No , this decision wasn ’ t handed down from some sort of tone deity — it was forged at the intersection of two very specific gear junctions . One of the problems that beleaguered the advent of bass pedalboards was that almost nobody designed pedals strictly for bass guitar . Electro-Harmonix dabbled in the craft with the Low Frequency Compressor and later , the Bassballs and Bass Microsynth , but its catalog was never very bass-centric .
The second , and perhaps most limiting aspect of the bass pedalboard , is the fact that many pedals sound objectively terrible when a bass guitar is plugged into them . Searching for the rare “ guitar pedal that works with bass ” has become something of a white whale for many bassists , and this hunt has turned many of them off from pedal usage completely .
To address the first point , it ’ s simple to see that despite bass players being on equal footing with guitarists in a band context , that ’ s where the equality ended . Throughout the years , a scant few pedals were manufactured just for bass , and it wouldn ’ t have been hard to fill a small board with these pedals , resulting in total tonal homogeny . Homogeny , of course , is something musicians have historically struggled with , and its very existence planted the seeds of our now-fruitful pedal selection .
Touching on the second point , the pedal industry ’ s nascent years were shrouded in secrecy and malfeasance . If a pedal was sold as a bass-exclusive product , it was often a guitar circuit outfitted with larger capacitors — an all-too-common mod today . The problem with many cap swap jobs is that they normally cloak the circuit in bass , hoping to salvage organic low-frequency attributes of a real bass guitar . The result is a muddy disaster that saps low end from the signal , only to add it back in — inefficient , to say the least . Unbeknownst to many at the time , the true fix is a clean blend circuit , but this was something few pedals — if any — offered in
IT ’ S TAKEN A LONG TIME , BUT BASS PLAYERS HAVE RECENTLY JOINED THEIR TREBLE-ORIENTED COUNTERPARTS IN THE LARGE PEDALBOARD PARTY , MUCH TO THE CHAGRIN OF THE SIX- STRING CREW . “ BASS PLAYERS SHOULDN ’ T HAVE PEDALBOARDS ” IS A COMMONLY HEARD COMPLAINT , AND UNTIL VERY RECENTLY , IT WAS THE LAW OF THE LAND .
No , this decision wasn ’ t handed down from some sort of tone deity — it was forged at the intersection of two very specific gear junctions . One of the problems that beleaguered the advent of bass pedalboards was that almost nobody designed pedals strictly for bass guitar . Electro-Harmonix dabbled in the craft with the Low Frequency Compressor and later , the Bassballs and Bass Microsynth , but its catalog was never very bass-centric .
The second , and perhaps most limiting aspect of the bass pedalboard , is the fact that many pedals sound objectively terrible when a bass guitar is plugged into them . Searching for the rare “ guitar pedal that works with bass ” has become something of a white whale for many bassists , and this hunt has turned many of them off from pedal usage completely .
To address the first point , it ’ s simple to see that despite bass players being on equal footing with guitarists in a band context , that ’ s where the equality ended . Throughout the years , a scant few pedals were manufactured just for bass , and it wouldn ’ t have been hard to fill a small board with these pedals , resulting in total tonal homogeny . Homogeny , of course , is something musicians have historically struggled with , and its very existence planted the seeds of our now-fruitful pedal selection .
Touching on the second point , the pedal industry ’ s nascent years were shrouded in secrecy and malfeasance . If a pedal was sold as a bass-exclusive product , it was often a guitar circuit outfitted with larger capacitors — an all-too-common mod today . The problem with many cap swap jobs is that they normally cloak the circuit in bass , hoping to salvage organic low-frequency attributes of a real bass guitar . The result is a muddy disaster that saps low end from the signal , only to add it back in — inefficient , to say the least . Unbeknownst to many at the time , the true fix is a clean blend circuit , but this was something few pedals — if any — offered in