Favorite Bass Fuzz

[johnetone]

Aloha!

So I'm not a bass player by trade, but I often end up recording the bass parts on my tracks and love to use fuzz on bass to get things really heavy. I've been through a bunch of drives and fuzzes that have all had various things they do well or poorly. But the best damn ting I've played bass through over the last few years has been the Jext Telez Dizzy Tone! I have the v.5 since it was marketed as having "...a smooth extension another half octave into the low-end". And this is absolutely truth!

I've come to realize that my favorite bass drives/fuzzes are actually NOT The ones with clean blend. I just like wool all the way down ya know? Well, the DTv.5 is really fucking epic and I've brought it into the studio twice and recorded parts that no other fuzz really touches in my current or former collection.

Anyway, I was just curious what all y'all enjoy on yer bass? What's your favorite f-clef fuzz yo?

[Chankgeez]

Not strictly a bass player either and I don't like clean blend that much.

In b4 jwar or anyone else says "Depth Charge" though. (#cleanblend4lyfe?)

[MechaGodzilla]

black acid/dark meathead
tafm and buzzz
dba apocalypse/fuzz war
fredric scrambled brains

[fuzzonaut]

I feel, we have done this before, hmmm, let's see ...

Mountainking Megalith - just massive, with wall shaking low end. Then it gets more heavy!

EFE Dope Priest #7 - perfect, elegant, dark muff.

DIY Silver Rose (à la Devi Ever, Deadend FX PCB) - blendable muff'n'superfuzz, with clean, and a few other tricks, goes from Yeah! to Damn!

Monolith Oracle - simply gorgeous, big fat blooming and yet clear, with a voice of it's own.

Sanford&Sonny Bluebeard - aggressive muff, cuts through anything.

Laowiz Error Machine (Foxx Tone Machine with 8 clipping options) - bites, spits and rumbles. Pure filth.

Industrialectric Incinerator - Two parallel fuzzes with a switchable oscillation for each - I like to run them into each other and go crazy!

RML Mig Fuzz - Sounds great on any setting and covers a lot of ground. All the low end you need ... and some.

Dunwich Fuzz Throne - Riff heaven. Sustain do die for.

[Mudfuzz]

Not strictly a bass player either and I don't like clean blend that much.

In b4 jwar or anyone else says "Depth Charge" though. (#cleanblend4lyfe?)

The clean blend aspect is all about the music you play and the sound you want. MOST bass players use clean blend wrongly and are horrible people because of this. The idea of using a blend to keep you lows is silly. You can get lows with a full distorted sound because of an invention called EQ. A blend should be used IF you want a Bi-amped sound [think John Entwistle]. My clean sound is a very 60's soul type sound and when I want dirt I want it as an added layer over my sound to sound like more than one thing happening at the same time, most of the time... but there are times where you need full on fuzz! that is why I have always run one blended into one non-blended dirt for added awesome

What I like? Rats, muffs, super fuzzes, fuzzfaces, LAL tone axe, MASF Stary Wisdom, Dna Analogic Bass Dragger, HAO The Roar, TYM Mud fuzz, Mellowtone wolf computer...

[disco-nekt]

Bi-amp setup, use the EHX Bass Muff Pi going into the bass amp, then split from there have a Tube Screamer into a Barbershop going to the guitar amp. Lighter overdrive on the guitar amp keeps more note attack.

Really been eying the Fuzz War for a bit now, will be getting one of those in the near future.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I'll avoid spamming a bunch but here are my favourites from over the years.

Smallsound/bigsound TAFM - this is the only one here I still have and I'm at the point where I'm happy enough just using this most of the time. I sold one and got another because I missed it. Solid bass fuzz for all occasions. Don't use the clean blend much unless, as Mudfuzz says, I want that sound.

Black Arts Pharaoh - heavy as hell, bass for days. Other tweaked muffs can get to similar territories, though not all have the bass. DoS has a particularly great DIY muff. He won't give it to you

Meathead. Only ever tried a clone but it was super good on bass and guitar. Should get another.

Dwarfcraft She Fuzz/Shiva. Is good.



Like Mudfuzz says you can do a lot with EQ/filters. I've used the Dr Sci Elements and Stone Deaf PDF-1 (just because that's what I've had, use whatever you got) to boost lows into/after otherwise flimsy fuzzes, so they sound delicious on bass. All the ones listed above sound great on their own (in my rig and my humble opinion).

[alexsga]

My clean sound is a very 60's soul type sound and when I want dirt I want it as an added layer over my sound to sound like more than one thing happening at the same time, most of the time... but there are times where you need full on fuzz! that is why I have always run one blended into one non-blended dirt for added awesome

what advantage does this have over the other way around? wouldnt you want your blended afterwards so that you get the first fuzz mixed with the second?

[Mudfuzz]

My clean sound is a very 60's soul type sound and when I want dirt I want it as an added layer over my sound to sound like more than one thing happening at the same time, most of the time... but there are times where you need full on fuzz! that is why I have always run one blended into one non-blended dirt for added awesome

what advantage does this have over the other way around? wouldnt you want your blended afterwards so that you get the first fuzz mixed with the second?

Hitting it with a blended signal gives you the first mixed with the second AND the clean gives you bigger bassier sound that just roars. I've done it both ways, some times at the same time, it depends on how I have my board set up... Right now I have a Octavia and a rat in a xotic blender going into a muff. I also have a freq box in front of that but that is blended twice, once with its own and it is also in the blender... In a different loop.... My dirt section on my board is a little over complicated but it works

[Ghost Hip]

The two I kept on my bass board were ss/bs TAFM and Buzzz. TAFM for heavy gated, lots of low end, real rumbley. Buzzz for mid hump, pop out of the mix. The band I was in had a song where the bass was recorded through a green russian big muff->Univox guitar amp and the Buzzz nailed it through an actual bass rig.

When the Buzzz was out for repair I used a Holowon/TheSyle Umiom in gated mode and it also slayedddddd.

Love the Soda Meiser for synthy and heavy bass. Rat types for more distortion.

[D.o.S.]

DoS has a particularly great DIY muff. He won't give it to you

True.

Anyway Big Muffs are the past the present and the future.

[Jwar]

Depth...nm. lol

[Chankgeez]

[Circuithead]

I've been trying to approximate the fuzz bass on Chris Hadfield's Space Oddity since I heard it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

[rickenbastard]

If your amp is dirty clean blend is a must to avoid your signal clipping. Then the fuzz layers with your amp dirt. I hate a clean blend with a clean amp though.
Bass fuzzes I go to most
Muff-type: electrofoods oprichniki, Frost giant soma, champion leccy the bloody gett
Rat type: Fuzzlord drone master, electrofoods Nepenthes
Others: Meathead, Mountainking Megalith, BAT oath, Philly fuzz heretic