Most versatile musical distortion pedal for bass?

[darthbatman]

Sup peoples, I haven't been around here too much lately.

Well, ya know it's chrismoosetime and i'm gonna beg my parents to buy me ONE ( 1 ) pedal.
I currently own none, except for an old ass Boss Ds-1
it sounds liek shit. Especially on the bass guitar, turns out.

I like this forum a lot though and i daydream about massive fuzz tones.. so i belong here! i just lack material possessions.

You know where this is going. What I want is a distortion pedal that is nuanced and varied in its delivery of tonez.
That is, i want something that can produce a good handful of extremely subtle, barely-grindy overdrivey sounds,
and i want that same pedal to achieve the most massive gated glitched out chainsaw ridiculousness we all love.
And i need it to sound maximally good at any OD/dist fuzz sound between those two extremes. For BASS guitar. Dig?

The way i play bass, i'm mostly dickin around in the upper registers anyways, so i'm thinking the textures of a "guitar" pedal may work fine.
the point here i'm trying to make is that i want to choose (for now) the ONE fuzz that will work in many settings and be super versatile.
Hopefully this will lead to a stimulating discussion about what makes great fuzzez great and why ILFers ILF them

[Jwar]

Dr. Scientist The Elements. Seriously awesome pedal that has a HUGE range. Probably the best distortion I've tried with bass.

Fuzz on the other hand, I'm going to say the TAFM.

[theavondon]

Fuck?

[devnulljp]

You want one of these



But, they're expensive and impossible to find, so ... talk to bubstance. I hear he's cloned it.

Only bass dirt you'll ever need.

[coldbrightsunlight]

From personal experience I've got to say TAFM because it's super rad, does 'barely there' grindy stuff sort of, and does massive bass fuzz better than anything else I've played. Doesn't do glitchy/gated (unless you get one with a gate mod maybe, which totally exist) Maybe some sort of bass modded RAT would work? I'm not an expert but everyone recommends them for bass OD/distortion and the clips of the Fuzzrocious Rat Tail sound sweeeeet.

Also the Fuzzhugger Arc Flash does slight grind to old school fuzzy sounds to massive compressed, kinda weird fuzz. The more extreme settings get pretty trebley, but I like it.

[theavondon]

Isn't that zeke just like...a Rat?

[darthbatman]

You want one of these



But, they're expensive and impossible to find, so ... talk to bubstance. I hear he's cloned it.

Only bass dirt you'll ever need.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RI1Lwv_tzE


Hhhmmmmmmmmmmmm win. That's pretty damn versatile!

out of production you say? let's keep this rolling.


from what i've heard the arc flash can do subtle, insanity, and in between... thoughts?

edit: thanks moneydance. considering this as well, especially for the price the arc flash is very appealing.

i dunno though i'm likin that zeke.. no gate though. TAFM is one that has always intrigued me. Fuck OD also seems a good candidate.
More?

[jrmy]

Dr. Scientist The Elements. Seriously awesome pedal that has a HUGE range. Probably the best distortion I've tried with bass.

Fuzz on the other hand, I'm going to say the TAFM.

Having played both recently, and just ordered an Elements, I would say that this is the answer.

The demos out there that I've seen don't do justice to the Low Gain side of The Elements - seriously amazing, there are zillions of tones in there, everything from just a little grit appropriate for basic rock & whatnot to full-on Slayer like toanz (on the High Gain side). And don't forget that it's got ye olde clean blend. And the quietest soft-click footswitch I've ever used (small detail, to be sure).

The TAFM is similarly versatile, and if you get the version with the gate footswitch, it opens up a whole 'mother dimension of hard-synth-like cutting fuzz.

Only other pedal as versatile for fuzz would be the Gnomeratron VTF, which can do muffy, trashy, octave-y, gated, blended, amp-melting-down, whatever. It does have a little bit of a learning curve, but nothing you can't handle if you read the instructions.

[devnulljp]

Isn't that zeke just like...a Rat?

No.

[darthbatman]

Dr. Scientist The Elements. Seriously awesome pedal that has a HUGE range. Probably the best distortion I've tried with bass.

Fuzz on the other hand, I'm going to say the TAFM.

Hah, i just watched your demo vid with your crazy baby. Do you live in like a concrete parking garage? just wondering
i like that cool keith album too dawg. you're smart and cool

Jrmy, your post is most insightful dude! I was actually jonesing pretty hard for a VTF not too long ago, but I don't know about how clean it can get?
The Elements is looking like a best bet for me at this point for sure, maybe you could up some more detailed bass demos on soundcloud or something?
Also it doesn't look like the elements has made its way onto the dr scientist website, or maybe i'm just missing it. It looks and sounds nice though

[jrmy]

You know, I've never tried to get my VTF that clean, but between the clean blend, the wide sweep of the gain, the switchable diodes and the gate control, you could probably get pretty clean if you wanted.

I'd like to do some bass demos of The Elements, but am not sure when I'll have the time before the holidays. If I do, I'll be sure to post about it here.

You know who may have, though, is Excane - he's got bunches of guitar and bass demos up on YouTube. Pretty sure he did one...

[Achtane]

+1 to TAFM, gated special or not.

[Chaosmic]

I'd consider the Iron Ether Oxide if you're looking for a small pedal. It has clean volume, fuzz volume, scooped/boosted mids switch, pre-fuzz high-pass switch, tone control, gate control, gain control, silent relay-based true bypass switching and is active friendly. Might be worth checking out.....

If a larger pedal isn't an issue, you might want to check out the Twosome from Blackout Effectors......there's some serious versatility in that sweet box.

[alexa.]

I would try modding the DS-1 to these specs if you don't intend using it anyway.

NSFW: show

D4-D5 removed. Do not connect jumper or anything, just remove.
C1 = 0.1uF
C2 = 1uF
C3 = 0.1uF
C4 = 100pf
C12 = 0.047uF
R7 = 330K
R14 = 20k trimpot set +/- 3k5
R17 = 20k trimpot set +/- 17k

found here: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f36/boss- ... ndex6.html

Also, I want a karnivool-like distortion. Is anything capable of that?
FEA dual band perhaps? (opinion based on this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjdiSXKGzRU )

[McSpunckle]

Isn't that zeke just like...a Rat?

The circuit is basically a Rat with tubescreamer-style clipping. Kinda like the "overdrive" modes on BYOC's Rat clone.