Any quick fix to solve the active bass fuzz hating problem?

[ZanaZulu807]

So I'm swapping a few pedals with a few folks and most of what I'm trying out are dirt type pedals (fuzz/distortion/overdrive). I'm using my Stingray and I'm aware there are lots of dirt pedals that don't agree well and sound like utter sh!t with active basses. From what I can tell so far though, the tone does come in after a while when letting the bass sustain a bit, but the initial pluck is extremely muddy, "clipping" sounding, and there's no discernible note definition whatsoever; I'm about 5 pedals in. Any quick internal tweaks or anything else I can do? (besides turning the volume knobs down, tried that one...)

[moles]

Sounds like too much gain. Are you starting with low gain settings and dialing in the amount of dirt you need, or just starting with the gain up halfway, or wherever you think it's gonna sound good?

[caeman]

I'm with Moles on this. Too much gain at the 5th pedal.

[eyeballkid]

Another thing is to just first ask around about whayt dirt pedals people have found that work well with stingrays...

An incomplete list from my experience:
Bluebeard, musket, oxfuzz, bbm, sublime, tallfont, sft, dark driving, kaeden, bass-drive, tafm, mad prof blueberry, rusty box, odb-3, supercollider...and more I dont remember right now..all respond well...whether or not they are "your sound" is another issue.

[ZanaZulu807]

Pretty much all knobs set at noon, then go from there. However, even at that setting I'm getting nothing but booming fart noises. The only time I get a decent sound is by cranking my amp's volume and keeping the pedal's volume at noon and the gain at about 11 o'clock or below, but even that sounds on the verge of mud. I'm using a Dr. Scientist The Elements and a Mojo Hand Rook by the way, the other pedals sound fine.

[moles]

I had a guitar player once that had the most gawd-awful tone ever. So loud that nothing else could be heard at rehearsals, yet we couldn't make out what he was playing either. Mushy, muddy, square-waved to death...
The thing was, in his chain he had extra-high-output pickups ("I got the hottest pickups I could find, man!") a Boss overdrive with everything MAXED ("So I can hit the front end of my tube amp for more gain, man!") (Which is nonsense, since he had a fully featured Fender DeVille, complete with Master Volume...)....and then once we get to his amp settings, forget it, I won't go into it, but they were just making things worse...

The point is, he did all this because he was under the impression that that was how you got Rock guitar tone. 5 or so little pieces of advice that he read somewhere...and didn't take the time to listen to how they worked together.

Incidentally, we recorded one day and I pulled up the waveform of his guitar take on the DAW and it was quite literally a square wave, with the odd other harmonic...nasty.

Back to the MM + dirt pedals...if you can find a good sound, or the sound you want, by dialing the drive setting lower than you *think* it should be, it ain't no thing. Where you *think* it should be is very unimportant compared to what sounds good.

[naruki]

I just ordered a JHS 4 Wheeler Fuzz. If I remember to, I'll return to this thread to let you know how it works with my Bongo.

[Waterpilot]

I don't own a Stingray but do have a 18v Ibanez BTB. The only real thing I can do in those situations is turn the volume knob down a little bit on my bass. Once I do that, then I can adjust the knobs on the pedals and amp to whatever I like.

[MSUsousaphone]

I have pretty hot active pickups on my Status S2 Classic. I've used the IE Oxide and ss/bs TA!FM and loved them...Fairfield Circuitry Unpleasant Surprise, too. More to come, I'm sure....

[VincentSalizeri]

I recall hearing that impedance can be an issue. Some pedals have a high input impedance that works best with a passive bass. I believe the Wooly Mammoth was one of them?

I'm pretty sure some of the pedals could be modded to more readily accept a low impedance signal, depending on the input buffer.

Or like others have said, your stingray could just be feeding the pedal too strong a signal. A passive attenuator (much like the active input on some amps) should be able to solve that simply enough.

[Skrogh]

Or you could build a pickup simulator:
Guitar Pickups Simulation

[G.Bisson]

I tried to make a woolly mammoth compatible with my high output basses using the variable impedance control on a Barge Concepts GLZ. Still sounded awful, nowhere near the sounds I could get plugging in a passive bass.

The only way I could get that fuzz to play nicely with any active bass was having an active/passive switch on the bass set to passive mode.

[BassBrass]

Originally Posted by naruki

I just ordered a JHS 4 Wheeler Fuzz. If I remember to, I'll return to this thread to let you know how it works with my Bongo.

I have one, and it works Great with active, full volume always, Schecter Studio, ESP Viper 404, actually any active I have. TAFM is great too, and Attack Goat. One pedal the likes the high input is Fuzzhugger Arc Flash, it buzzes so nice. There are lots of active friendly distortions. DeviEver dark boost and ruiner love a hot input.
Only pedal I ever had an issue with is Source Audio BEF, I burned out two. SA fixed that on the 2rd try and I appreciated it.

[DeadPoet]

If (Wooly Mammoth + active bass) Then Mastotron.




Lots of other pedals respond to active basses or heavy hitters as well.



Herwig

[DeltaPhoenix]

Turn volume of pedals all the way down. Slowly turn volume up. Turn other knobs, find sound you start to like. Turn volume up more. Make fine tuning adjustments. Then you figure out where unity volume is.

I use a lot of different fuzz pedals with an active bass. Sometimes the volume is barely turned on on the pedal.

Besides Wooly Mammoth, I have had no problems. Then it comes down to taste.