Delux Bass big muff dilemma

MCB97

MCB97

Dec 21, 2018
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#1
I currently have a Zvex Woolly Mammoth and Russian Big Muff on my pedalboard.
I'm considering getting a Delux Bass big muff to replace the Russian as it has a dry blend as I want dry signal for some low end. Will the dry signal become fuzz no matter where I put the Woolly Mammoth?
Is there a way around this?
Help
Sincerely
A pedalboard newbie.
 
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#2
Are you talking about the new Sovtek Deluxe?
I own one and think the blend only adds lows when the tone is extremely clockwise.

If you went Bass>big muff deluxe> woolly mammoth> amp
the blend on the nuff would be your dry signal. If the mammoth was before the muff and turned on the blend on the muff would be mammoth and muff.
 
#4
jazznrick said:
Are you talking about the new Sovtek Deluxe?
I own one and think the blend only adds lows when the tone is extremely clockwise.

If you went Bass>big muff deluxe> woolly mammoth> amp
the blend on the nuff would be your dry signal. If the mammoth was before the muff and turned on the blend on the muff would be mammoth and muff.
Click to expand...
It's this one in the picture.
So even with the Bass Big muff Delux> Woolly Mammoth.
I would get a dry and a seperase fuzz signal to my amp?
 

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#5
MCB97 said:
It's this one in the picture.
So even with the Bass Big muff Delux> Woolly Mammoth.
I would get a dry and a seperase fuzz signal to my amp?
Click to expand...
As long as the woolly mammoth wasn’t turned on.

Unless you want that model for the DI capability, the Sovtek Big Muff Deluxe is based on the Green Russian, has a mids control, and would be my choice right now. Here’s a video
 
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#6
To get a dry signal to your amp while using the Wooly Mammoth you'll need something like a Boss LS-2 looper pedal so that you can simultaneously run a clean channel parallel with a fuzz channel to your amp. Let me know if you'd like me to be more detailed. I personally have always preferred sending a clean tone and Fuzz tone parallel to my output.
 
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#8
Robertron said:
To get a dry signal to your amp while using the Wooly Mammoth you'll need something like a Boss LS-2 looper pedal so that you can simultaneously run a clean channel parallel with a fuzz channel to your amp. Let me know if you'd like me to be more detailed. I personally have always preferred sending a clean tone and Fuzz tone parallel to my output.
Click to expand...
You're saying I don't need a pedal with a blend to run a dry and wet tone to the amp at the same time?
How does the boss line selector pedal make it work?
 
#9
Your muff has a blend set to 50/50, and you turn it on: then you have 50% effected and 50% clean sound.

Your muff has a blend set to 50/50, and you have a Mastodon in front of it, and you turn it on: then you have 50% mastodon into muff stacked and 50% mastodon only.

Your muff has a blend set to 50/50, and you have a Mastodon after it, and you turn it on: then you have 50% muff into mastodon stacked and 50% mastodon only.

The clean blend is only clean when it's the only pedal running. In no scenario will the Big Muff Deluxe work around this, as it blends in the pedal. A Bass Big Muff Pi, on the other hand, has two outputs: Effect and Clean. You could run that first in a chain, spllit a clean signal and then go muff effected->mastodon->etc->amp and have the clean out from the muff go straight into a second amp input.

There's some Muffs with a clean and an effected out. If it's teh first pedal in the chain that's turned on, then the clean output will be clean only. If you turn on something in front of it, it'll reflect the second scenario.

The Boss LS2 is a little mixer. There's two channels in/out. If you put the Mastodon into loop A and nothing into loop B then running the pedal in what's called A+B Mix equals 50/50 clean/muff. You can adjust the rates.

You can also put different pedals into both loops and blend them together. Whatever goes into the LS2 input will be sent to each loop and then out the LS2 output. It does a lot of different things, and is surprisingly vertsatile. I use it to combine two output jacks, one full clean and one with some effects then sum them together and run it into a few shared effects (comp, EQ, noise suppressor) and to the amp.
 
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#10
MCB97 said:
It's this one in the picture.
So even with the Bass Big muff Delux> Woolly Mammoth.
I would get a dry and a seperase fuzz signal to my amp?
Click to expand...

Any pedal with a blend will output two things blended: 1. what came into the pedal (whether it's dry, compressed, overdriven, octaved, or whatever), and 2. what the pedal itself did to that signal. If the Mammoth is before the DBBM, and turned on, you'd get 1. Mammoth, and 2. Mammoth+Muff. If you put the Mammoth after the DBBM, you'd get 1. Dry, and 2. Muff, coming out of the Muff, but then the Mammoth would fuzz up that entire combo as soon as you turned it on.

The only way to carry a dry signal all the way through the chain is to have it in a separate loop, hence the LS2 suggestion. Even multiple dry-blend pedals in series would decrease the dry amount proportionally at each stop along the way (because the pedals don't "know" what is dry or not, dry to them is just a replica of whatever comes in the front door).
 
#13
Does the Woolly Mammoth even work after another pedal? I haven't used one in a while but I seem to remember that it's one of those fuzz pedals that must be connected directly to the bass to work properly? That it sounds very poor unless it's first in the chain? And also that it doesn't work at all with active pickups? But it has been a while so I might be wrong...

As for the Deluxe Bass Muff... I would avoid it like the plague. I've had two and both broke down. One of them went microphonic(!) and the other developed a constant crackle and loss of signal. Terrible build quality. They also use very flimsy ribbon cables that are bent into sharp angles to accomodate the battery. Almost designed to break. Then there's the filters....they are close to useless unless you like a cocked wah kinda sound. I thought they were supposed to work more like "clean" sounding HPF/LPF to sculpt the clean/dirty sounds but they are way too extreme for that. More like a resonant filter effect. I also think the Russian Green sounds MILES better than the Deluxe. Unlike the other Muffs, including the Deluxe, the Green Russian doesn't ruin the lows so there's no need for a clean blend IMO. The Green Russian is the best EHX Muff for bass since the original tall font Russian. Maybe even better.
 
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#14
Hate to be the one that talks people out of buying gear :) but...IMO
Fuzz is the last pedal that needs a blend,its supposed to take over,blended fuzz sounds like your sound pluss white noise on the side.
The green russian fuzz sounds much better than the deluxe,it has massive low end.
 
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#16
S.F.Sorrow said:
Does the Woolly Mammoth even work after another pedal? I haven't used one in a while but I seem to remember that it's one of those fuzz pedals that must be connected directly to the bass to work properly? That it sounds very poor unless it's first in the chain? And also that it doesn't work at all with active pickups? But it has been a while so I might be wrong...

As for the Deluxe Bass Muff... I would avoid it like the plague. I've had two and both broke down. One of them went microphonic(!) and the other developed a constant crackle and loss of signal. Terrible build quality. They also use very flimsy ribbon cables that are bent into sharp angles to accomodate the battery. Almost designed to break. Then there's the filters....they are close to useless unless you like a cocked wah kinda sound. I thought they were supposed to work more like "clean" sounding HPF/LPF to sculpt the clean/dirty sounds but they are way too extreme for that. More like a resonant filter effect. I also think the Russian Green sounds MILES better than the Deluxe. Unlike the other Muffs, including the Deluxe, the Green Russian doesn't ruin the lows so there's no need for a clean blend IMO. The Green Russian is the best EHX Muff for bass since the original tall font Russian. Maybe even better.
Click to expand...
I was thinking this! If I have my boss tuner (which has a buffer which you can't turn off) in front of the the woolly mammoth won't this mess up the sound? Kind of want my tuner at the start of the chain so nothing else effects it. Same goes for a boss line selector.
 
#18
Leonid Nidis said:
Hate to be the one that talks people out of buying gear :) but...IMO
Fuzz is the last pedal that needs a blend,its supposed to take over,blended fuzz sounds like your sound pluss white noise on the side.
The green russian fuzz sounds much better than the deluxe,it has massive low end.
Click to expand...
You have a good point! Can you still get the green russian reissue?
 
#20
Leonid Nidis said:
Fuzz is the last pedal that needs a blend,its supposed to take over,blended fuzz sounds like your sound pluss white noise on the side.
Click to expand...
Dogma and simply not true. Inmyexperience starting with the Dunlop BlowTorch, then Wounded Paw Attack Goat, now TAFM and MXR delix fuzz and El Oso Fuzz...all have blends that sound great, the TAFM's clean adds low end with a switch, really kicks. (any MXR Bass muffs in my possession, a few, were sold many years ago)
 
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