Hullo.
My friend and I have started (yet another) new musical project. It's just the two of us, two guitars and a drum machine, but I wondered if there were any pedals that would enable me to play bass, or some limited bass notes with my feet. I know there are some midi bass pedals on the market but I'm on a severe budget, and I just wondered if there was any other way.
This is the band:
http://www.myspace.com/transmetropolitanmusic
Cheers.
get a kaossillator
and practice really hard with it, it is doable just very tough, thats what i do. www.myspace.com/esbenandthewitch
or midi up a sampler like the korg es 2 or just get a groove box
or a line selector pedal a loop pedal and an eq pedal?
How much
are these sorts of things gonna set me back dyou think?
Ah yeah
my friend has a kaossilator and it's AMAZING. But how would I use it with regard to playing with my feet?
Oops sorry
I was unclear. We already have the drum machine, it's playing bass with feet whilst playing guitar with hands that's the problem. And I'm too poor for a Roland Pk-5 :(
JAG!
Nope
genuine question. Honestly. The link is a reference point.
the es 2
is about 100 quid kaossilator is touch pad so you can play it with your toe you just need decent balance and a soft tootsie...
although i did smash my kp 2 pad....
thems the risks
Wow.
That's brave. Unless anyone's got a set of midi bass pedals for sale on the cheap?
A soft tootsie
I like that.
I'm going to call my next band that.
yeah i was merely joking
sorry it wasn't funnier
well
if you want to play different parts on bass, i know the rock of travolta have a midi foot controller (or used to). i have seen those types of things on ebay, i think they were called 'foot organs' or something. i honestly have no idea what i put into the search engine to find them, though, sorry.
if you just want a big bass presence, have a look at the EHX micro pog - it has two outputs, one for the dry signal, and one blended an octave down/up/original signal. they're fully polyphonic = no glitching, and have a genuinely nice sound. the two outputs means you could select between channels / amps, and have a fairly good degree of control.
alternatively, have a look at a jam man looper pedal, you can save bass loops in a bank, and trigger them with your feet. that might be the way to go, perhaps, but you'll be looking at about a £200 investment, if i remember correctly.
Ahh thanks!
That Jam Man pedal sounds good, or something of the like, that's probably a better way to go.
Thanks for your help, I'll investigate the options. Much appreciated.
That POG looks awesome
I've got a BOSS octave pedal which is pretty good, two outputs (wet & dry signal), has a polyphonic setting, a dual octave setting or octave + drive.
It's pretty good for getting some beefy bass sounds when you're playing guitar, 'specially as you can split the output signals. It was about £80 I think...
i looked at the boss one
before i bought my pog - whilst the polyphony on the boss is useful, i found that i could force it to glitch fairly easily in the shop. this can be quite desirable, though!
i think the pog works with an algorhythm that just halves or doubles the frequency of the incoming signal, hence the glitch-free-ness of it. it also maintains the characteristics of your sound better.
right, i'm a fucking geek. back to work.
Yeah, the boss one can glitch pretty badly on some settings
but like you said, that can be a good thing! Run the wet signal through a few more pedals then back into the amp and it can sound bizarre. Good stuff.
Will add the POG to the 'list of pedals to buy' list. It's a long list.
Sigh.
Thanks
loooaaads :)
Cheapest way to do this
(and the most practical, given you're already using a drum machine) is a cheap midi board - like a Behringer FCB 1010 - and a cheap second hand sampler (or synth if you like the tones). Just sample the bass lines you want and trigger the changes with your foot. Or buy a sampler with sequencing/external sequencer if you don't fancy changing between the lines yourself.
Any old, cheap sampler would do the job as long as it can store enough lines for the song. You'd just need to invest in a cheap hard drive/zip drive to load up samples between songs.
^ Behringer FCB1010
is ace. Built like a fucking tank, I've had one for years, spilt beer and all sorts on it and it just doesn't die. And completely customisable too. Tis good.