Distortion, series or parallel

Calaverasgrande · #1 03-26-2010, 12:50 PM

So I was jamming with 3/4ths of my band yesterday. As is our habit we play at a pretty decent volume, what with having tube amps and all.
I was working on a few songs that I think will benefit from some bass fuzz/distortion. In the past I have usually just plugged in
bass>fuzz>amp.
The problem with plugging in series like that is I can NEVER get the volume to work. The fuzz is either way too loud or it makes my bass invisible.

This time I tried plugging in to a splitter first so I could run one signal to the "passive" input and the fuzz to the "active" input on my Mesa.
so its
bass>splitter>fuzz>amp
bass>splitter>amp
This way I am always getting some clean (well clean-ish) bottom end. The only thing that changes is the mid kind of shifts downwards with the fuzz, which is fine.
Curious what you folks do and how it works for you.

mcnach · #2 03-26-2010, 02:42 PM

I use several overdrive pedals, but for any kind of dirt beyond "just a bit of grit" I use pedals that allow me to blend uneffected with effected signal, much like you do with the splitter. Otherwise you lose all definition in a band context, as cool as it may sound by itself.

Calaverasgrande · #3 03-26-2010, 02:53 PM

It actually sounds brutally good at volume. I use a Death by Audio Fuzz War. It's just super touchy on the output volume. In this regard the parallel arrangement works better because even if its off by a bit it doesnt affect my overall volume too much.
It does kinda sound better when used straight on, it just fairly ruins any chance of jumping back and forth between two different tones.

BTW I only just realized there is an effects forum. If this would be better situated there please, moderators, feel free to move it on over.

megadan · #4 03-26-2010, 03:55 PM

All of my OD pedals either have a clean blend/mix built in (Brown Dog, Prunes & Custard), or are run in a Clean Blend (Barge Concepts VFB-2), right now the only pedal needing blending is the Polish Love and it doesn't NEED blending in the strictest sense, but I like to keep a little bit of clean just to be sure.

JimmyM · #5 03-26-2010, 10:50 PM

ya, for fuzz, i don't think there's any way i could do it without mixing a clean signal in there. fuzz just eats bass alive. but i would rather get a fuzz that has its own blend knob built in than screw with splitting signals and all that happy hs. did it back in the day, and had a pedalboard that took forever to tweak out. now that there are pedal makers that actually realize bass players like effects too but have some special needs, i wouldn't bother with one that made me use a splitter.