Abhinav Chaudhary - The Circus/Ioish

“Bassists don’t use pedals,” the naysayers are quick to retort. Even if that were remotely true, Abhinav Chaudhary, bassist extraordinaire of The Circus and Ioish stands tall as a living testimony of ‘Fuck you’. Known for his groovy sound and energetic playing style, Chaudhary is a force to be reckoned with onstage and has always managed to make music that is as enjoyable, complex and experimental as the various daisy chain knots and wiry loops on his messy pedalboard. Oh and speaking of his rig…

(Photo by Anand Mohapatra)

How many basses do you have? Tell me about all of them and/or how you came to acquire them.

At present I have

- One electric bass which is a Music Man Stingray 5 with single standard Music Man humbucker, an active 3-band preamp and maplewood neck and fingerboard. I bought this about 5 years ago in 2009 at a Guitar Center somewhere close to Indianapolis.

- One acoustic bass, standard 4-string Greg Bennett regency series ab-2 which I bought from Onstage about 2 years ago.

What brand of string and gauge do you prefer?

Ernie ball power slinky custom gauge strings, which 50, 70, 85, 105, 135 bottom to top. In case I can’t find these, which happens a lot, I go for D’Addario’s of similar gauge.

What’s your amplifier of choice? Why?

I use an Ampeg BA115 at home and an Ampeg bass amp tone has got to be my favourite. For recording and live purposes I like to use either Ampeg SVT series or Markbass. Most of the times I go DI straight into the FOH using the amp only for monitoring but these are the amp I prefer if it calls for micing and recording. In my opinion they both give clear and punchy harmonics that sound great to my ears when compared to other amp.

You are quite the pedal collector. Can you take me through the process you go through whilst acquiring a pedal? And what do you look for in a pedal before you buy it?

I’ve been using effects since the very beginning when I bought a Digitech bp200 along with my first bass, since then I’ve discovered that individual pedals (sometimes) sound better and definitely give you more hands on control over the effect parameters in real time. So, mostly I’m on the lookout for replacing effects I’ve heard on a digital platform (processors, vsts, etc.) with their analogue counterparts. Sometimes there are pedals that just sound strange or have cool graphics on them, those are always good to have.

What’s your current signal chain like? Tell me about each pedal in detail if you can.

I am almost 80 % happy with my current pedalboard, its missing a couple of things but this configuration works for pretty much any setup or band I play with.

Guitar > TC Electronic Polytune or Korg Pitchblack, I prefer the Polytune to the Korg because I think it tunes more accurately > Darkglass Electronics Microtubes B7K, this has got to be the single most useful piece of gear I’ve purchased, it’s always on > Blender from This1smyne (T1M) effects, it’s has a send-return loop which can be blended into the dry signal > Send> Proco. Turbo Rat Distortion > Way Huge electronics Swollen Pickle Fuzz > Subdecay Noisebox, this is my oldest pedal which is still around and works as new. It’s a fuzz-on-steroids driven synthy-filter machine > Return > Boss OC-2 with synth mod which when on makes the sound of octave down bitcrushed destruction > Iron Ether Xerograph deluxe, very synth-y, fully analogue low pass filter used with a Moog EP-2 expression pedal controlling the Frequency > Danelectro FAB Flanger or EHX Small Stone nano, i keep swapping these two out > Boss DD-7 delay > EHX Cathedral reverb > DI > FOH and Amp.

Apart from these I have a Devi Ever Ruiner Fuzz, a custom built green muff clone by Royztoyz in Bangalore, a EHX bass microsynth, a Boss Syb-3, A EHX bass big muff, Digitech Hyperphase and a Boss RV-5.

All of these are powered using Daisy chains and a One spot adapter and setup on a pedaltrain PT-1.

The one question I want to ask you is - why do YOU use pedals? What's your reason? A lot of guys in India actually are turning towards digital units – so why do you want to go through the hassle of using pedals?

Like I said before, most of the time individual pedals sound better than their digital units unless the digital unit is super high end, like an axe fx, but in that case, in my opinion it becomes an issue to have backups and travelling around with such gear. I’ve grown to like having hands on control over all my effects and being able to edit patches on the fly without having to look through menus and tiny screens. I love the modularity of the system.

What are some of your favourite combinations to use – how many pedals do you end up combining in one go?

Top of the list would be a Fuzz + Octave + Filter combination which along with an expression pedal gives very nice long synth swells. Second would be two dd-7 units + Cathedral + RV-5 for ambient drones and what not.

Guitarists have used random things to amplify their sound over the years. Are there some tricks you employ for craziness?

Mostly use my fingers or plectrums. I tried using a violin bow but that did not sound that great on bass, I still need to try an ebow.

Do you usually attach them in front of the amp?

Yes, all my stuff comes before the amp or PA.

What’s your pedal wish list like? What other pedals would you like to include in your arsenal?

I think I’ll be getting the reissued Digitech bass whammy next and possibly an ebow and hope fully a new bass this year.

Lastly, what kind of advice would you like to give to all the fellow pedal players/collectors/hoarders and noisemakers out there?

LOL, best of luck with your GAS folks!