Does anyone ever use tremolo on a bass?

Artie

Artie

Peaveyologist
To be clear, I'm talking about amplitude modulation, like the knob you'd see on an amp. Not the mis-labeled vibrato arm on a Strat.

I don't think I've ever seen "tremolo" on a bass amp, or ever heard a song that had it. I wonder how it might sound? Anyone ever done it?
 
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Chis Squire used one on Yes' "Starship Trooper", though I don't know if he did it with an amp or pedal or what.

 
Nice. I'll have to listen to that again in the morning when I can crank it a little louder. He's using a fairly fast modulation there. Now I gotta play with that.
 
Smiths - How Soon is Now...or maybe that was just guitar, but somebody had a cover with bass tremolo? I forget
 
ArtieToo said:
Nice. I'll have to listen to that again in the morning when I can crank it a little louder. He's using a fairly fast modulation there. Now I gotta play with that.
Click to expand...

I've heard some live versions that didn't have as fast modulation, too.
 
I have a Boss TR-2 I low using with my fretless Warwick. I probably wouldn’t bring it if I was actually playing bass with someone, though.
 
Justin Chancellor of Tool uses one. The intro to Right in Two (you might confuse it for guitar, he’s also using his bass whammy) and also Lost Keys (feedback, again can be confused for guitar) have tremolo.
 
Mincer said:
Chis Squire used one on Yes' "Starship Trooper", though I don't know if he did it with an amp or pedal or what.

Click to expand...

Damn, beat me to it -best bass part ever at the end (the whole song has tremelo)

skip to 5:38 if you want to hear Chris Squire come in with Bass Tremelo with overdrive in front of it (he's panned right)..... trust me, wait for it.
 
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I used to use a tremolo patch on a Zoom multi effect processor like 20 years ago.

The originals band I was in gave me a lot of freedom to play with effects since we were a trio and there was a lot of sonic space to fill. One song in particular used the tremolo heavily as the basis of the main bassline. Other times, I would kick it on along with other effects for weird rhythmic breaks in songs. (We did a lot of freak out, stoner type improvisation.)

Funny enough, I have been thinking about bringing tremolo back into my effects chain and I just finished building a tremolo pedal 30 minutes ago.

Got on here to see if anyone else used tremolo with bass and BAM! there's this thread right at the top.

I'm buying a lottery ticket tomorrow!
 
Adieu said:
Smiths - How Soon is Now...or maybe that was just guitar, but somebody had a cover with bass tremolo? I forget
Click to expand...

Yes, that is a "kinda" triple-tracked guitar. One guitar into two Twin Reverbs set at different tremolo speeds recorded in stereo and a slide guitar track.
 
Kahler USA still does make several bass trems. They are quite expensive. He may mean that it’s not a factory option anymore.
 
Lamb Of God's bass track for Pathetic is totally using tremolo or heavily strip-silencing it in a manner that sounds exactly like a tremolo at 3:20 here (I've heard the track minus the drums and it's more obvious there)

 
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