Need advice for my band's bassist: Sansamp pedal and maybe a compressor
I play in a low-key dad band and we gig small bars every few months. I also run sound for us. We play grunge, hard rock, and a little metal.
I'm happy with my bass player as a friend/musician - he shows up, learns the songs, and plays well enough for what we do.
The problem is he has no interest in pedals or working on his live tone.
We rehearse in an hourly studio that provides a bass amp. When we gig, we run everybody through the PA w/ subwoofer. Bass goes through a simple DI box, and I do what I can on the bass channel with EQ and compression. He monitors himself through a floor wedge.
The biggest problem I'm trying to solve is his dynamics. I record our gigs to multitrack, and he has something like a 20dB variance between songs. The second problem is tone - using just the DI feels sterile.
He's asked me to research a solution. I've been eying the Tech21 Elite because it's programmable. The "set and forget" is super convenient, plus he can have different presets for PA vs. using an amp in the studio.
Unfortunately, the Elite has been delayed until probably August at the earliest, and we have a few shows coming up that I'd like get sounding better.
Tech21 also has the Bass Fly Rig, which looks pretty good too, and while it's not programmable, it looks like it can do the job.
I'm also not against a separate amp simulator and compressor. But they would need to be more or less brain-dead to set up - he's not the kind of guy who would notice his knobs changed because he bumped them by accident (I'm seriously going to have to draw little dials on a piece of tape regardless of what we end up with).
So: what would you do in this situation? I'm not tied to any particular brand, and I'm not 100% sure a compressor is what he needs.