Whisker Biscuit for Bass?

[dumbmonkey]

Hi y'all,
I want to build a fuzz pedal as a Christmas gift for my brother who plays bass and was thinking of something like the Runoffgroove Whisker Biscuit.  Here's the link to the schematic, (although I'm sure most of you know where it is already).  Do you think it will work fine for bass or should I change the value of anything to suit bass better? I did a couple of searches already but couldn't find anything discussing this effect and bass guitar.
Thanks in advance!
Chris

[dumbmonkey]

Oops, sorry.  Forgot to include the link to the schematic...
http://runoffgroove.com/whisker.html
Thanks again for any advice,
chris

[Caferacernoc]

The 100n coupling capacitors may need to be increased in size to let all the bass through. Otherwise it should be just fine.

[dumbmonkey]

Hey thanks!
I was wondering about those caps.  I was thinking about using some 1uf in place of the .1uf.  I have some electrolytic and some stack films.  Do you think there is any difference in which ones I use?
Thanks again,
C

[bipedal]

In general, how's this circuit compare (soundwise) to the various Big Muffs?  I couldn't get a strong sense of its capabilities from the ROG soundclips...

I suspect a bit less signal clipping on tap, and I noticed there's no gain control.

[Meanderthal]

 It's a lot like a big muff run balls to the wall, noisy as hell, but it does sound great. I like it, but prefer a Big Muff on bass really.

[dumbmonkey]

Hi again, back with more questions about this.  I've had to scrap a couple of builds of what I hear is a great circuit and I'm hoping that someone can help me somewhat.  Which caps should i replace that will better suit bass guitar and what should I use, electrolytic or stack films?  I have 1uf in both.  If I use electros how should I orient them?  I was looking at the "swollen pickle" schem which is essentially a big muff, there are electro 1uf caps in there, can I use that as a guide?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Chris

[Meanderthal]

 The pickle has a deep mid scoop... might sound weird on bass. Search big muff flat mids mod for better tone control values for bass. Film caps over electrolytic...

[dumbmonkey]

Thanks for the advice!  I redid my schematic with the flat mids tonestack and with 1 uf caps to replace the 100n caps.  Would anyone like to take a gander and see if I'm on the right path?
Here's a link to it, thanks in advance!
Chris
http://www.aronnelson.com/DIYFiles/up/wb.pdf

[svstee]

I'd go with the stack films, better tolerance and smaller size, and no worries about polarity.

[dumbmonkey]

Cool!  Stack films it is.  Should I replace all the 100n caps including the one on the tone pot?

[dumbmonkey]

FYI
I finally got off the fence, bought a breadboard, and worked up the circuit.  Success!
I used 1uf stack films for all the .01uf, did the flat mids mod, and even added in a "dirt" control a la the bass fuzz.  Perfed it, boxed it up and it sounds great (although I wired the "dirt" control so it works backwards, but hey, it works right?).
Don't know why I didn't get a breadboard earlier. 
Now I need to get my Hearthrob happening...

[runmikeyrun]

bit late for xmas eh?     if you post some soundclips on bass that would be rad, i'm always looking for a new bass distortion.

[dumbmonkey]

LOL No kidding, but better late than never, huh?  Sadly I don't own a bass but I could try to work up some sounds with guitar and post those at some point.  I will say, that I ran the pedal over to my local music emporium and tried it out with a P Bass through an SVT and it's really nasty...  There are some really interesting harmonic overtones on the low E but it cleans up real nice with the volume control on the bass.  All in all it gets the thumbs up from the guys at the music store including some pretty picky bass players I know. 

[liquids]

I wanted to add that I've tried the Whisker Biscuit with bass this week too, and really like it!

I've tried breadboarding Big Muffs (never tried one otherwise) a few times and have been surprisingly unhappy with the sound I've gotten, guitar or bass.  I was sad about not being able to cop that 90's wall of fuzz I was searching for.  Of note, I followed that disappointment by randomly recalling my interest in the Foxx Tone Machine for guitar.  I had an Fulltone Octafuzz I really dug, and always felt it got rather close to that "Smashing Pumpkins" fuzz into a fender, and also for the SP octavey-lead tones.  That is my favorite octave by far, and if you're not trying to sound 'vintage' or duplicate Hendrix stuff, IMO, it's the tone and 'feel' to beat.   The Foxx (especially with some tone stack and other select mods) is probably the most fun pedal to play with I can think of!  It wasn't super good with bass from my short experiments, though.

That being said, I followed the recent disappointment with those BMPs and joy of the fOXX with trying out a Whisker Biscuit, in passing, just for kicks after liking the samples enough.  Turns out I'm super impressed with it and it's ability to cop those tones!  Just different enough from the FTM to build both.  Now mind you, I'm using my ears and going for a 'good' and 'convincing' tones in their own right that would work live, rather than chasing a sacred BMP schematic for certain tones, and this is all through a Super Reverb with my guitar, keep in mind...with a little tinkering these are the closest I felt I've gotten to something satisfying.

About Bass - my best friend who is broke but plays bass has been wanting something dirty, and I plugged in my active/passive bass and my 1x15 bass amp with the Whisker Biscuit.  I hence wanted to say--it rocks--and I think I'm building one for him! Friendly with active settings too.  Better than the samples I've heard of the cool-sounding EH Bass Big Muff.   I found the tone stack on the biscuit too much, not usable enough along the full range--the 'bass' side treble roll of too much on guitar and bass. On guitar It works well with just a .0022uF cap (2.2n) to ground, so that I'm getting a slightly smoother highs as I re-gain bass low frequencies, rather than mud.  Now running it full bass side is very usable, too. 

As for Bass tweaks, other than likely going something more like 1uF+ caps (which is something I'll tweak with the bass players feedback), the tone stack seemed most friendly with just a 4.7n cap on one side (this may become bigger like 10uF if he finds it unusable, but I didn't), with the 33k resistor on the bass side, with the 33k resistor to ground on that side, no cap to ground. The two extremes are blending between a usable 'sinister' bass-shy tone and a 'scooped,' full-bass tone...though I'm still tweaking and will continue to once he tries it (this may take a while).  I tried other values for the resistor to ground, and surprisingly too much mid was a bad thing to my ears.  Since the circuit is not buzzy, but very textured yet smooth through my equipment, it got too smooth and lost it's growl and dominated the mix and sounded mid-humped.  With the 33k resistor range, it didn't seem as if it would get lost in the mix at all, and sounded 'even' in EQ for a fuzz.  

Also, it seems sensible to run a small cap (100-150pf) across the volume pot to 'retain' some high end sizzle, which is something I may put on a toggle as an enhancement to the sole tone knob, as it creates a dramatically different, and usable tone with bass.

Messing with transistors proved slightly usable...for example, just changing the darlington to a 2N3904 gave another option that preserved tone (as opposed to the effects of any pre-gain pot or variable emitter resistor configuration I tried) but backed down the intensity of the fuzz ever so slightly if a less intense fuzz is desired.

Overall, my only 'complaint' is it's pretty compressed in feel, so you have to adapt technique and it seems more staccato playing, muting, and even a pick helps to retain definition.  But after playing around with it, switching back to 'clean' bass is no fun! 

So far, thumbs up for the whisker biscuit on bass!