic is my Malekko Plus Ultra with the filter on. I leave sustain and tone at 12 o'clock and frequency at 3. This gets me a tone that sustains forever, scoops the mids a bit to still leave room for guitars but not in such a way as to get hidden (in that I want people to know I have a fuzz turned on), and is nice and aggressive. I just cannot seem to get that out of anything on the Helix, be it distortion or fuzz pedals or even blending with guitar amps. Anyone else managed to get a good fuzz tone?

 

For reference, skip to about 3:04 in this song: http://gunbladex.bandcamp.com/track/remain. That's the exact tone (because that's my bass with my fuzz :P)

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i'm not sure it will be the sound you're after but worh a try -using the kwb pedal set with germanium options.. it's a little different flavour than the other dedicated fuzz's . i use it with a compulsive drive after it. on guitar tho.. also try adjusting your volume knob on the bass with any of the pedals , it may or may not help get closer to the sound you want.

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I think some bass fuzzes mix a low-passed and probably compressed clean sound with distorted overtones, going for solid bottom with fuzz on top. You could try home-growing something like that with Helix's routing options.

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I think some bass fuzzes mix a low-passed and probably compressed clean sound with distorted overtones, going for solid bottom with fuzz on top. You could try home-growing something like that with Helix's routing options.

 

That is pretty normal, and I have tried that. Generally using the crossover split makes the distortion sound like garbage, but using an A/B split helps.

 

i'm not sure it will be the sound you're after but worh a try -using the kwb pedal set with germanium options.. it's a little different flavour than the other dedicated fuzz's . i use it with a compulsive drive after it. on guitar tho.. also try adjusting your volume knob on the bass with any of the pedals , it may or may not help get closer to the sound you want.

 

Have tried that, not nearly enough dirt.

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I think you could achieve that bass sound easy on Helix. Blending of tones using different effects and mixing up amps/cabs/mics has allowed very accurate recreation of tones from almost any record you can think. What about creating an IR from your track/s and applying that to the back end of the amp block? Good luck at any rate!

 

Warning: The following is only personal opinion!

 

I found that track you linked interesting. Some really nice ideas however the drumming was really poor. The timing is constantly out in a very noticeable way. Entice the drummer to practice a lot more to get that sorted ASAP (for the sake of the band) or get a new drummer....

 

...it's by far the weakest point and will hold your band back. Your music doesn't deserve that.

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I think you could achieve that bass sound easy on Helix. Blending of tones using different effects and mixing up amps/cabs/mics has allowed very accurate recreation of tones from almost any record you can think. What about creating an IR from your track/s and applying that to the back end of the amp block? Good luck at any rate!

 

Warning: The following is only personal opinion!

 

I found that track you linked interesting. Some really nice ideas however the drumming was really poor. The timing is constantly out in a very noticeable way. Entice the drummer to practice a lot more to get that sorted ASAP (for the sake of the band) or get a new drummer....

 

...it's by far the weakest point and will hold your band back. Your music doesn't deserve that.

 

I uh... don't disagree. He has gotten a lot better since then, but his double bassing still needs some work.

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AHAHA! I finally did it. Spent like a week messing around and mostly being frustrated, but now I have finally done it. Run an A/B split, set to B 30, then on the B path put a Triangle Fuzz running into a 1x12 US Deluxe cab with the 30 Dynamic mic and then an EQ to fine tune after that. It's a little dumb, and frankly I shouldn't have to do all that, but it works. Now I can finally play with nothing but the Helix!

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