Depending on the sort of music you are playing when playing live,
you won’t need to do much other than set up your initial sound on the bass and amp at the start and slightly tweak them both between songs as required. I tend to use just an overdrive pedal that I would have already set up at the start ready for any point when I want to kick in with a nice beefy distortion sound. You can have as many pedals as you wish for live shows as long as you know how to adjust them to get that sound you want for a particular song. I would certainly recommend setting them all up prior to starting the show and, even better, before you have even sound checked. The reason behind this is because the best way to work out how to get all the different sounds is to literally experiment and during your band’s sound check is not the time to be doing that!
Another useful bit of kit to have is a tuner with a built in by-pass. Do you ever hear your favourite bands playing in front of 1000s of people doing the familiar and annoying “I’m tuning a guitar” tune? No, because someone has most likely just passed them a completely different guitar in between songs that’s all ready to go! If you don’t have the luxury of other guitars, then a tuner with a by-pass to mute the guitar as you tune it will be more than adequate and will stop you sounding like an amateur. I have a by-pass tuner built into my amp but I also own a tuning pedal with a by-pass just in case I end up not using my own amp if, for example, I’m playing a festival or larger venue.
In the studio it would again depend on whether you know what sort of music you might end up playing that day and the sort of sound that will be needed. If you are recording with your band then you will already have a good idea of the sort of sound you want to create and hopefully by now, know how to create it. If you do have a specific sound that you are happy with, then bring along your pedals and your amp to the studio and they’ll mic up your amp to record your individual sound. If creating an individual distinctive sound isn’t needed and you’re simply using a clean bass tone, then all you will need is your bass and a lead to plug into one of the studio POD inputs. Despite not having any obvious effect on the guitar, it is still worth having a play to get the kind of tone you want or you could just use one of the pre-saved sounds that undoubtedly the studio will have. Some musicians turn their nose up at using amp models (digital programming that emulates the sound of a particular amp or instrument) and prefer to have their bass amp mic’d up to give a more authentic sound. These days however, amp models are so accurate that I don’t think anyone can really tell the difference if they’re honest other than perhaps the amp model giving you a more clear and powerful end product. tv wall mount canada