I’m a member of the UBass Freaks group on Facebook and recently someone asked, “… is anyone using pedals with their bass and what is the benefit or attraction?”

Let’s start with the problems of basses in general and ukulele basses in particular. Depending on what kind of short-scale bass you have, you’re likely to run into different problems. I have two custom short-scale basses … neither a branded UBass, but I’ve played those as well and am familiar with the issues. These can include:

• Lack of presence … short-scale basses, and UBass models with the giant polyurethane strings in particular, can lack presence and be ‘boomy.’ Effects pedals can help tailor the sound of your bass through equalization so that it is actually heard, and not just felt.
• Lack of interest … the basic bass sound, without some kind of gain/boost, drive, and/or compression can be pretty underwhelming, especially with passive pickup systems that really require a huge boost just to be heard. Besides fixing these problems, pedals can add additional interest for certain styles of music with distortion, fuzz, octave doubling, synths and a host of other interesting sounds.
• Basses with metallic strings of any kind can conjure up a lot of fret noise. Also, many of the above mentioned effects add to the ‘noise floor’ of an amplified bass, even when not being played … There are pedals that specialize in dampening extra noise.

What do I use?

• The Zoom B3 (which emulates many pedals) is great for fuzz, distortion and experimenting with sounds.
• I also use a SansAmp Bass Driver (for more basic sounds with my piezo pickup bass) paired with the Decimator II (for noise threshold control).

Some other suggestions from forum members include:

• Behringer V-Tone Bass Driver DI BDI21
• TC-Helicon VoiceLive 3 Extreme
• TC Electronic SpectraComp Bass Compressor Pedal paired with a MXR M81 Bass Preamp
• BOSS Bass Chorus Guitar Pedal (CEB-3)
• Polytune Mini ->  Digitech Drop –> Keeley Tone Workstation –> Behringer V-Tone Bass Driver DI BDI21

Post filed under All UkulelePlay! Blog Posts.