Question: Bass fuzz with clean blend/frequency selectable distortion?

[pandadandan]

As I`ve been building for all of about a month,　my friend has already requested something, namely a fuzz pedal where he will have a massive distorted tone, but still with the clean bottom end for weight.

I told him a clean blend would possibly be the way, but maybe there would be a way to split the signal into EQ bands, which each band could be distorted (IE leave the bottom end clean, distort the high frequencies).

Any circuits like this?

I`m certainly no pro, so I dunno.

[GibsonGM]

You could homebrew something.  With a true 'vintage' fuzz it might be difficult; the Big Muff comes to mind, or maybe the stripped down Little Muff.  Check out the AMZ site (link up top) for 'tone clipping' in the articles section, that will give you a place to start.  A search in the forum for 'clean blend' will help you in that area, too!

I think you should decide which way to go; actual 'fuzz' or distortion, and go from there.  You'd have to split the signal and clip based on freq.  Easy with a high-gain distortion, more parts if you use a fuzz (I think you'd have to duplicate the circuit more than once to split out a fuzz).  I like the idea of clean blend, it's much simpler and for bass more logical since those low notes might sound really muddy if distorted ;o)

[tommy.genes]

Check out this article from Jack Orman of amz-fx. Lots of food for thought there.

An extreme case would be to build two completely separate fuzz circuits, one bassy one sizzling, and run them in parallel with a blend control.

-- T. G. --

[pandadandan]

Many thanks!

Fun times ahead methinks...

[Dragonfly]

You might take a look at the article "Panning for fun" at www.geofex.com for some clean blend ideas.

[runmikeyrun]

not the best way to do it but worked nonetheless, split off from input jack sent one side to fuzz circuit and another to single tranny or opamp clean boost w/ large (10uF) caps to retain the low end.  put signal from fuzz to lug 1 of pot, signal from clean boost to lug 3 and lug 2 to the volume pot, eq section, or output jack.  Turn it all one way you get all fuzz and all the other way is all clean.  Somewhere in the middle will be the perfect blend.  You can add tone control or eq to end of circuit if you want to. 

Like i said, not the best way but simple and worked ok for me.  I think i used a darlington buzz box (two bazz fuss in series) for fuzz and a single transistor clean boost circuit for the other.  Make sure to use large input/output/coupling caps to let the low end through.