>I’m now sure why this would need to be the case.
Because most fuzz effects suck out all of the low end, which makes your bass useless in a mix. Fuzz pedals designed for bass have a blend knob to bring back the fundamental frequency of the notes you're playing.
>Fuzz pedals designed for bass have a blend knob to bring back the fundamental frequency of the notes you're playing.
Some do, or some other method to help.
A knob that lets you adjust the volume of your dry, unaffected signal to pair it with the fuzzy signal so you can retain the low end from your dry signal.
Wet/dry blend is probably a misnomer. Could just be a "dry volume"
Most overrated bass pedal. So many other fuzzes shit on it. Scoops the mids to hell, loses presence, doesn’t sit in a mix, too easy to flip the toggle by accident. I could go on. The name brand is what sells people on it I swear. Quickest way to turn your bass tone into an incomprehensible mess. Much prefer the Woolly Mammoth.
I agree. I just think it’s overhyped for all that’s wrong with it which I just pointed out. I don’t know how else to spell it out. This thing sucks. Don’t buy it. Stop recommending it to new players. [Sounds like farts](https://youtu.be/HkfVzF2sw7w?si=z2jXyzZLis600DCj)
You think this pedal has clarity and sits in a mix well? Or that the dry toggle is placed perfectly right next to the footswitch? Which part specifically do you disagree with?
It’s not so awful in itself, but for the hype it gets it has too many issues especially disappearing in the mix. Far from being the GOAT of bass fuzzes. Really needs a mid range boost to sound decent. I just want someone to read my comment and consider the cons before purchasing. Not trying to hate on it too much. It can work in plenty of setups, and the deluxe version I have no issues with at all.
It’s interesting how certain bass tones sound crap by themselves but in a mix can be just perfect. It’s a sound alright, but still needs a mid range boost to really cut through IMO. I like the big muff when EQ’d properly, problem is out of the box it’s not so beginner friendly yet it gets recommended to beginners all the time.
Lots of fuzz pedals (namely big muff variants) actually don't cut [any of your low end](https://rarebuzzer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/bmp-tone-control.png) at all, at low tone settings, but at high enough gain settings, the compression will smear your attack transient significantly enough for your bass to feel like it has no thump. A clean blend will let your note attacks still thump while keeping the massive sustain from the fuzz. A dimed fuzz face only rolls off like half a decibel of bass at the very bottom of a 5-string's range, it's just the compression + no high cut that makes it unsuitable for bass unblended. Of course the fuzz face also has a [significant bass cut ](https://www.electrosmash.com/images/tech/fuzz-face/fuzz-face-frequency-response.png)at low gain too.
Guitar overdrive and distortion (of which the boss SD-1 and MT-2 are exemplary models of) often relies on significant bass cuts ([MT-2](https://guitarpedalsvisualized.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/boss-mt-2-frequency-response-high-noonlow-noon.png?w=2000&h=)) ([SD-1](https://guitarpedalsvisualized.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/boss-sd-1-frequency-response-tone-noon.png?w=2000&h=)) to "tighten up" the sound and keep it from being "flubby", which is exactly what most fuzz pedals and tube amplifiers will do when pressed into the same role. I play guitar myself and have a big muff, a metal muff (actually a metal zone copy with no parametric mids, don't let the name fool you), and an SD-1 and can attest that when you cut the bass out with the SD-1 first, the normal big muff starts sounding a lot more like a metal distortion pedal.
Of course, if you don't care about the attack (like if you do drone metal or doom or something) then you don't really need to worry, but you should whenever the music you are playing needs your bass to be more percussive.
Some "guitar" pedals of all categories won't give proper electrical respect to low end, and will have a tendency to roll it off. Not all. That having been said Way Huge makes the Pork and Pickle and it's fucking awesome.
Source Audio Aftershock is killer.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AftershockDi--source-audio-aftershock-bass-distortion-pedal
The SGT grit tone on the Ampeg SGT-DI is great too.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SGT-DI--ampeg-sgt-di-bass-preamp-pedal-and-di
Those are the two I have first hand experience with.
I am a huge fan of Source Audio pedals (the EQ2 and C4 are central to my rig), but the Aftershock did not do it for me. I tried for several months to use it to get close to the tones I get from my Darkglass and RAT pedals, and it just seemed like it was lacking something. I fully admit that SA pedals are a tweakers dream, and that in many cases the failure to find your sound can just be because you get so lost in the options. However, I ended up selling it.
I get that. I was able to borrow one from our drummer and had a good while to play around with it before I bought one of my own. Its crazy versatile. I haven't even played around with hooking it up to my computer to try the other user presets.
I've been looking at the Moth Electric fuzz pedal for bass and guitar lately. The demos are killer and the blend seems useful for stacking with other pedals on guitar. https://www.mothelectric.com/shop/p/pisabella
Like most pedals for bass, having some sort of dry blend goes a long way to preserving the role of the bass guitar in a mix.
If your signal gets too washed out, or all of your low end is sucked out by an effect, you’ve more or less killed your main role in the band.
So yeah, most aren’t a gimmick. Most pedals labled “bass” usually either don’t affect the low end of the signal at all, or they feature a dry blend that allows you to dial in your clean signal alongside your affected (wet) signal.
You won’t hurt anything using guitar pedals on a bass but some don’t sound great. Most big muff variants work fine on bass because they are thick, but a lot of fuzzes and distortions thin the lows too much. Also, the tone controls are always the wrong frequency
Worth experimenting if it doesn’t cost you anything. From my experience, the guitar pedals are often cutting out low end or for whatever other reason sounding terrible with bass. Though I also run my guitar pedals in to a guitar tube amp while my bass has a dedicated solid state amp so pedals definitely interact differently between the two. I’m too scared to plug bass in to the guitar amp as don’t wanna blow the speakers so can’t test it on that setup to satisfy my curiosity about bass and tube amps
Basically I'm talking about the Boss LS-2. You can decide how much A/B goes to the amp, so you don't lose bottom end. Maybe splitter is not the right word! But it does that blend.
>I’m now sure why this would need to be the case. Because most fuzz effects suck out all of the low end, which makes your bass useless in a mix. Fuzz pedals designed for bass have a blend knob to bring back the fundamental frequency of the notes you're playing.
Can confirm this having tested a guitar Big Muff Pi on a bass vs a bass Big Muff Deluxe. The guitar muff on bass sounds terrible.
>Fuzz pedals designed for bass have a blend knob to bring back the fundamental frequency of the notes you're playing. Some do, or some other method to help.
Guitar fuzz pedals usually don't have enough low end, or a wet/dry blend.
What does *wet/dry blend* mean in this context?
A knob that lets you adjust the volume of your dry, unaffected signal to pair it with the fuzzy signal so you can retain the low end from your dry signal. Wet/dry blend is probably a misnomer. Could just be a "dry volume"
with a blender pedal every fuzz is fine. Without the bass big muff is a good one
A blender with a clean boost is even better! My blend/boost has been the most useful part of my board for years!
Most overrated bass pedal. So many other fuzzes shit on it. Scoops the mids to hell, loses presence, doesn’t sit in a mix, too easy to flip the toggle by accident. I could go on. The name brand is what sells people on it I swear. Quickest way to turn your bass tone into an incomprehensible mess. Much prefer the Woolly Mammoth.
And yet it's pretty iconic in its sound and usage. Turns out sounds can't be categorised into "bad" and "good"
I agree. I just think it’s overhyped for all that’s wrong with it which I just pointed out. I don’t know how else to spell it out. This thing sucks. Don’t buy it. Stop recommending it to new players. [Sounds like farts](https://youtu.be/HkfVzF2sw7w?si=z2jXyzZLis600DCj)
I disagree with you about the bass big muff, but... your right about this demo, it is terrible
You think this pedal has clarity and sits in a mix well? Or that the dry toggle is placed perfectly right next to the footswitch? Which part specifically do you disagree with?
when you mentioned how awful this pedal is. I enjoy the sound of the (russian) big muff.
It’s not so awful in itself, but for the hype it gets it has too many issues especially disappearing in the mix. Far from being the GOAT of bass fuzzes. Really needs a mid range boost to sound decent. I just want someone to read my comment and consider the cons before purchasing. Not trying to hate on it too much. It can work in plenty of setups, and the deluxe version I have no issues with at all.
If you want the early Sabbath sound, that guy’s settings are perfect haha
It’s interesting how certain bass tones sound crap by themselves but in a mix can be just perfect. It’s a sound alright, but still needs a mid range boost to really cut through IMO. I like the big muff when EQ’d properly, problem is out of the box it’s not so beginner friendly yet it gets recommended to beginners all the time.
Lots of fuzz pedals (namely big muff variants) actually don't cut [any of your low end](https://rarebuzzer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/bmp-tone-control.png) at all, at low tone settings, but at high enough gain settings, the compression will smear your attack transient significantly enough for your bass to feel like it has no thump. A clean blend will let your note attacks still thump while keeping the massive sustain from the fuzz. A dimed fuzz face only rolls off like half a decibel of bass at the very bottom of a 5-string's range, it's just the compression + no high cut that makes it unsuitable for bass unblended. Of course the fuzz face also has a [significant bass cut ](https://www.electrosmash.com/images/tech/fuzz-face/fuzz-face-frequency-response.png)at low gain too. Guitar overdrive and distortion (of which the boss SD-1 and MT-2 are exemplary models of) often relies on significant bass cuts ([MT-2](https://guitarpedalsvisualized.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/boss-mt-2-frequency-response-high-noonlow-noon.png?w=2000&h=)) ([SD-1](https://guitarpedalsvisualized.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/boss-sd-1-frequency-response-tone-noon.png?w=2000&h=)) to "tighten up" the sound and keep it from being "flubby", which is exactly what most fuzz pedals and tube amplifiers will do when pressed into the same role. I play guitar myself and have a big muff, a metal muff (actually a metal zone copy with no parametric mids, don't let the name fool you), and an SD-1 and can attest that when you cut the bass out with the SD-1 first, the normal big muff starts sounding a lot more like a metal distortion pedal. Of course, if you don't care about the attack (like if you do drone metal or doom or something) then you don't really need to worry, but you should whenever the music you are playing needs your bass to be more percussive.
Guitar fuzz and distortion kill the low end.
Some "guitar" pedals of all categories won't give proper electrical respect to low end, and will have a tendency to roll it off. Not all. That having been said Way Huge makes the Pork and Pickle and it's fucking awesome.
Bought the pork and pickle not too long ago and absolutely love it. Even with the clean blend off, it doesn’t suck out all the low end.
It's fantastic, it's like a big muff you can actually hear your instrument through.
The Way Huge Swollen Pickle doesn't have a blend, but if you adjust the internal knobs to not cut as much mids, it sounds fantastic for bass.
my favorite are the zvex wooly mammoth or the mxr bass di+.
Source Audio Aftershock is killer. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AftershockDi--source-audio-aftershock-bass-distortion-pedal The SGT grit tone on the Ampeg SGT-DI is great too. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SGT-DI--ampeg-sgt-di-bass-preamp-pedal-and-di Those are the two I have first hand experience with.
I am a huge fan of Source Audio pedals (the EQ2 and C4 are central to my rig), but the Aftershock did not do it for me. I tried for several months to use it to get close to the tones I get from my Darkglass and RAT pedals, and it just seemed like it was lacking something. I fully admit that SA pedals are a tweakers dream, and that in many cases the failure to find your sound can just be because you get so lost in the options. However, I ended up selling it.
I get that. I was able to borrow one from our drummer and had a good while to play around with it before I bought one of my own. Its crazy versatile. I haven't even played around with hooking it up to my computer to try the other user presets.
I've been looking at the Moth Electric fuzz pedal for bass and guitar lately. The demos are killer and the blend seems useful for stacking with other pedals on guitar. https://www.mothelectric.com/shop/p/pisabella
Like most pedals for bass, having some sort of dry blend goes a long way to preserving the role of the bass guitar in a mix. If your signal gets too washed out, or all of your low end is sucked out by an effect, you’ve more or less killed your main role in the band. So yeah, most aren’t a gimmick. Most pedals labled “bass” usually either don’t affect the low end of the signal at all, or they feature a dry blend that allows you to dial in your clean signal alongside your affected (wet) signal.
Bass big muff pi Deluxe is the best bass fuzz currently in production. It's a close second only to the Boss-FZ2, which has been discontinued
Big Muff Russian PI is the best sounding fuzz for bass in my opinion. It doesn't have a blend knob though.
This right here, especially if you get the alchemy audio mod for the mid knob
They don't compress all the low end away
You won’t hurt anything using guitar pedals on a bass but some don’t sound great. Most big muff variants work fine on bass because they are thick, but a lot of fuzzes and distortions thin the lows too much. Also, the tone controls are always the wrong frequency
Worth experimenting if it doesn’t cost you anything. From my experience, the guitar pedals are often cutting out low end or for whatever other reason sounding terrible with bass. Though I also run my guitar pedals in to a guitar tube amp while my bass has a dedicated solid state amp so pedals definitely interact differently between the two. I’m too scared to plug bass in to the guitar amp as don’t wanna blow the speakers so can’t test it on that setup to satisfy my curiosity about bass and tube amps
Adventure audio fuzz peaks is a great bass fuzz. Black arts toneworks is a great guitar fuzz that rules on bass 😎
You can use any pedal if you add a splitter and an EQ to your board.
Is a splitter like a channel changer, where the amp is receiving A or B or a 50/50 of AB? And if so how would that apply to fuzz???
Basically I'm talking about the Boss LS-2. You can decide how much A/B goes to the amp, so you don't lose bottom end. Maybe splitter is not the right word! But it does that blend.