In my experience, bass players fall into two categories -- those who use no effects, and those who go crazy and have one of everything. I used to fall into the crazy category. For example, back in the '70s I used to run a Morley Power Wah Fuzz, a Mutron III, a Mutron Phaser, a Maestro Bass Brassmaster(fuzz) and some kind of tremolo box (can't recall the manufacturer) along with a set of Moog Taurus 1 bass pedals. This was in the era before there so many specialized bass effects. Today I run a compressor and that's it. So ... what are you using for effects, and why? Or, if you don't, why not?

Well, I don't use effects as far as pedals go. I just feel that the bass, when I play, should be as a pure as possible. I may use some after effects in Mixing ( compression, EQ), but aside from that, leave my tone alone.

I use effects whenever I want them, although I started out feeling very differently about them. It almost killed me trying to play all the notes of The Edge's guitar part for "Where the Streets Have No Name" (back before Youtube even existed) only to see him on stage doing nothing more than strumming a chord every few beats with something like seventeen pedals spitting all the other notes out for him. It was devastating to a young rocker, and I felt that he'd "cheated," in a sense, so I kind of adopted the idea that "You can't play unless you can play without effects." A little harsh, but I was only about 10 at the time.

Still, I think effects are perfectly okay for experimentation, pushing the envelope through sound, and equally as viable as pushing the envelope harmonically. I love playing with buttons and knobs and dials just as much as I love playing the 7th underneath a dominant just to stretch the tonal language of a song.

I guess that leaves me somewhere in the middle. I'm just as much a fan of putting nothing more than a cable between me and my old tube Bassman as I am of doing a little softshoe or a tap dance on a row of pedals on stage. "Ooooh, that one's a pretty color! Let's try it."

You get the idea. =)

I used to love envelope filter on bass back when I was playing -- gulp -- disco. I still would like to be in a situation where I could use fuzz again, but last time I tried that, the sound man thought I had yanked out a cord. Unfortunately, what I play now doesn't really call for bass effects.