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Tristan wrote:In that respect I'd recommend a volume pedal, funny enough it's probably one of the most go to dirt related pedals on my board.

3rd'd. volume pedal to control or eliminate unwanted feedback, noise, buzz, etc. very useful. Pretty much essential if you really want to get into extreme territory.

also want to second setting up pedals in ways that you might not normally think are the best. most of mine are set very differently than if they were the only one I was using. Prime example is the pharaoh. alone, I like the germanium, low, fuzz maxed, tone full, high medium.
Currently it is diodes out, tone half, high 3/4, fuzz 1/4. this lets it sound like a super mellow fuzz on its own, almost clean, while adding massive depth to anything it precedes.
using things in unconventional ways is the shit. play around and have fun.

I have things pretty much set near unity on the majority of dirt on my all-dirt board, exception being the slightly dirty boost (well, duh, it's a boost!).

Currently working on some minor adjustments as I acquired a few new pedals recently (Velcroar, Phantom Ring, Idiotbox Mad Dr Stutter, and a Boss faux Fender verb tank pedal) and working them into the existing pile.

Some pedals are on the board because of how they interact with others (mostly glitching/oscillating/destruction type ways), others for a particular sound, others because they make the amp do particular things. I have the gain channel on my rack preamp set to silicon destruction - it goes straight into nasty crackling on its own, and is in its own way a 'dirty bypass' of the whole board.

A couple of the pedals on the pile are there because they have a blend control as well - so I can reach over and tweak them as needed to add a subtle mean or really make transistors angry.

A few pedals now I have just for the Bass VI, others just for the regular six strings as well.

Same way my rack and multifx have separate banks for both instruments.

I really like having a rat going into two big muffs. Ray for overdrive stuff, then Bluebeard for main fuzz sound, and another muff going into that. That way, I can boost the Bluebeard with two different levels of distortion. The Elements can work super well in this set up for me too. but...noise seems to not be a concern of mine.

But i came back to the Fix'd fuzz so i could stop stacking three pedals to get my solo sound

Wes Mantooth wrote:

Tristan wrote:In that respect I'd recommend a volume pedal, funny enough it's probably one of the most go to dirt related pedals on my board.

This is a good idea.

Never tried it though, I kind of like all of the noise

The noise can be cool offcourse but a volume pedal lets you control it more.
What I'd do for instance is turn on a big delay with lots of feedback after I finish playing a riff, I keep the noise going into the delay a little and then drop the volume with the volume pedal before switching it all off so the noise kind of stays there in the background and cascades away into the next song section.

The way I have my board setup is with the volume pedal in front of my main dirt, so basically for less gain I only need to turn down the volume and I don't need to get another pedal specifically for that sound.
The signal path dirtwise is as follows:
Amp50 (dirty boost) -> Wolf Computer, HiRay or Orbit (gated synthy fuzz) -> Visual Volume (with leds!) -> Big D (main dirt) ->
Unpleasant Surprise (nasty octave up fuzz) -> Bitcrusher III (robot sample rate reduction sounds)

In my experience gated fuzz doesn't really like a volume pedal in front as it usually gets too gated when you turn it down.
The Amp50 is a great boost and it works together very well with the Wolf Computer to make it more stable and with the Big D for solo sounds.
I chose the Unpleasant Surprise as an octave up fuzz because on it's own you can get some nasty broken textures from it but when I engage the Big D in front it really gets into true octave fuzz territory, only heavier and less compressed in my opinion.

smallsnd/bigsnd wrote:i do something similar to what skully does - use each dirt pedal for a different sound but set so that they sound rad together.
i don't have a ton of dirt on my board, but i use one as a bright boost/slight breakup, one as a dark drive, one as a bigger washy fuzz and another as a weird zappy fuzz.

So I am going to try to learn some new fuzz adjectives:

What is an example of a washy fuzz? Would this be the opposite of a zappy fuzz - kinda muffish maybe?

What is an example of a zappy fuzz? I am thinking a cutting fuzzrite tone??

Ah...knowledge.

that's how i'd see it, yeah

As much as I loved having a decent number of dirt pedals on my board, at the end of the day I cut it down to 2 and feel like I get more sounds that way than when I had 4 or 5.

I know that sounds like rubbish, but for me it became overwhelming.

as per usual, you guys are right

turned off the Bloom circuit on my Fix'd and cranked the gain on the Fuz:1 - that way it'!s much cleaner but still fuzzy (yet still similar to the Elements - weird, huh?)

now i can even stack my Fingerprint into it without too much noise, which results in wild fuzz with random octave down glitches (that's the fingerprint part) and it stays pretty noiseless with the Mini going into it, but still giving me a huge sound for leads

But Casavettes - i can see how it can be overwhelming... for example right now, i'm feeling this Fix'd fuzz/The Elements rivalry and it's just that "what should i do" type of situation

edit: when i say wild fuzz i mean this huge nasty sound that makes you wonder if your amp is even going to handle it or just burst into flames on spot

I set my amp up dirty, then switch on my Behemoth II.
I bombard my amps front end with the Megalith and the Siamese Beard, never switching of the od.
Ridiculous amounts of gain and saturation.
Like Conan the Barbarian pretty much.

I stack a Maxon OD-9 (tube screamer) into a Skreddy Zero. Awesome.

Bassboar wrote:I set my amp up dirty, then switch on my Behemoth II.
I bombard my amps front end with the Megalith and the Siamese Beard, never switching of the od.
Ridiculous amounts of gain and saturation.
Like Conan the Barbarian pretty much.

This sounds dope. What kind of amp are you using?

On the back of all my Maestro Stage Pedals near the bottom is this lip where they just accumulate lots of dirt. I use q-tips but damn its a pain.

The way my dirt channel usually works is Amp set on a chimey, light dirt setting, Big Muff set with maxed gain and volume, tone completely at zero for a nice grind, then a second OD for scooping on solos.

Currently though my setup has changed and shrunk a little, removed a couple of staples in the delay/filter department in order to shuffle in some dirt. Still have my muff for the main grind. The new OD is a prototype Mini fuck. I need to test how it sounds to see if i want to use it as my new base dirt sound or just use it to scoop the muff. I also got a Torns Peaker and Idiot Box Death ray on an effects loop as a standard Fucked up sound. Usually I like to have one or the other on independently, but have the ray and TP on at once makes the ray freak out in the best way.

But no matter what Im keeping the Muff on board, just to mess with Behndy since he let me borrow the toys.

BitchPudding wrote: But no matter what Im keeping the Muff on board, just to mess with Behndy since he let me borrow the toys.

that sleepdrone 5 opening up some new doors for ya?