LeftyBassist.com

ok this may seem like a dumb qestion but i have alot of guitar effect pedals and only 2 or 3 bass effect pedals and i wanted to know can you use guitar effect pedals on bass safely without damaging anything like the pedals amps and the basses electronics like pickups and stuff.

Fear not and be not afeared, we were using guitar pedals on bass long before there were bass-specific FX pedals, so you won't hurt anything.

The reason that bass-specific pedals came around is because many pedals do not translate low-mid and bass frequencies very well. This is very noticable with chorus and distortion/fuzz pedals (try out an original Big Muff sometime!) and many octave and harmonizer type FX often did not track well with bass frequencies.

So some FX builders started building pedals voiced for bass guitar. Some are very good and some are rather gimmicy. But even now many bass players who are serious effects users often have dual rigs one for FX and the other running an straight unaffected signal.

Of the 20 some-odd pedals I own only one is a "Bass" pedal.

Cheers!

Only 3 out of my 12 pedals are for bass. I doubt there even is a bass version of a tremolo, delay, or phaser pedal.

+1. I'm not a big effects guy (except for my bass synth stuff), but my main compressor is a Monte Allums modified Boss CS-3 guitar pedal. I also use an EH POG on bass occasionally.

It's my understanding, however, that some pedals have a problem with active basses, though I've heard of one damaging a pedal/rig/bass.

I suggest that you read the very top post "Welcome to the Effects Forum! READ THIS FIRST!". MysticBoo has written a well informed article about effects. It addresses your question, and goes into detail about various pedals, how they work etc.

thanks everyone for the replys