shaping my sound, advice on pedals.

[rustywire]

You might be able to get Bongripper (or any) DOOM sounds out of a low power, open back combo amp if you use a contact mic on the amp, into a PA or DI.
Short of that you're fighting a losing battle. Those low tunings, boosts & general badassery need highpower big bottle tube amps (or highpower ss) and big closed back cabinets with heavy magnets on the drivers. You've basically gotta slam air and let the low wavelengths fully extend for a lot of the sound. I think you'd do well to consider an isolation cab for home use.

[ognoy]

If I wanted to sound like Bongripper in my apartment and still keep my neighbours(and girlfriend) happy, I would go for some kind of amp-sim into a good headset or studio monitors.
Either a standalone unit with pedals in the front or a multi-fx.

[larssonn]

If I wanted to sound like Bongripper in my apartment and still keep my neighbours(and girlfriend) happy, I would go for some kind of amp-sim into a good headset or studio monitors.
Either a standalone unit with pedals in the front or a multi-fx.

I got that all sorted. All I need is to sort my pedalboard, which basically only consists of a LWA Black Goat and I've gotten some advice here on using overdrives and/or equalizer/s, but it'd be cool to get some specific cause I've done way too many impulse purchases over this and I really don't have opportunities to test stuff out.

[psychic vampire.]

FWIW, i'm pretty sure that Oarfish album was recorded with amp simulators.

It's unfortunate but often true that you don't really get doom tones out of things smaller than full stacks, because a lot of the "doom tone" is about moving huge amounts of air that is accomplished with more speakers. Short of that, really, your setup sounds pretty much at the spot where you can be getting some doom sounds. Roll off your tone knob, use looser strings, neck pickup, bass boosts and bass-y overdrives before or after fuzzes will be your friends. Active EQs can also work. If you have them, just fuck around with the placement and try using EQs or pedals with better EQ sections before to drive certain frequencies, or after to filter certain frequencies in or out. It's about fucking around and trying new things and having a good time. For myself, i sold my old "Doom Amp" bc it got tiring having that much shit.

[PeteeBee]

Yeah man. Id just use your fuzz into your eq and call it good. Buying things is hecka fun, but I when I'm in the mood I can make just about any combination of dirt I own get close enough to a proper doom sound to make me happy. And like physic vamp said, neck pickup with tone knob rolled off really helps.

[gnomethrone]

there's lotsa subtleties you'll notice trying to do this type of stuff at bedroom levels that completely disappear at the volumes you actually perform it. I'll sit in my room figuring out good levels and eqs on pedals and then when i go to play with folks I end up just cranking it all till it goes "SHUMMMMMM"
that said, heres some bongripper reccomendations:
fuzzrocious demon for dirt. moog delay (or the modulated delay of your choice) for the spacey parts. a good setup on your guitar in the low tuning of your choice. tbh tuning down to F probably wont be super fun if youre playing at low volumes. dropped A or A standard is pretty menacing but still audible. or a seven string if youre into that.

[braaandooon]

Maybe try out a few power amp style distortions. Looking for something specific? A few off the top of my cranium are...

- EQD Acapulco Gold
- Fuzzrocious Ram The Manparts
- DAM Sonic Titan

If you're handy with an iron these are also very easy circuits to build.

May also want to check out the Tronographic Boxidizer, makes a great preamp for what your trying to do, with a nice boost to boot.

Pretty much my recipe for low volume sludge/doom, but ideally its all about cabs and wattage.

[odontophobia]

From Bongripper themselves:

It's essentially a Fuzzrocious Demon and Cat Tail parallel together in a single box, and the idea is that you can get some of our preferred tones all in one box depending on how you set it. So you can use it on either circuit, or blended together, for a bunch of different sounds, without being overwhelmingly complicated.

Each circuit features a volume and gain control, and the tone knob/s are hard set internally to our preferred settings of the various Fuzzrocious pedals we've been using both live and on records for years now.

The Cat Tail side is a mix between Nick and Dennis' settings as they both use the pedal on guitar but it comes out to be a thick heavy distortion that has a ton of sustain, and sounds amazing especially in lower tunings, but works equally well in "normal" guitar registers as well.

The Demon side is set to Ron's preferred settings which is a brighter more aggressive overdrive sound that has a big emphasis in the low mid range, and sits in a mix very well. Again works great on lower tunings, but equally well in that pesky "normal" tuning range.

So long and short: OCD and RAT (what the Fuzzrocious are based on, with some modifications, of course).

But again, that tone has so much to do with volume that getting that out of it at lower levels can be tricky.

Somebody brought up the oarfish album which, yeah, totally all amp sims and speaker impulses and it sounds pretty good.

[crochambeau]

You can get plenty of heavy lows out of an open back amp, you just have to place it wisely in the room. Tuck it into a corner off the wall a bit, raise/lower/reposition to taste, your position (ears or microphone) in the room also play a part.

Mind you, it'll be more difficult without a respectable amount of power behind it, but it can be done.

[Antlerface]

Okie Dokie!

Guitarist from Bongripper uses an OCD, dimed. Eq pretty low focus into an OCD like drive. Bass player uses a Rat. Dimed. Bass heavy eq. Pretty sure at least one of them uses like 3 Moogerfoogers as well.

I'd grab a Rat, an OCD, and a decent EQ and putz around with both to figure out what you like.

[D.o.S.]

I would not use the Sonic Titan for a small amp, IMO.

Ron's gear has changed a ton over the last decade or so, but it still sounds like Bongripper. EQ and preamps are your friend.

[ognoy]

And badass heavy riffs!

[larssonn]

Okie Dokie!

Guitarist from Bongripper uses an OCD, dimed. Eq pretty low focus into an OCD like drive. Bass player uses a Rat. Dimed. Bass heavy eq. Pretty sure at least one of them uses like 3 Moogerfoogers as well.

I'd grab a Rat, an OCD, and a decent EQ and putz around with both to figure out what you like.

Thanks @Antlerface
I recently got a six band MXR and it really did alot of good too it. Im starting to wonder if this Black goat was a mistake though.. its a great pedal but its kinda all over the place, I dont really know how to explain it, but the sustain of it isnt that continuous clean fuzz sustain, but more a leaky and gritty sustain that variates like hell.
I've been using 11-70 strings but feel like the first 3 strings are too light, and my local store only had like 13-62 made for baritone, and then the last 3 strings are instead too light. I should see if I can find some 13-70 or even 73 stringsets and possibly raise my bridge.

And someone earlier mentioned that I should play on my neck pickup and roll back the tone knob... I totally get it, but something has to change for that cause I much more like the sound I can get on my bridge pickup even with the tone knob on 10