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Graham50

Auto bass part from a pedal

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I’ve got to play acoustic soon without a bass player ( which I am anyway ) so I would like to create something underneath my chords. Is there a pedal which would create a bass part without needing pre- programming whilst I play guitar?

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All I can think of is a Rutherford-style organ pedal board, played with the foot, but most of 'em are expensive, and drive MIDI devices (no sound of their own...). An octave pedal, picking up the sixth string, maybe..? Can you not just play enough of a bass line on the sixth string, à la flatpicking, country style..? :/

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Posted (edited)

Definitely not a perfect solution, but I have used the Electro Harmonix Bass 9 pedal. It nicely replicates bass tones on a guitar, but tries to do it on every string so sounds really odd when playing chords or melody. But one of the modes does bass tones on the bottom 2 strings but not the higher ones. This works much better to replicate bass. I tended to do a drone note underneath and the higher strings with just the guitar notes. I put the signal into a bass amp and the guitar into my guitar amp. It certainly isn't perfect but works quite nicely to just fill out the sound.

Edited by randythoades
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One of these?

 

https://www.juno.co.uk/products/digitech-trio-band-creator-looper-effects-pedal/599334-01/?currency=GBP&flt=1&cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=1838759436&cq_con=70756262838&cq_term=&cq_med=pla&cq_plac=&cq_net=g&cq_pos=&cq_plt=gp&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIiImG0sHEhgMVXpVQBh0EbhKyEAQYAiABEgLzSPD_BwE

 

I vaguely recall TC Electronic doing something similar with one of their vocal/guitar harmoniser boxes - but I might have been dreaming/stoned/fitting so I’m not sure how reliable that memory is…

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17 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

Electro_Harmonix propose this ...

 

 

This all looks very nice, certainly for shredding and more technical material, but I think it would suffer from the same issue as some of the presets on their Bass 9. It will try to duplicate / harmonise with all the strings all the time, so you can't just have a lower frequency part of a chord. I think it would sound really muddy if you tried to fill out behind some chords.

The Bass 9 has one mode called split bass which (similar to the Boss OC3 'range' feature which would be another option) allows only the lower notes to be duplicated and leaves the higher ones alone. So, for instance, you could play a boogie bassline on the E and A strings whilst interspersing this with stabs and notes on the B and high E strings and the higher notes wouldn't sound an octave down. Also, if you played lower register barre chords in particular then the root note and 5th would play as a bass note but the higher strings sound just as guitar and gives more of an impression of 2 instruments.

But it does need adjustment in playing style and I wasn't prepared to fully work at it. I lost interest and just play low string basslines and then jump to higher inversions in between, a bit like incorporating both lead and rhythm together, but each bit on it's own rather than overdub.

 

What about the EHX Freeze pedal? Would that work to create just a drone note to play over? I have seen a couple of videos but never played with one. Seems like it would hold and sustain the first chord of the sequence until you turn it off.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I have experimented with the Ultrabass setting on my Behringer V-amp and it does drop the lower strings without seeming to affect higher notes. It is an octave divider by another name. However the sound coming out of the octave down strings is pretty much a fart, if you’ll pardon the expression.

I think I’ll just live with no bottom end.

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