Better BASS Guitar FUZZ?

mdc said:
Also, a big issue can be your practice space and how close you're standing to your speaker cab - low frequency sound waves are pretty large (100Hz is what, 10 or 11 feet?). If you're three or four feet from your cab, you're going to be hearing a very different mix of frequencies than if you were 20ft away from it. Scoop out the mids at that distance and your bass is gonna sound thin.
Click to expand...
Amazing point, I stand right over the amp when I practice.
 
Feral Feline said:
Never heard of PartSim before, Giovanni, that looks cool. Looking forward to exploring it more, thanks.





Eric, A few ideas:

Build yourself a clean-blend looper pedal such as a spltnblend (it's transistor-based) or similar; with an op-amp version of a clean-blender pedal, you'll have a looper that will blend in some clean with ANY thingamabobby you plug into the loop. There may be some polarity issues — simply put: some things don't like to be blended (Digh-nah Cawmp for instance), so that's why I'd go for an op-amp version as I've seen those more often with the ability to flip the phase via a switch.
A handy pedal to have for any bass player.


Forgive me if I'm going over stuff you already know, I just remember starting out and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of info I needed to digest and if that's where you're at in your journey this may help:

PedalPCB's Muff schematic that you used to build your "Bigger Muffin" has the following caps in the direct signal path: C1, C3, C4, C7, C12 & C13. The first, C1, and last, C13 are your in/out caps respectively of course.
- In/Out caps are often where a bass player can tweak any circuit for more bass (but not always).
- Coupling caps between a circuit's various stages or blocks, are another area ripe for increasing bass response. In your Bigger Muffin: C3, C4, C7 and C12 are the couplers.

It's not always as simple as bigger caps, though. The Green Russian has 100n in C1 and C13, yet may have better low-end overall than your Bigger Muffin's 10µ caps in C1 & C13 (I'm NOT familiar at all with the Bigger Muffin, don't know what it is or was based on). To stray away from the Muff circuit for a moment, take Jack Orman's MOSFET booster. Its input cap is a paltry 1n!
Yet Orman asserts that his booster is good for guitar & BASS and that increasing the input cap will do nothing. Orman's MOSFET booster does sound just fine on bass, but that didn't stop the Catalinbread top cat from enlarging the Orman circuit's input cap to 10n, and thus the Sogrado Poblano Picoso was born (with the output cap bumped from Orman's 100n to 220n as well). Sogrado aside, how can 1n possibly let enough bass through? That's where understanding how components interact with other components comes into play, and something I'm still working on learning.

So just 'cause you've got huge in/out caps doesn't mean your circuit will readily pass bass freqs through.

I'm still analysing and learning the Green Russian, and one of the key areas, I think, that helps it be such a Bass Badarse is the feedback caps (C6 & C9) and clipping caps (C5 & C8) in the two clipping stages. Note how the Russian's clipping caps are just 47n, about half of your Bigger Muffin's values. Thus your Bigger is clipping a lot more bass freqs than the Russian, and thus compressing those freqs and introducing a broader range of harmonics that swamp the fundamental bass freqs.

The Bigger's feedback C6 & C9 are a puny 47p blocking a lot of clean bass. Without looking at the BOM, care to guess how big the Russian's feedback caps are? One hundred times bigger than the Bigger's. Yeah, 470p in the Russian. Not double, not 10x, but 100x bigger. BOOM! That's the sound inside my head when I saw the Bigger's feedback caps' size.


So here are a few ways I'd mod your Bigger, and a few ways to do it:

Clipping Caps mod:
- Replace the 100n clipping caps with 47n. OR...
- Clip one end of the 100n clipping caps and solder another 100n IN SERIES to each, which will give you 50n. OR...
- Stick it all on a Switch If you want both the stock Bigger and modded values.

Feedback caps mod:
- Replace the 47p with 470p or even 560p. OR...
- Tack on a 470p to the 47p (no need to remove the 47p), adding 470p in PARALLEL with the 47p will give you 517p. OR...
- Toggle time again, but personally I think it'd be a waste of a switch (clipping above, too) and I'd go with the 517p method.

Tonestack Mod:
- Use Aion's method of having mids scooped/flat/boosted via an on-on-on toggle.
- Use Orman's or similar method of including a mids-pot.
- Try some other mids mod you may have heard of.

You can do the flat/scooped/boosted mod with an ordinary on-off-on toggle, too, but I prefer the on-on-on because the middle position of the toggle is flat. You could go with a Rotary-Sw if you want to add the option of bypassing the tone stack altogether.

Back to the couplers: You could also have a play with C3, C4, and C12 — bump from 100n to 200n by tacking on another parallel 100n or go 330n with a 220n added. Of course, C7-coupler is already 10µ.

Nota Bene! Indiscriminately bumping caps up in value can have a knock-on effect, ie upset the balance of a circuit — it doesn't always achieve the desired result and could cause the sound to become woofy, flatulent or otherwise unusable. Doesn't hurt to try, though, as you can always revert back to stock spec. See how it goes with your Bigger Muffin.

I think the tonestack mod will be the most beneficial and stop your bandmates asking "where'd the bass go?", just as others in the thread have suggested — you need mids.


If you haven't already done so, get over to Kit Rae's website and look at these pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4

Have a look at the Pharaoh, Super Collider and Musket — they're popular with a lot of bass players, and of course all the Russians. If building a Musket, I'd change the LP-1 part of the circuit to a Bass Mole/Hog and maybe mess with a few more caps to make it even more bass friendly.


For a synthish sound, that's a whole other kettle of worms. Check out TalkBass forum for synth-bass ideas.
BTW, what made you choose the Bigger Muffin?


If anybody sees I've got something wrong, or misinformed in some way — hit me with it, I'm still but a lowly Padowan — but eager to learn.
Click to expand...
Thanks Feral Feline! No doubt I'm a noob and really happy for all that wicked info.
 
eric.blimkie said:
Amazing point, I stand right over the amp when I practice.
Click to expand...

I don't buy in to being where the wave can fully physically form. Most practice spaces are not big enough for this, and yet there is an abundance of bass present in rehearsal spaces. Anywhere along a sound wave's path/journey that frequency's presence exists, no matter where you stand along it. As a result it can be heard. Fully.

Too many bass rigs don't produce sound below 55 Hz - any GOOD rig likely doesn't deliver below 50 Hz. If you find yourself bass-starved sonically it can be attributed to signal loss, or the bass rig isn't producing those frequencies well enough.

If you are confident that your rig is delivering what you want along the sonic spectrum (not just what sounds good) one of the best things you can do for your rehearsal space is to set up some bass traps in as many corners as you can address. Cabin gain is usually the bass' worst enemy and is NOT your friend - the lower you go the bigger that beast is. Once you've done this you can actually turn UP bass frequencies and get away with it.

I make a living helping people go REALLY low - contemporary wisdom isn't always the best answer.
 
While there's no question the sound you perceive standing right next to your amp will vastly differ from standing away 3-metres (10'), I'm with Knucklehead.
It's really easy to confound the misconception of bass wave-lengths taking time/distance to "develop", using one word:


Headphones.



@knucklehead ... "I make a living helping people go REALLY low..."
So, you're a diving instructor? Spelunking outfitter? :unsure:
Maybe a combination thereof...?



@giovanni Thanks for that explanation re input resistance & cutoff freqs. Too often I forget the interaction with the next pedal in line. Still so much to learn. The journey takes but one step at a time... always aiming for the horizon, which never gets closer...


eric.blimkie said:
Thanks Feral Feline! No doubt I'm a noob and really happy for all that wicked info.
Click to expand...
Us noobs sometimes need a nudge from another noob, 'cause *sometimes* we're just expected to figure it out for ourselves (DIY).
Never hurts to be pointed in a specific direction to explore, though.
 
Feral Feline said:
@knucklehead ... "I make a living helping people go REALLY low..."
So, you're a diving instructor? Spelunking outfitter? :unsure:
Maybe a combination thereof...?
Click to expand...

I design basses, strings, cabinetry and processing equipment as my day gig, with the express purpose of making guitars and basses do things they were not necessarily intended to - although CERTAINLY capable of.

This pedal adventure is in part an opportunity to build what is otherwise a unicorn, AND help me get my feet wet with pedal and circuitry design as I have one or two ideas I hope to bring to market. THAT remains to be seen.
 
Feral Feline said:
While there's no question the sound you perceive standing right next to your amp will vastly differ from standing away 3-metres (10'),
Click to expand...

Apologies if my nonsense rationale is incorrect, but this is maybe the more important point.
 
knucklehead said:
I design basses, strings, cabinetry and processing equipment as my day gig, with the express purpose of making guitars and basses do things they were not necessarily intended to - although CERTAINLY capable of.

This pedal adventure is in part an opportunity to build what is otherwise a unicorn, AND help me get my feet wet with pedal and circuitry design as I have one or two ideas I hope to bring to market. THAT remains to be seen.
Click to expand...

No wonder you've got a fEARful! Do you have a website, or anything you can share here? I'd love to see your designs.
 
knucklehead said:
kaliummusic.com

Premium, Extended Range, Bass Guitar Strings | Kalium Music

Kalium Music is a major manufacturer of premium strings for electric, acoustic, and bass guitars. Enjoy the extended range of products that are offered for your instruments.
kaliummusic.com kaliummusic.com
Click to expand...
Very cool - looks like you've got your hands in a lot of projects.

I really love the idea of custom gauge bass strings - any plans to add flatwounds to the mix? I imagine that the manufacturing differences are pretty significant. I wish more manufactures did a piano wrap.
 
Piano wind AND flats are a difficult task - tried them both and was too inefficient with them. The Roto piano design is brilliant - it allows player placement of the ball end so you can minimize the distance from saddle to full wrap.
 
+1 for Piano wraps.

My amp-guru friend has a buddy in the same building that repairs pianos and has string-winding machines for his repair work. He's maybe one of 3 guys in HK that can properly repair pianos and probably the only one left that can wind strings for them. Very cool old machines!

Alas, he has no protégé, no intern, no padowan ... the art-craft is dying, his knowledge and expertise will go with him when he retires. ( I think he's 70-something).


Some very cool stuff on the Kalium website. Thanks for sharing that. I liked the "K" logo on your pedals, now I know from whence it came.
 
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Reactions: fig
eric.blimkie said:
Hello,

I primarily play Bass and I'm Searching for that compressed, octave, bass fuzz sound. With a touch of chorus to really sound like a synth bass. Many bassist rave about the Doom 2 fuzz pedal from 3 Leaf audio https://www.3leafaudio.com/shop/doom.
I started by making a Bigger Muffin Fuzz https://docs.pedalpcb.com/project/MuffinFuzz.pdf and was hoping it would respond well with a P bass. Sadly when engaging the Fuzz pedal lots of the rich low end gets cut off. My band mates ask me " where did the low end go?". We can't have the low end disappear just for a little fuzz now can we?!

Can anyone recommend a Pedal PCB Fuzz pedal that sounds great with Bass Guitar, a pedal that preserves all the low end when turned on and really crunches that synth bass sound?

Are there techniques or knowledge of components that I can use when building future pedals to have better bass response and tracking?

Some pedals preserve all the low end like the VHS https://docs.pedalpcb.com/project/VHS.pdf ( Volume Chorus Reverb) others do not, why is that?

Worried I could build more pedals, like a compressor and octave, that don't track bass guitar low end well?



Thanks for the read and suggestions,

Eric
Click to expand...
This is available here to Build:
www.pedalpcb.com

Ungula - PedalPCB.com

Compare to EQD Hoof
www.pedalpcb.com www.pedalpcb.com

Here's a Good demo with Knob twisting:
 
Feral Feline said:
Never heard of PartSim before, Giovanni, that looks cool. Looking forward to exploring it more, thanks.





Eric, A few ideas:

Build yourself a clean-blend looper pedal such as a spltnblend (it's transistor-based) or similar; with an op-amp version of a clean-blender pedal, you'll have a looper that will blend in some clean with ANY thingamabobby you plug into the loop. There may be some polarity issues — simply put: some things don't like to be blended (Digh-nah Cawmp for instance), so that's why I'd go for an op-amp version as I've seen those more often with the ability to flip the phase via a switch.
A handy pedal to have for any bass player.


Forgive me if I'm going over stuff you already know, I just remember starting out and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of info I needed to digest and if that's where you're at in your journey this may help:

PedalPCB's Muff schematic that you used to build your "Bigger Muffin" has the following caps in the direct signal path: C1, C3, C4, C7, C12 & C13. The first, C1, and last, C13 are your in/out caps respectively of course.
- In/Out caps are often where a bass player can tweak any circuit for more bass (but not always).
- Coupling caps between a circuit's various stages or blocks, are another area ripe for increasing bass response. In your Bigger Muffin: C3, C4, C7 and C12 are the couplers.

It's not always as simple as bigger caps, though. The Green Russian has 100n in C1 and C13, yet may have better low-end overall than your Bigger Muffin's 10µ caps in C1 & C13 (I'm NOT familiar at all with the Bigger Muffin, don't know what it is or was based on). To stray away from the Muff circuit for a moment, take Jack Orman's MOSFET booster. Its input cap is a paltry 1n!
Yet Orman asserts that his booster is good for guitar & BASS and that increasing the input cap will do nothing. Orman's MOSFET booster does sound just fine on bass, but that didn't stop the Catalinbread top cat from enlarging the Orman circuit's input cap to 10n, and thus the Sogrado Poblano Picoso was born (with the output cap bumped from Orman's 100n to 220n as well). Sogrado aside, how can 1n possibly let enough bass through? That's where understanding how components interact with other components comes into play, and something I'm still working on learning.

So just 'cause you've got huge in/out caps doesn't mean your circuit will readily pass bass freqs through.

I'm still analysing and learning the Green Russian, and one of the key areas, I think, that helps it be such a Bass Badarse is the feedback caps (C6 & C9) and clipping caps (C5 & C8) in the two clipping stages. Note how the Russian's clipping caps are just 47n, about half of your Bigger Muffin's values. Thus your Bigger is clipping a lot more bass freqs than the Russian, and thus compressing those freqs and introducing a broader range of harmonics that swamp the fundamental bass freqs.

The Bigger's feedback C6 & C9 are a puny 47p blocking a lot of clean bass. Without looking at the BOM, care to guess how big the Russian's feedback caps are? One hundred times bigger than the Bigger's. Yeah, 470p in the Russian. Not double, not 10x, but 100x bigger. BOOM! That's the sound inside my head when I saw the Bigger's feedback caps' size.


So here are a few ways I'd mod your Bigger, and a few ways to do it:

Clipping Caps mod:
- Replace the 100n clipping caps with 47n. OR...
- Clip one end of the 100n clipping caps and solder another 100n IN SERIES to each, which will give you 50n. OR...
- Stick it all on a Switch If you want both the stock Bigger and modded values.

Feedback caps mod:
- Replace the 47p with 470p or even 560p. OR...
- Tack on a 470p to the 47p (no need to remove the 47p), adding 470p in PARALLEL with the 47p will give you 517p. OR...
- Toggle time again, but personally I think it'd be a waste of a switch (clipping above, too) and I'd go with the 517p method.

Tonestack Mod:
- Use Aion's method of having mids scooped/flat/boosted via an on-on-on toggle.
- Use Orman's or similar method of including a mids-pot.
- Try some other mids mod you may have heard of.

You can do the flat/scooped/boosted mod with an ordinary on-off-on toggle, too, but I prefer the on-on-on because the middle position of the toggle is flat. You could go with a Rotary-Sw if you want to add the option of bypassing the tone stack altogether.

Back to the couplers: You could also have a play with C3, C4, and C12 — bump from 100n to 200n by tacking on another parallel 100n or go 330n with a 220n added. Of course, C7-coupler is already 10µ.

Nota Bene! Indiscriminately bumping caps up in value can have a knock-on effect, ie upset the balance of a circuit — it doesn't always achieve the desired result and could cause the sound to become woofy, flatulent or otherwise unusable. Doesn't hurt to try, though, as you can always revert back to stock spec. See how it goes with your Bigger Muffin.

I think the tonestack mod will be the most beneficial and stop your bandmates asking "where'd the bass go?", just as others in the thread have suggested — you need mids.


If you haven't already done so, get over to Kit Rae's website and look at these pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4

Have a look at the Pharaoh, Super Collider and Musket — they're popular with a lot of bass players, and of course all the Russians. If building a Musket, I'd change the LP-1 part of the circuit to a Bass Mole/Hog and maybe mess with a few more caps to make it even more bass friendly.


For a synthish sound, that's a whole other kettle of worms. Check out TalkBass forum for synth-bass ideas.
BTW, what made you choose the Bigger Muffin?


If anybody sees I've got something wrong, or misinformed in some way — hit me with it, I'm still but a lowly Padowan — but eager to learn.
Click to expand...
Feral Feline,

I wanted to thank you for all this amazing info. I have been referencing it as I start looking at my next pedal build.
 
music6000 said:
This is available here to Build:
www.pedalpcb.com

Ungula - PedalPCB.com

Compare to EQD Hoof
www.pedalpcb.com www.pedalpcb.com

Here's a Good demo with Knob twisting:
Click to expand...
Thanks for this great video and product.

I have looked into the Hoof from EQD and have a good feeling I will be building one next. From what I hear, watch and read, it sounds like EQD makes pedals that are good for both bass and guitar. Their products seem really well built and designed with lots of proof on the web of both bassists and guitarists using the Hoof, and Warden.
 
Feral Feline said:
Some very cool stuff on the Kalium website. Thanks for sharing that. I liked the "K" logo on your pedals, now I know from whence it came.
Click to expand...

Piano designs are EXTREMELY difficult to execute - particularly when dealing with core diameters that are friendliest to guitar and bass tone - but an incredible tonal option. GHS offers this, as does Rotosound. SIT as well if I am not mistaken.

I had VERY brief instruction and time with the guy that used to wind for Dusty Strings (I believe he has passed by now) - a dulcimer and harp maker in Seattle. There is a lot of trial and error to my product line, but I did sidestep my biggest errors by virtue of the tutelage. He was quite secretive - but shared JUST enough.
 
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Feral Feline said:
BTW, what made you choose the Bigger Muffin?
Click to expand...
Feral Feline,

I chose the Bigger Muffin because it looked like the easiest one to build, for my first. Tonight a Eureka moment went off as I started going over your advice in more detail, becoming more familiar with muff pedals, remembered playing a green Bass Big Muff at the store, and starting to get PedalPCB's pedal nick names.... EUREKA! Green Russian could very well be the EHX bass big muff pi that comes in green.

musicredone.com

Electro-Harmonix BASS BIG MUFF Pi Distortion/Sustain Pedal

The Bass Big Muff Pi Distortion/Sustain Pedal from Electro-Harmonix is a harmonic distortion/sustain device for the electric bass guitar. The pedal is based on the Russian battle-tank green Sovtek Big Muff Pi from the late '90s, and the original Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi from the early '70s...
musicredone.com musicredone.com

I have been enjoying your advice on how a fuzz pedal will let more bass signal through, vs why my Bigger Muffin does not let much bass through. Comparing your notes of the Green Russian to the Bigger Muffin I built is an awesome learning experience, thanks. It is really helping me get more comfortable looking at schematics, understanding capacitors, and feeling like this hobby of making pedals is a good one. A hobby I can learn a lot from.

Thank again Feral Feline, and others who clicked like on Feral's OG post with tones of info about cap values and muff pedals.

Cheers,

Eric
 
Feral Feline said:
...
The Bigger's feedback C6 & C9 are a puny 47p blocking a lot of clean bass. Without looking at the BOM, care to guess how big the Russian's feedback caps are? One hundred times bigger than the Bigger's. Yeah, 470p in the Russian. Not double, not 10x, but 100x bigger. BOOM! That's the sound inside my head when I saw the Bigger's feedback caps' size.
...
If anybody sees I've got something wrong, or misinformed in some way — hit me with it, I'm still but a lowly Padowan — but eager to learn.
Click to expand...
Math is obviously not my forte. 😹

Either nobody else noticed, or was way too polite to correct that 10x bigger 100x bigger multicomplication — I was, ah... speaking metaphosphorically, yeah, 47p to 470p may as well be 100x ... that's what it sounds like to the humanoid ear on the Fletchly-Baron-Muchausen howl-dio curvature.

I post most-often when I'm sleep deprived. True, though not much of an excuse.




@eric.blimkie The more Muffs the merrier!
 
music6000 said:
This is available here to Build:
www.pedalpcb.com

Ungula - PedalPCB.com

Compare to EQD Hoof
www.pedalpcb.com www.pedalpcb.com

Here's a Good demo with Knob twisting:
Click to expand...

I'm ordering parts for an Ungula as we speak. I can't help but wonder, why are LEDs used on the inside of this pedal in the D1-D4 spots?

Secondly it makes we wonder, could these LEDs come out of the pedal ( the same way you wire the on/off LED indicator) to add a unique 5 LEDs on top like some kind of a meter / light show/ spectacular LED monster when you kick the pedal on?
 
Feral Feline said:
Math is obviously not my forte. 😹

Either nobody else noticed, or was way too polite to correct that 10x bigger 100x bigger multicomplication — I was, ah... speaking metaphosphorically, yeah, 47p to 470p may as well be 100x ... that's what it sounds like to the humanoid ear on the Fletchly-Baron-Muchausen howl-dio curvature.

I post most-often when I'm sleep deprived. True, though not much of an excuse.




@eric.blimkie The more Muffs the merrier!
Click to expand...
I did see that and was to polite to correct. Something else I'm wondering...
Comparing input caps specifically from the Green Russian and Bigger Muffin as we have been doing. We have also been talking about bigger caps letting more bass through.

Bigger muff input C1 and output C13 are 10uf (10 000nf) caps compared to the Green Russian in and out C1 and C13 100 nf. I'm new to these conversions but isn't 10uf bigger than 100nf. By my calculation the Bigger muff already has bigger caps. Trying to wrap my head around this, because as we have stated the bigger muffin sucks at passing bass signal through.

There is something to be said for that 100nf input cap value, as far as letting bass signal through a circuit. I've been looking into and staring to build clones of EQD HOOF ( Ungula) and The Westwoods ( Sherwood). Both are well marketed and tested to be great for Bass and Guitar, as we have discussed in this form. Both of those EQD pedals have a 100nf cap as their input.
 
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