a friend of mine is a drummer in an eventband and their bass player recently quit the band. Although I would declare the guitar as my main instrument I’ve played bass for a couple of years on and off. So now my buddy asked me if I’d be interested in joining the band. Hell yeah I’m interested. They play all kinds of stuff, from early Motown, Pop and Rock to modern charts.
Do you guys have any recommendations on what types of pedals are a must have to cover most songs?
At home I use a tc electronic BG 250 112 combo amp. I already have a couple of pedals from my guitar playing, but I played basslines mostly effectless aside from using a chorus here and there.
Also I’m interested in buying a Preamp. My tc combo sounds kinda hifiish, not bad for Slap and Funk, but it lacks the warmth of old Motown Basslines. I was interested in the Fender Downtown Express Preamp and also the Pour over envelope pedal but I can’t find a lot of reviews online, at least not from players, only from stores.
Pedals I already own:
Tuner
tc electronic Sun n Up Octave, Corona Chorus, Helix Phaser
Boss BF3 Flanger
EHX Deluxe Bass Big Muff (although it has technical problems. I have to take a look into it)
DOD Carcosa Fuzz
Mooer Bass Sweeper Envelope (not a big fan)
Palmer Übertreiber Overdrive, Herrenchor Chorus
Btw, this is kinda off topic: Since I mostly played my own basslines on recordings I never learned to play a lot of basslines. I have a repertoire of maybe 30-40 songs which I can play entirely. I remember a list for guitar players which was called something like: From Beginner to advanced Player in 100 songs or something like this. It started with easy songs like Blitzkrieg Bop and ended with way more difficult songs, so basically a step by step guide. from easy to slightly more difficult to: If you can play this you can play anything.
Do you know if something like this exists for basslines? Our first band practice is set in march so I have around 12 weeks to prepare.
I know, a lot of questions but any advice would be highly appreciated.
Thank you very much. Greetings from Germany
Well there’s this 3-month “Beginner to Badass” bass course, I’ve heard good things about it. It also includes 50 song transcriptions, graded from easy to hard. You can find the full list of them here, towards the bottom: Beginner Bass Lessons | BassBuzz.com
If you don’t want to pay for a full course, then you can buy the Hal Leonard “First 50 Songs You Should Play on Bass” book. It’s in alphabetical order, not graded, but since you’re experienced, I guess you’d be able to figure out their difficulty levels quickly.
I’m a pedal noob (literally just received my first pedalboard yesterday), so can’t comment on that part.
it depends on what sound you want and how much you want to spend of course. but you could get one of the many tube preamp pedals to warm up your sound. a lot of drive pedals would work, i personally use my dg vintage microtubes as an always on pedal to fatten things up a bit. of course the old cheapo standby, a zoom multieffects will give you the max number of sounds for the min $$$.
Well I always preferred sound quality over price, that’s why cheap multi FX aren’t my thing. I was thinking about the HX Stomp but I tried Helix Native at a friend of mine and was not impressed so I guess I stay with normal pedals.
Congratulations on getting in a band! You’ve got tell us the name of the band.
For most of that you’re talking about playing, you won’t need any pedals except your tuner.
Is this going to give you enough power to keep up with the drummer?
The bass preamp most reccomended here and on taklbass.com is probably the Sansamp VT Bass DI from tech21nyc.com.
The only problem with using guitar pedals for bass is a lot of them will eat you bass tone. You’ll just have to go through and try them out and see what you think will work. I know the Sub n Up will work. A bunch of people here have it.
For chorus, the EHX Bass Clone is one of the best bass chorus pedals out there.
Envelope Filters are hard to recommend. People can get pretty picky about their filter pedals. It’s kind of like telling somebody what the best dirt pedals are.
I will say the 3 Leaf Audio Proton Envelope Filter sounds delicious on bass.
I don’t have your previous experience but… oh man, that doesn’t seem like very much time. If you need help preparing both @JoshFossgreen and @Gio take students and might be worth seeing if they have any availability.
I never said that money isn’t a problem
I had my fair share of experiences with cheap equipment and more often than not I was disappointed or they simply broke way too fast. I’m not into Boutique pedals and stuff but I prefer something with good built quality and good tone.
It also includes 50 song transcriptions, graded from easy to hard. You can find the full list of them here, towards the bottom: 
