Bass distortion PSA-1

[Polpotkin]

I bought a PSA-1 a while ago, just for the purpose of distorting bass on my recordings. But it's just not doing it for me. Sure i keep the orignal signal, hipass the distorted and everything you usually do, but it just sounds really bad, like a buzzy stompbox or something.

Can someone point me in the right direction? The sound i'm going for is nightwish-ish or maybe even cannibal corpse (maybe less distortion).

Cheers!

 

[guitarguru1969]

I too have done the same thing. I did find that using passive bass PU's helps. I have tried and tried to usa our extra PSA-1 but preffer the RBI for distortion and overall bass tone and punch. I know a few metal bands use the PSA-1 for this and am interested to hear if anyone has tamed the beast? Their is also another thread using the Sanford and Sonny Bluebeard Fuzz pedal with the sansamp that sounded great to me, but again that was used with the RBI or BDDI instead of the PSA-1. If you have any luck please post.

 

[Razorjack]

I'm still searching for my ultimate bass tone, Marco Heitala's tone is pretty much perfect to me but I just haven't managed to nail it down.

 

[vespiz]

I'm still searching for my ultimate bass tone, Marco Heitala's tone is pretty much perfect to me but I just haven't managed to nail it down.

Apparently most of the (distortion) sound was from a Mesa guitar pre (triaxis?) and playing the bass guitar really softly. This was a few years back when talking to Samu, who records/mixes/produces Diablo. It was a bit of a surprise for them to find out that they use exactly the same gear/playing technique.
That said, I didn't like his tone on the new Nightwish album. Maybe they used something else?
I've mostly used the PSA plugin, but I've found out that I like to cut the Buzz almost all the way down. Depending on the sound of course, but this seems to be working for me.

 

[Seizure.]

Their is also another thread using the Sanford and Sonny Bluebeard Fuzz pedal with the sansamp that sounded great to me, but again that was used with the RBI or BDDI instead of the PSA-1. If you have any luck please post.

That was the BDDI

And i think you should be able to get your sound from just a Sansamp, i can get a good CC type basstone with just my bass and the sansamp on SVT classic settings..
maybe its your bass? if you want distortion, having passive pick ups helps.

Another cool trick is to buy a ODB 3, put it infront of a Sansamp, put the distortion at 100% but the mix at only 10% or less, gives you the grind you need without getting muddy and sludgy.
(and adding some bass on the ODb 3 eq and cutting some highs helps aswell, but this depends on your bass..)
This kind of got me the in flames type basssound.

Succes man!

 

[Polpotkin]

I tried a little more today and i recorded this sample. What do you think? Useable?
http://www.sabachthani.org/bass.mp3