# Better BASS Guitar FUZZ?



## Euphoric Guitars

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


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## giovanni

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.


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## giovanni

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.


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## Euphoric Guitars

Thanks for the thoughts. 


giovanni said:


> 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?


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## Dreamlands

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.


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## mdc

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.


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## giovanni

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).


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## Euphoric Guitars

Dreamlands said:


> 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.


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## Euphoric Guitars

giovanni said:


> 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.


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## Euphoric Guitars

mdc said:


> 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,


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## Euphoric Guitars

mdc said:


> 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/


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## giovanni

eric.blimkie said:


> 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.


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## Dan0h

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.


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## mdc

eric.blimkie said:


> 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.


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## mdc

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.


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## mdc

Also, if you're handy with vero builds, this muff-based fuzz is a quick build and sounds enormous/brutal/a+++ on bass:








						Haunting Mids V3
					

Collection of vero (stripboard) & tagboard layouts for 100s of popular guitar effects, with over 500 verified designs. DIY your own boutique effects!




					tagboardeffects.blogspot.com
				




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


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## knucklehead

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.



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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## giovanni

Alright, tried PartSim again and it worked. Here is the simulation I made for the Depot Fuzz. Hopefully I didn't make mistakes!


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## Feral Feline

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:


			Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
		

 Page 1


			Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
		

 Page 2


			Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
		

 Page 3


			Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
		

 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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## giovanni

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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## Euphoric Guitars

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.


Amazing point, I stand right over the amp when I practice.


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## Euphoric Guitars

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:
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> Page 1
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> Page 2
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> Page 3
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> 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.


Thanks Feral Feline! No doubt I'm a noob and really happy for all that wicked info.


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## knucklehead

eric.blimkie said:


> Amazing point, I stand right over the amp when I practice.



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.


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## Feral Feline

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? 
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.


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.


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## knucklehead

Feral Feline said:


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



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.


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## mdc

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'),



Apologies if my nonsense rationale is incorrect, but this is maybe the more important point.


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## Feral Feline

Looking forward to seeing/hearing whatever you bring to market, Knucklehead.


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## peccary

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.



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.


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## knucklehead

peccary said:


> 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.











						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


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## peccary

knucklehead said:


> 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


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.


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## knucklehead

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.


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## Feral Feline

+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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## music6000

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


This is available here to Build:








						Ungula - PedalPCB.com
					

Compare to EQD Hoof




					www.pedalpcb.com
				




Here's a Good demo with Knob twisting:


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## Euphoric Guitars

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:
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> Page 1
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> Page 2
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> Page 3
> 
> 
> Big Muff Pi Versions and Schematics
> 
> 
> 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.


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.


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## Euphoric Guitars

music6000 said:


> This is available here to Build:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ungula - PedalPCB.com
> 
> 
> Compare to EQD Hoof
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pedalpcb.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's a Good demo with Knob twisting:


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.


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## knucklehead

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.



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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## Euphoric Guitars

Feral Feline said:


> BTW, what made you choose the Bigger Muffin?


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.









						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
				




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


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## Feral Feline

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.


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!


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## Euphoric Guitars

music6000 said:


> This is available here to Build:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ungula - PedalPCB.com
> 
> 
> Compare to EQD Hoof
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pedalpcb.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's a Good demo with Knob twisting:



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?


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## Euphoric Guitars

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!


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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## music6000

eric.blimkie said:


> 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?


You can put those on top but it will be more of a blink show than a lighting spectacular!


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## Feral Feline

My Filigree Siberian Hamster's LEDs light up great, too bad  I didn't put them on the outside of the pedal. 

Eric, there are many factors that determine how much bass is perceived to get through a circuit. Remember I mentioned the 1n input cap for Orman's Booster and it sounds fine on bass. 

If a circuit has a huge input cap and let lots of bass into the circuit, that doesn't mean the bass doesn't get killed elsewhere further downstream 10uF is 100 x bigger than 100nF (100nF=0.1uF). I think I've got my math right this time.  😸


I can't think of a specific example at the moment, but some circuits will have seemingly good bass response, looking at the caps in the signal path, let's say 1uF, Fet followed by 1uF an op-amp and then suddenly there's a bottleneck of 47nF... 

If you enlarge that 47nF to 1uF so it's like all the other caps in the signal path you might just send your sound into mudsville, or get unwanted harsh distortion (let's say it's NOT a distortion pedal, but modulation). You've upset the balance of the circuit. The 47n was used to control the amount of bass the next downstream component receives so that it doesn't oversaturate it, it's a bit of circuit or a component that cannot handle too much bass.

By manipulating the bass content at various points in the circuit, we can get a desirable sound that still has plenty of bass content. If you reduce bass somewhere, you can somewhat compensate later by boosting the bass and lowering the treble and mids = perceived bassy sounding pedal. Because you've reduced the mids and treble to emphasize the bass more, you'll now have to pump up the overall volume of the entire signal. Ahh what's that you hear now? HHHHSSSSSSSSS. With all that EQ monkeying and then boosting the overall output you've just boosted the noise floor of the pedal, too.

 A common tactic to keep a low noise floor in some circuits is to boost the treble big time at the beginning of the circuit, do with the signal whatever is to be done, then REDUCE the treble before letting the signal out of the circuit into the wild. This bump and reduction helps keep the noise floor down. 




Back to your Bigger Muff. As I mentioned before, the huge caps would lead you to believe the Bigger Muff is going to sound great on bass, but there are choke points for bass throughout the middle of the circuit. So just having huge in/out caps isn't going to give you bass. For a fun experiment, with the stock Bigger Muff circuit, swap out JUST the input and output 10u caps for the Green Russian's 100n. I bet it sounds like an icepick through the forehead. Those huge in/out caps are needed just to keep the pedal out of the dog zone. 

Have you tried any of the mods I suggested on your Bigger Muff? 

Especially those puny 47p caps. OUCH! For the love of Bass, Parallel some 470p on to the 47p! 

However, that may have been what the designer of the pedal was going for, a certain flavour or texture of sound. 
Another possibility is Mike Matthews got a deal on 10uF caps (or 47p) and had to figure out a way to use them up. Tweak the circuit until it's acceptable with the available components and then send it out to market...


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## Euphoric Guitars

music6000 said:


> You can put those on top but it will be more of a blink show than a lighting spectacular!


What is the purpose of LEDs as part of the circuit if not to tell us the pedal is on or off when we hit the footswitch?


----------



## Euphoric Guitars

I have not yet. I'm waiting for the parts to come in. Well I'm waiting to get the order to be approved with Tayda. For some reason I can't get the order to send on their website.

Really great info up there. "I bet it sounds like an icepick through the forehead." ouch. 



Feral Feline said:


> Have you tried any of the mods I suggested on your Bigger Muff?


----------



## giovanni

eric.blimkie said:


> What is the purpose of LEDs as part of the circuit if not to tell us the pedal is on or off when we hit the footswitch?


LEDs are light emitting diodes. So they behave like diodes and can be used to clip the signal in dirt circuits, much like you would use a diode. The tonal difference depends on the voltage and construction of the LED. On top of that, the LEDs will light up when the voltage going through them exceeds the diode voltage, so they will flicker as you play harder.


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## Feral Feline

Eric, I found some more info about the Bigger Muff... https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=110776.0

Some guy named BuGG built one in the above linked thread...


----------



## Danbieranowski

The Two Sticks of Derm sounds really good on bass. Just sayin'.

Jump to :22 of this video to hear it.


----------



## Robert

The Bigger Muff was a crazy prototype contraption that was used by Korn, Sepultura, and Vanilla Ice (yes, really).

It was basically a Big Muff with a +200VDC tube gain stage hacked in.   It screamed, oscillated, motorboated, and caused all sorts of chaos.

If you don't know you want it, you probably don't want it.


The "Bigger Muffin" variation in the Muffin build docs lists the component values for the "Muff" portion of the Bigger Muff.... No tube stage.


----------

