{"id":3890,"date":"2013-05-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=3890"},"modified":"2013-05-01T13:31:33","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T18:31:33","slug":"what-is-clean-bass-distortion-and-how-do-you-get-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/gear\/electronics\/pedals\/what-is-clean-bass-distortion-and-how-do-you-get-it.html","title":{"rendered":"What is &#8220;clean bass distortion&#8221; and how do you get it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some players like using distortion, and that&#8217;s fine. However, there&#8217;s some debate that exists on whether you need a bass-specific distortion effect or not.<\/p>\n<p>Technically, no, you don&#8217;t:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QEHhmJB0_jY\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>However&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Although the term &#8220;clean distortion&#8221; is a bit of an oxymoron (it&#8217;s like saying &#8220;clean dirty&#8221;), regular distortion pedals can&#8217;t distort cleanly. <\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<p>Well, let&#8217;s take a look at a bass-specific overdrive, such as the BOSS ODB-3. The sound difference is pretty obvious:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m7rZWOvG7jA\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But <em>why<\/em> does the ODB-3 sound so much better for distorted bass than the DS-2?<\/p>\n<p>Other than the recording quality between the two videos, a lot of it has to do with the <strong>balance<\/strong> control on the ODB-3.<\/p>\n<p>Better bass distortion pedals have a balance control that allows you to <strong>mix how much dry signal you hear<\/strong>, while regular guitar distortion pedals almost never have that option.<\/p>\n<p>It is the dry signal control more than anything else that allows you to &#8220;distort clean&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And yes, this also applies to the fuzz effect as well. For example, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/dunlop-mxr-m84-compressor.htm\" target=\"_blank\">MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe<\/a>, which we carry as you&#8217;ll see from that link, does have a &#8220;DRY&#8221; knob.<\/p>\n<h3>How important is the dry signal when distorting a bass?<\/h3>\n<p>More important than most players realize. If you use a regular dist pedal such as the DS-2, the first thing you&#8217;ll probably notice is that the bottom end may disappear, and you&#8217;re left with nothing but midrange. You can obviously compensate for this via the EQ settings on your amp or via an inboard preamp, but then after that&#8217;s all sorted out, you may notice that the cool fret-clack sound may be totally gone, &#8220;washed in&#8221; in a sea of distortion.<\/p>\n<p>Blending in dry signal allows you to have distortion <em>and<\/em> the fret clack <em>and<\/em> keep as much of the natural bottom end tone you want in there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If one were to directly ask, &#8220;What is clean bass distortion?&#8221;<\/strong>, the answer is distortion where you can hear distorted tone, bottom end and fret clack all at once&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and that&#8217;s why there is a legitimate purpose for bass-specific overdrive\/distortion; it&#8217;s not just &#8220;a distortion pedal with the word &#8216;bass&#8217; printed on it&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some players like using distortion, and that&#8217;s fine. However, there&#8217;s some debate that exists on whether you need a bass-specific distortion effect or not. Technically, no, you don&#8217;t: However&#8230;. Although the term &#8220;clean distortion&#8221; is a bit of an oxymoron (it&#8217;s like saying &#8220;clean dirty&#8221;), regular distortion pedals can&#8217;t distort cleanly. Why? Well, let&#8217;s take &#8230; <a title=\"What is &#8220;clean bass distortion&#8221; and how do you get it?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/gear\/electronics\/pedals\/what-is-clean-bass-distortion-and-how-do-you-get-it.html\" aria-label=\"More on What is &#8220;clean bass distortion&#8221; and how do you get it?\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}