Better BASS Guitar FUZZ?

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
 
This is a tricky one. Some pedals are designed explicitly for guitar and thus don’t let very low frequencies through. Overdrive and fuzz pedals sometimes have this issue. Depending on the circuit, the solution can sometimes be to simply replace some capacitors. But it’s not always that simple. I’m in the process of building 3 pedals for bass and I’ve been using circuit simulators to figure out the cutoff frequency and make proper capacitor replacements as needed.
 
Forgot to mention: one potential solution is to use an effect blender pedal to let some of the low end through together with the effected signal.
 
Thanks for the thoughts.
Forgot to mention: one potential solution is to use an effect blender pedal to let some of the low end through together with the effected signal.
I've seen the blender used before some of the signal gets to pass by the fuzz pedal so you keep the low end.

Do you have a link to learn more about Circuit Simulators?

What three pedals are you making for bass?
 
I recently acquired a Doom 2. I love the synthy tone and touch-sensitive response ... it's significantly different from my Bass Big Muff Pi, for instance (A reasonably standard reference for bass fuzz, I think?).
The Doom 2 is designed with the preservation of bass in mind, and I'd say delivers on this promise.
Would love to build a clone as it's quite distinguished in character compared to a few other largely similar-sounding fuzzes I've played with.
 
I'm not sure if or how the tone stack has been altered in the 'bigger muffin' version, but your bass disappearing in the mix is more likely due to the mid-scoop than loss of low end. In my experience, Big Muffs on bass tend to sound enormous by themselves and then they get absolutely lost as soon as guitars and drums enter the scene.

Give the Megalith a go, it's a fantastic bass fuzz. Or looks for a muff variant with a clean blend, as that can really help retain clarity and cut.
 
I have been using partsim.com for circuit simulations. If you’re familiar with SPICE you’ll feel right at home. I can share a simulation of the Depot Fuzz I’ve made recently if you’re interested (which btw should work on bass according to what the simulation shows).
 
I recently acquired a Doom 2. I love the synthy tone and touch-sensitive response ... it's significantly different from my Bass Big Muff Pi, for instance (A reasonably standard reference for bass fuzz, I think?).
The Doom 2 is designed with the preservation of bass in mind, and I'd say delivers on this promise.
Would love to build a clone as it's quite distinguished in character compared to a few other largely similar-sounding fuzzes I've played with.
I'm really glad to hear that. I may purchase one in the future, a Doom 2.

Yes I have heard much banter about the Big Muff Pi for bass. I've even played a few in the store. Still didn't sound as good as the Doom 2 does on the internet.
 
I have been using partsim.com for circuit simulations. If you’re familiar with SPICE you’ll feel right at home. I can share a simulation of the Depot Fuzz I’ve made recently if you’re interested (which btw should work on bass according to what the simulation shows).
Hey, No idea what SPICE is? Sounds like design software?

Really interested in Fuzz pedals with better bass response. I would happily have a look at your Depot Fuzz.
We have also started chatting about adding a blend knob to work some of the unaffected tone ( dry signal) back into the out put when the circuit is on.
 
I'm not sure if or how the tone stack has been altered in the 'bigger muffin' version, but your bass disappearing in the mix is more likely due to the mid-scoop than loss of low end. In my experience, Big Muffs on bass tend to sound enormous by themselves and then they get absolutely lost as soon as guitars and drums enter the scene.

Give the Megalith a go, it's a fantastic bass fuzz. Or looks for a muff variant with a clean blend, as that can really help retain clarity and cut.
Hey mdc,

You've used the Megalith for Bass? None of that low end disappearing? I like the idea of a clean blend knob.

Some have mentioned changing capacitor ratings to better represent the low end in a fuzz pedal. Any ideas about that? How one would choose what Caps to change and which way to change them?

Thanks,
 
I'm not sure if or how the tone stack has been altered in the 'bigger muffin' version, but your bass disappearing in the mix is more likely due to the mid-scoop than loss of low end. In my experience, Big Muffs on bass tend to sound enormous by themselves and then they get absolutely lost as soon as guitars and drums enter the scene.

Give the Megalith a go, it's a fantastic bass fuzz. Or looks for a muff variant with a clean blend, as that can really help retain clarity and cut.
Megalith,

Something like this ? https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/arkaimfuzz/
 
Hey, No idea what SPICE is? Sounds like design software?

Really interested in Fuzz pedals with better bass response. I would happily have a look at your Depot Fuzz.
We have also started chatting about adding a blend knob to work some of the unaffected tone ( dry signal) back into the out put when the circuit is on.
SPICE is the industry standard for circuit simulation. PartSim provides this functionality right in the browser. Unfortunately their site is not working right now (alas!) so I am unable to share what I got. I'll try again tomorrow.
 
I made the Green muffin version of the muffin fuzz and it is almost identical to my original green Russian Muff and sounds epic in the low end using a bass. I used to play a lot of bass using just the green russian always a winner. It’s strange that the bigger muff version kills the bass.
 
Hey mdc,

You've used the Megalith for Bass? None of that low end disappearing? I like the idea of a clean blend knob.

Some have mentioned changing capacitor ratings to better represent the low end in a fuzz pedal. Any ideas about that? How one would choose what Caps to change and which way to change them?

Thanks,

I don't own one but I play drums with a bass player who uses it as his main fuzz, into a rusty box. It sounds enormous, and can do those synth-y blown out sounds really well.

I've never had any issue with Muffs cutting low end, and if the bigger muff is actually cutting low end I would imagine it's a build issue not an issue with the schematic. Muffs have a huge mid scoop to them and the absence of mids means that a bass is going to have a really hard time cutting through the mix, which makes it sound like it's disappearing.
 
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.
 
Also, if you're handy with vero builds, this muff-based fuzz is a quick build and sounds enormous/brutal/a+++ on bass:

(*not to be confused with the JHS pedal of the same name)
 
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.

Standing waves and 'cabin gain' are going to be a greater concern. But only if you're ACTUALLY getting those frequencies back out of your rig in the first place.

Most bass fuzzes or bass-specific distortion pedals are notorious for 'losing' bottom end. Any pedal with an octave effect can worsen the problem - sad as that is.

If the Brass Master - as suggested by @thewintersoldier - is true to its namesake, the dry blend on that goes a long way in holding on to bottom end. I have the Malekko pedal and can attest to the original doing a good job regarding this. It's actually why I bought it.
 
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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.
 
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Yeah the capacitance alone is not enough to determine the cutoff frequency of the high pass (the lowest frequency that gets halved in volume). You also need to know the effective input resistance of the next stage to compute that. The Jack Orman boost probably has such a high input resistance (which preserves the input signal) that a small cap still gives you a low enough cutoff (it’s inversely proportional to R*C).
 
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