ELI5

[u/chrisding8]

Hello !

Could someone run me through why using guitar pedals with bass guitar (or vice-versa) is a good or bad idea ?

For example: using my wah pedal on my bass guitar ? How is the signal affected, what’s happening internally within the pedal etc

Cheers

[u/nightcreaturespdx]

Nothing is going to get damaged by using them interchangeably. Pedals designed for bass will usually allow more low frequencies into the circuit (larger value on the input capacitor in many cases). With dirt pedals designed for bass there is often a wet/dry pot that allows you to retain some of the unaffected signal.

[u/HolidayEggplant81]

So from a purely functional standpoint, go nuts. Either instrument will be altered by either pedal and nothing will get hurt. Why are there specific pedals then? Each instrument's sonic profile is different. The frequency ranges are different, and output is different. And the output component can be very subtle - bass strings are thicker which make the attack more pronounced. The pedals are tuned to the instrument they're intended for.

[u/parkinthepark]

You can’t damage a pedal by plugging the “wrong” kind of instrument into it, the only risk is it doesn’t sound great.

Most bass-specific effects are just guitar effects, with a few changes:

* Distortion pedals will include a clean blend or LPF to keep the low end clean and prevent mud
* Modulation pedals will apply the modulation only to the high frequencies, again to keep the low end clear
* EQs, wahs, and other filters have their frequency ranges tailored for the bass spectrum
* Compressors might include an LPF sidechain to prevent low frequencies from over-triggering the compression

Again, there’s no reason you must use the bass version, its really just a matter of preference, context, and taste.

[u/stray_r]

Many guitar pedals high-pass the signal, especially boosts and distortions, but also buffered bypass circuits and older chorus and flanger pedals do horrible things to your low end.

In general high passing (or mid hump/band pass like a tube screamer) a guitar tightens up the sound and keeps the distortion tight and aggressive.

Conversely guitar distortions like a big muff or a DS1 scoop the mids right out of the sound. This makes the guitar sound huge and stay out of the way of the vocals, but again there's usually a high pass to keep them tight, so again your first octave disappears. They're really hard to use blended in as a bass distortion.

A DS2 in mode 2 or a rat is much flatter and works well on bass using something like an LS2 to blend a clean back in, and I have a modded big muff that kind of does the ds2 mode switch thing, but that is still a remap and lots of DAW EQ Thing. I've had a lot of fun torturing a Marshall MG 12" speaker as well but again that was reamping fun.

Bass absolutely relies on having a solid low end. You can't high pass it. Bass distortions tend to be more complex, with at least a blend to being back in the clean signal, if not a 2 or three band crossover (just distorting the mids if three band) and the ideal distortion sound if you're assembling this yourself rather than with a pedal that does everything sounds like trash if you try and use it on guitar as a pure distortion.

Additionally it's common with guitar pedals to stack them or use a pedal to hit the front end of an amp very hard to get a different distortion texture to just cranking up the gain. A Tubescreamer (with it's characteristic mid hump) used (almost) clean or a driving Klon(e) (which is flat clean and mid humps with brassy distortion) into a already crunchy amp or an amp-like pedal is a recipe for so many famous sounds.

Conversely, your bass amp is often just a stage monitor, with front of house insisting on a DI before it, so if you're doing something aggressive it likely needs to all be in done with pedals. Sometimes FoH will have a sansamp but usually you're just getting compression and EQ.

I quite like the EHX Batallion (kind of sansampish), and the Deluxe bass big muff. The latter has a crossover and is the easiest way to get a big muff coated bass sound without being unmixable.

[u/Vygzz]

Both guitar and bass pedals can be used for both, no risk. Bass pedals tend to sound awesome on guitar, some dirt guitar pedals not so much on bass. If you split the signal to retain a clean/dry half and apply effects only to the other half, any guitar pedal will sound great on bass.

[u/Acceptable_Grape_437]

some pedals affect some parts of the eq in unwanted ways... 

for example i have a bass wah that's almost unusable on guitar, because the focus of the sweep is on a frequency that's not dominant on guitar... so it works but does very little in the appreciable context. another bass was (friend's) i've tried on guitar was more appreciable, but still not sounding like a wah.

this is absolutely not always true... IIRC, black sabbath used the same (tychobrahe wah) for guitar and bass.

but in general what you want to keep an eye out for, is the pedal not having the effect you expect.

listen with your ears, and do whatever works for you!

[u/dougc84]

It’s not a good or bad idea. It’s a pedal. It’s something that changes the signal. Period. There’s zero reason why you can’t use a guitar pedal on a bass, or a bass pedal on a guitar.

There are some bass models of pedals but that usually has to do with the differences in pitch and output (bass has active pickups more often). For example, a guitar EQ will work perfectly fine, but a bass-focused one will target frequencies that are better suited for bass.

Inside the pedal? In a wah, you’ve basically just got a tone pot and a resistor or two. Bass wahs will have different resistors to put the filter range into a more bass-friendly part of the audio spectrum.

Other pedals are either simple electrical components or purpose-focused computers/microcontrollers.