Bass effects pedals have played an important role on many of our favorite rock and metal cuts — from Cliff Burton’s curiously guitarish “For Whom the Bell Tolls” intro to Flea’s slap-and-pop cascading wah solo in “Coffee Shop.” To find out which are the best pedals for bass, we talked to three of our bass-playing Sales Engineers to learn what they keep on their pedalboards and why.
DigiTech Luxe Polyphonic Detuner
Not a chorus fan? The Luxe is a subtler way to thicken your tone and add movement to intros, bridges, and solos. It brings the double-tracked sound from the studio rack into a compact, standalone pedal, without the woozy seasickness of traditional thickening agents.
Luxe is for those who prefer detuned effects over chorus. It’s especially nice on fretless.
Robert Williams is a Premier Guitar contributor, multi-instrumental recording artist, and Sales Engineer to Vernon Reid and Juan Alderete.
MXR M82 Bass Envelope Filter
For funk and rock, no pedal has the staying power of the venerable envelope filter. From Land of the Lost Moog-y sweeps to subtle Justin Chancellor presence and authentic Bootsy Collins attitude, the analog M82’s powerful shaping and blending controls conjure it all. Separate Dry and FX controls keep your bass fat, while true bypass switching preserves the character of your instrument. Just remember — bass envelope is the fine china of your effects spread. Save it for special occasions.
Once you find the sweet spot between your playing and the pedal, the MXR M82 is pure funk in a box.
Sales Engineer and bass player Mike Baldonado enjoys configuring custom bass, guitar, and recording rigs for his clients.
Aguilar Chorusaurus Bass Chorus
Bass chorus pedals tend to get a bad rap. But the Aguilar Chorusaurus succeeds in delivering lush, tasty, bucket brigade analog chorus to your bass guitar in a compact form factor. Your low end stays intact, and a Blend knob dials in the right level of subtlety. It even offers a stereo output.
EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery Envelope Filter
This voltage-controlled dynamic envelope filter listens carefully to your pick and finger attacks, making it much more musical than typical autowah-type filter pedals. Sample-and-hold mode mimics an arpeggiator for synth-like movement, and the powerful Resonance and Filter (lowpass) controls make Spatial Delivery as subtle or extreme as you like.
High-quality envelope. My favorite feature is the sample-and-hold mode, which gets you into pseudo arpeggiator territory.
Robert Williams
Electro-Harmonix Bass Micro Synth
The Bass Micro Synth packs a rich bag of tricks into its svelte enclosure. Adventurous players will love transforming their basses into thunderous, fuzzed-out old-school monosynths. But even conservative players will enjoy the smooth bowed tones and sub-octave harmonics this pedal is famous for.
The Bass Micro Synth has everything from smooth warm swells to sizzly square-wave punch. Robert Williams
Darkglass Microtubes B7K Ultra Bass Preamp
Darkglass of Finland brings you the B7K Ultra Bass Preamp. The B7K Ultra is a direct box, EQ, and drive pedal all in one, with outputs to run into both an amp and a sound system at the same time. Lo and Hi Mid switches, each with three switchable frequency centers, help to tame out the honk, quack, and mud that plague so many DI basses. And a switchable distortion circuit with Blend control makes it easy to access the right level of tube-like drive just when you need it.
The Microtubes B7K Ultra is the most amazing bass distortion/preamp I’ve ever heard. It’s very articulate even at super-high gain levels. Accept no substitutes. Mike Baldonado
EarthQuaker Devices Hoof Fuzz V2
Sweetwater bassists aren’t alone in our love for the Hoof V2. This muff-type fuzz has earned a reputation for its fat, pillowy low end, smooth contour, and inspiring sustain. A cocktail of germanium and silicon transistors, a representative range of subtle to sludgy tones, and soft-touch true bypass switching make this hand-assembled pedal a solid addition to any board.
One of the gnarliest fuzzes around that doesn’t lose low-end impact. Robert Williams
Darkglass Alpha Omega Bass Preamp/Overdrive
Darkglass calls the Alpha Omega the most flexible of all its direct boxes, and we have to agree. This pedal is perfectly at home delivering a clean signal, with or without EQ, to your front of house. But where it stands alone is in its incredible range of dirt. This box is particularly great for punchy, growly, modern metal bass textures — but that’s not to say it can’t pull off more subtle shades of vintage tube-like saturation, too.
For sheer versatility it’s amazing. If you like Darkglass’s previous circuits and want something that captures a best of, this is it. Anywhere from dark purr to grind and many points between with the blend feature. Robert Williams
DigiTech Whammy Ricochet Pitch Shifter
Most bassists would agree that downtuning onstage is a drag. The slimmer Whammy Ricochet, now with a pedalboard-friendly latch switch instead of a treadle, gives you instant access to those coveted low Ds, Bs, and beyond without touching your tuners. It also provides synth-style octave-up jumps for leads.
Much smaller footprint than the treadle version. Rise and fall times and a momentary switch give you sounds you can’t get in the full-sized version. Robert Williams
Darkglass Super Symmetry Bass Compressor
Another pedal we love from Darkglass is the Super Symmetry. Why? Because outside the studio, getting natural, effective bass compression is a tall order. The Super Symmetry packs all the power of your favorite studio compressors in stompbox form. In the right hands, it can level out the output across all strings without coloring or sucking tone. A row of 10 blue LEDs provides real-time visual feedback over attack, reduction, and release, for a smooth tone you can trust even when you can’t hear yourself onstage.
I would rank the Super Symmetry Compressor in the category of high-end studio compressors. If needed, you can completely squash the signal, and it never leaves the bass sounding lifeless. This is the first pedal in my chain every single time I play. Mike Baldonado
Pigtronix Echolution 2 Ultra Pro Delay
Calling the stereo Echolution 2 a delay pedal would be like calling Lemmy a bassist. It just doesn’t do either one justice. The Echolution’s tempo tap, clever subdivisions, and onboard looper function are sure to unlock fresh inspiration every time you suit up. This pedal is equally adept at appropriating analog delays with tape and comb filter effects as it is inventing wild new tweakable concoctions.
Phase, flange, trem, and bit crushing on top of comprehensive delay options. Even cooler with the 4-preset remote. Robert Williams
Eventide Space Reverb
Anyone who tells you reverb isn’t for bass guitar hasn’t heard Space. This pedal’s 12 studio-quality effects — angelic shimmers to cavernous modulated reverbs and beyond — come straight from Eventide’s flagship rack units (including the H8000FW). So for bass and any other instruments in your life, this pedal is tough to beat. Updates over USB and MIDI control make it pretty well futureproof, too.
Eventide’s top-end studio reverbs in a pedal!! Every possible reverb you’d need, from the normals such as Spring, Plate, and Hall to a slew of more epic sounds such as Shimmer, Blackhole, Reverse, and MangledVerbs. This can do everything you need to perfection. Mike Baldonado
Zoom B3n Bass Multi-effects Processor
Pedal snobs be warned. If you haven’t tried a current-gen multi-FX such as the B3n, you’re missing out. What we especially like about this pedal is its stompbox simplicity. Create virtual pedalboards three wide for every song in your set if you like, then twist real knobs to get those fuzzes, reverbs, modulation effects, and octaves dialed in just so. It also makes a heck of a practice board — throw one in your car and never be without quick access to inspiration.
I use one in addition to my main board to get combinations that would require too much tap dancing. The palette of effects is expansive. Makes for a great backup. Robert Williams
