Fuzz for bass

[isobar]

Hi,
Can guitar pedals be used with bass guitars? In particular I ask about Fuzz pedals, but I would also be interested to know if basses require a separate pedal circuit design?

[wayfaerer]

You can definitely try it with extremely minimal risk of damage.

The coupling capacitors might not be big enough to pass bass frequencies, but in that case you simply wouldn't hear that much bass. You can increase the coupling capacitors if need be.

Also the tone shaping would be targeted at guitar frequencies, but you might be able to make modifications if needed.

[GibsonGM]

Very much what he said ^

[Jarno]

Build a woolly mammoth, it's a great fuzz, and not too hard a build.
There's a few other dirt boxes which might be interesting, ProCo Juggernaut for instance. I myself am working on an Ampeg Scrambler clone, but I do not have a lot of luck with it.

[kaycee]

Coloursound Bass Fuzz is a good one.

[eh la bas ma]

Many circuits are versatile and work with other instruments.

For bass, I think immediatly to the Big Muff OP-Amp, great and maybe even better with bass.

[idy]

Many favor a fuzz with a clean blend. This can be a separate splitter blender, another simple project.

[soggybag]

Woolly Mammoth is great for guitar. It is billed as a bass fuzz. It's an easy build and there are plenty of PCB and layouts available.

Try a Big Muff. This is popular on bass. Plenty of PCB and layouts available.

If you can find a pedal with clean blend and a fuzz this is a good for bass.

[Fancy Lime]

One thing to keep in mind is that many fuzz designs have a very low input impedance and rely on the interaction of this low impedance with the guitar pickups and volume pot for tone filtering. These things sound very different (not in a good way to most people) if they are fed with an active instrument or a buffer. The Fuzz Face and similar designs (including the Wooly Mammoth) thus can sound quite good with a passive bass but may be harsh and brittle with an active one. The Big Muff for example is more tolerant to active inputs but I personally find it too muddy for bass (unless that is what you are looking for).

The simplest and IMO one of the best fuzzes for bass is the Bazz Fuss. Works well for passive, not so much active basses. The Opamp Muff Fuzz (not Big) is also very simple and sounds great active or passive.

Andy

[iainpunk]

proco rat works very well on bass as well. it goes from overdrive to distortion to full on FUZZ. all are quite fat and present.

cheers

[EBK]

Another lovely bass fuzz is the Maestro Brassmaster. I'm building my third one right now, in fact.

Madbean sells a board that fits a 125B enclosure, and GGG sells a board and kit as well. 

[mdcmdcmdc]

The Mountainking Megalith is a+++

[eh la bas ma]

The Mountainking Megalith is a+++

...available as Arkaim Fuzz from pedalpcb. Good idea, it's great if you want something modern and powerful.

Bass fuzz + sub octave is interesting too, check the Dowtown Fuzz from Lectric-FX.

To answer your question, I know a bassist who uses only a simple unmodified DS-1 (the most common guitar pedal ever) interacting with good bass amplifiers. And he sounds really good, in my opinion.

[matmosphere]

The wooly mammoth is great for low almost synthy sounds though it's not always easy to dial in. The Rat is okay on bass. Love what it does on guitar, but it's just okay on bass to me. There's a Tonebender that's pretty awesome on bass. Can't remember if it's the Jumbo or the Supa, but it's basically a muff that's missing a couple diodes.

Just made a stock (no mod for bass) sovtek era Muff clone for a friend. It absolutely destroys on bass. I was surprised because I've tried several other muffs on bass (violet rams head, opamp, nyc) and been underwhelmed to say the least.

Shipped it off last week, project queue got an adjustment. Now I'm working on one for myself.

Subtle it is not though, but if you want your bass to sound like a truck full of punk rockers rolling into your living room then the Sovtek era muff is what you're looking for.

[DIY Bass]

I have a Big Muff Bass Deluxe.  It has a crossover so you can fuzz only the top end, and a noisegate.  AT it's heart though I believe it is a russian Big Muff with a clean blend

[jimladladlooklike]

I built a russian muff circuit with the split n blend circuit from tagboardeffects and it great for for bass imo

[isobar]

Thanks to all of you. Great replies. I can see how intoxicating this subject of pedals becomes.
I'm a pedalholic already. I will consider all these replies in more detail.

[Strategy]

I'll add that I've been researching PCB daughter-boards that allow you to add a clean blend to almost any circuit. If you google this there are a lot of options! With bass the clean blend can make effects really interesting. I built DeadendFX "Leo X" (Schumann Lion X clone) which has clean blend in the circuit and it makes it amazing overdrive for bass.

Strategy