Was curious if someone could recommend some settings, or tell me what it is exactly supposed to sound like.
I've only been playing a year and learned online (tabs and videos), but within 7-8 months I realized playing straight clean wasn't for me. I first bought a MIJ ds1, that I had been using mainly as a booster as my guitar volume knob broke and I didn't feel like taking time off practicing trying to fix it.
Well I'm a big fan of Mudhoney's popish B-sides (they are notorious for using a Big Muff and old Univox Superfuzz), and I found an old Big Muff in great condition for $65 so I bought it figuring if I didn't like it I'd just resell it.
Note that when buying a pedal I go the old "vintage" route that way it has resell value in case I don't like it.
Well I put in a 9V to see what this enormous pedal did (look at the picture, I had no idea it was this big until I saw it), and it sounded very very bassy (it along with my crappy bass amp made it sound like muddy garbage). I only had an hour of messing around with it before I had to go run some errands, but when I finally dialed in a setting that allowed me to actually hear/recognize what I was playing I decided I'd take a picture and show you what it looked like. On the bass amp I had to dial the bass almost all the way down (-10 out of a possible -15) and when using the Boss I play with it at 0 (12 o'clock).
I figure my rig ($70 used squier bullet + 15W fender practice amp) is the main problem, but just thought I might post to see what input others might have.
thanks for any and all input.
plz im a noob
Back in time I experimented with one combined with a small stone phaser, other than I ran them into a cranked Marshall Stack. it was a matter of practicing and experimenting to achieve the sound I was searching for. Which is what is needed for any effect. What may sound great to me may not be the same for you. Have fun with it.
Joe
Thanks, I will get a large supply of 9V batteries and just spend a couple of hours on it. Might try testing it out with different guitars (from friends) and see how that affects it.
plz im a noob
Experience-wise I'm in about the same ballpark as you describe yourself in, though I'm about 6 months "ahead" of you. I've been fooling with that same pedal and what I've found is that the difference between a muddy sound and a really creamy fuzztone, at least for me, has more to do with how much signal I send to the pedal than how the pedal is set up.
That said, I find that what I like is the tone knob up fairly high, and the sustain knob fairly low.
But really, the more I play with it the more that I find that how high the volume knob on the guitar is set, and how hard I hit the strings, have a major effect on the quality of sound that comes out of the pedal. Playing single note melodies I can get away with turning the guitar volume up, bending strings, playing with a sharp attack. But for playing chords I need to keep the guitar volume down and play gently. I think what's going on here is that when playing chords if I introduce too much signal to the pedal it piles distortion on top of an already complex sound input and turns it into mud, where as if I send it a nice clean gentle chord (which without the pedal would sound very clean and clear) the fuzz doesn't take it to mud territory, just to nice creamy fuzztone territory.
This is sort of counterintuitive - you want to get a nasty growly fuzzed out roar, so your gut is telling you to wail on the guitar but instead you need to just play it like you don't care and let the pedal do it's job....
thanks alot for the response quarter.
I put in another 9V battery and vwa-la(no idea how to spell that). Now I'm a satisfied user 8) .
I played around with it and got it growling some nasty fuzz in no time with chords. What I like most so far though is the sustain when playing single notes. With the DS1 I had trouble getting any sustain w/o the gain all the way up.
I like bits and pieces of both and just need to figure out how to utilize them together.
plz im a noob
When you put an equalizer before and after it you'll really be surprised on the sounds you'll get from it.
Joe
Hmmm, nothing from Nils on the Big Muff. He must be sleeping a lot lately. :D
Bish
"I play live as playing dead is harder than it sounds!"
