Big John effects--holy cats!

[superbassman2000]

So in my search for an EBS amp on ebay, I somehow got a "Big John Hairy Balls" effect pedal on the list...weird--anyways i checked the youtube samples which have bass on them, and i watched that one and the grannypuker and while the names are a little odd, the effects actually sound pretty cool!

The hairy balls is a fuzz and the granny puker is a fuzzed out octave down

does anybody use these? are they worth the money?

Hairy balls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2kY...e=channel_page

Grannypuker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03zEoeXooc4

[jetofuj]

Big John is TBer. You can easily find him and ask him a question. I know that few guys own his pedals.

[René_Julien]

I have both.

Absolutely love the Hairy Balls.

A sharp fuzz that at the same time keeps the low end very well.
You can tell it was designed by a bassist.
And not just any bassist: Jan Detremerie, or Big John, he is a member here.
A well known professional bassist in our Belgian musician world.
Great guy all around.

Only now do I start to learn how to play with the gate on the fuzz.

Boost function is also great. But more for recording IME.
Go with the boost at 3'o'clock and directly into a DI.
Does a nice growl then. (I compare it to GK growl and Mesa 400+ growl.)

The fuzz is very simple... no gain control.
The gate is what makes it not a one-trick-pony.


The Grannypuker is not working out for me.
I'll give it another chance when I have my new rig togheter. It seems that it doesn't like my Line6 POD X3.
Maybe it's not the right pedal for me... I was meaning to ask Jan more about this but haven't got around to it. (Too busy at my job.)

In the meantime if Jan checks in: advice on settings for deep synthesizer-like sound please.


I look forward when he brings out his next pedal.

[superbassman2000]

lol i had no idea that he was a TB'er--I suppose I should have done a search--but that hairy balls fuzz really sounds nice on the sample youtube!

[zipflint]

I am REALLY diggin the Hairy Balls. lol.....
Too rich for my blood at the moment,
But it's now on my short list for fuzzes.

[warwick.hoy]

Yeah...BJ pops in from time to time. I love the tongue in cheek graphics

[fightthepower]

Originally Posted by C'thulhu

The Grannypuker is not working out for me.
I'll give it another chance when I have my new rig togheter. It seems that it doesn't like my Line6 POD X3.
Maybe it's not the right pedal for me... I was meaning to ask Jan more about this but haven't got around to it. (Too busy at my job.)

In the meantime if Jan checks in: advice on settings for deep synthesizer-like sound please.

Have you tried transposing your bass lines up an octave (12th fret) and playing the octaver 100% wet?

Sounds interesting, though in the demo the sound is pretty low, and it sounds like he's play down in subsonic territory... the pedal interests me, but I already have a square octaver that I really dig..

[René_Julien]

Originally Posted by fightthepower

Have you tried transposing your bass lines up an octave (12th fret) and playing the octaver 100% wet?

Yup.

I played around with it some more between now and my first reply in this thread.

I can get a cool deep square wave thing going on, or a rattling growl.
But I have troubling hearing the octave down.
There is definatively something there in the low end.
Positive side: no glitch, no tracking issues. Big John is right on the ball there.

Right now IME it's a cool toneshaper, not so much an effect. Wich actually is more to my liking.

Again, it doesn't like my POD X3, the POD clips all the time and there is nothing to be adjusted. I can turn down volume on the pedal but then it doesn't have that punch.
Next week I have a new Gallien Krueger, I'm going to see if I get better use out of this pedal then.
Or maybe in the future with a secondary effect chain goin to a Roland 115X.

Originally Posted by fightthepower

Sounds interesting, though in the demo the sound is pretty low, and it sounds like he's play down in subsonic territory... the pedal interests me, but I already have a square octaver that I really dig..

What?

[emjazz]

These sound great....

[fightthepower]

Originally Posted by C'thulhu

What?

To rephrase- I could hear the big fat square of the octave, but not much actual tone from it- but the volume of the demo was a bit low and I thought maybe he was just playing in the first position down near open E-- it sounds a lot like the Pollyanna octavers -2oct solo'd when played near 12th fret E string (which would be the same freq range as the granny's -1 at open E)

But after your comment about 'having a hard time hearing the octave', and listening to the demo again. Im thinking maybe he was playing higher up the neck, and that what I thought I was hearing is just part of the pedals character. It sounds super square and kind of airy. I'd like to try one out, but Im happy with the Pollyanna octaver for squarewave stuff at the time being.

[René_Julien]

Yup, that is the case with the Grannypuker.

When I get my stuff organized I'l try to proper review this pedal and make some soundclips.

Actually, I like that the octave down isn't that present in the mix. Just like I did on the POG, it wasn't really an octaver for me, more of a wild metallic organ effect.

[droskobass]

I A/B'd the Granny Puker and a woolly mammoth into a bassballs and a Moog Envelope filter then into a nebula phaser... into a Glockenklang 1000 watt Heart rock with quatro 410 and 2x12...

the bass was a vintage P with Delano alnico vintage style P pickup.

bottom line: The granny Puker is one FAT funky killer robot destroying funky pedal.

it's made for percolating funky synthed out bass lines. (think Flashlight)

the mammoth for the first time ever was tamed by the granny puker) to be fair I should have ran the mammoth into a POG or OC2 since the puker is essentially an fuzz/Octaver. ...

but man it's heavy!!!

[john keates]

I have been playing with the granny puker and I love it! I want to use it loads but I will have to find ways to make it sound different each time I think.

One thing I love about it is that I can get a clean sound if I play quiet. I have a compressor after it so the clean sound isn't too quite so I can change the texture as much as the volume so I can play pretty little chordal lines then distroy bowles with massive lows just by playing harder.

The tracking can be pretty damn good or you can make it wild and un-predictable by shoving up the puke factor.

[john keates]

One thing to mention though: I had a look inside and I'm sure it could be put into a smaller enclosure.