EHX English Muff'N for bass?

[Press4him]

Hi all,
Would bass work through a EHX English Muff'N ???

[cheapbasslovin]

Yes.



Some think that it kills some lows, although I never noticed that to be a huge problem. At the high end of the gain range it is a little buzzy, but nothing sounds better with distortion being fed into it, IMO.

[LowB-ing]

It does lose some lows, but unlike some pedals it doesn't completely kill them. The rolloff is not steep, so you can bring the lows back in with a good EQ pedal after it. This is not possible with some pedals that completely removes the lows (*cough* Metalzone *cough*).

You can also mod the Muff'n to retain the lows by changing a single capacitor. Do a search

[Press4him]

Thanks for the replies. Got the answer I was after. So Im going to pick one up tonight.

[Press4him]

oh and nice pedal rig there @cheapbasslovin

[Colonel Monk]

No.

I'd look elsewhere. There's probably two dozen other dirt pedals out there that just flat sound better.

To each his own, true, but had one, didn't like it. I'm with the majority naysayers - kills low end, thin / raspy, buzzy distortion.

Possibly useful if you just wanted a bit of dirt and use a clean blend to retain your low end.

What are you looking for? Distortion, Fuzz, OD?

If you really need a tube, I use a real tube blue tube which has a great OD > Distortion sound. It kills.

I'm loving my Earthbound Audio Beast - It also kills. The supercollider is awesome if you don't need the extra gadgets. Both are based on Big Muff circuits with some changes to voice them better for bass, retaining lows.

And if you keep reading you'll discover that there are dozens of possibilities - and for Bass.....

..... stay away from the usual suspects - I find the boutique builders pay more attention to us bass players, where the bigger players (EHX, BOSS, etc) don't as much.

Look around.

CM

[cheapbasslovin]

Originally Posted by Colonel Monk

No.

I'd look elsewhere. There's probably two dozen other dirt pedals out there that just flat sound better.

To each his own, true, but had one, didn't like it. I'm with the majority naysayers - kills low end, thin / raspy, buzzy distortion.

Possibly useful if you just wanted a bit of dirt and use a clean blend to retain your low end.

What are you looking for? Distortion, Fuzz, OD?

If you really need a tube, I use a real tube blue tube which has a great OD > Distortion sound. It kills.

I'm loving my Earthbound Audio Beast - It also kills. The supercollider is awesome if you don't need the extra gadgets. Both are based on Big Muff circuits with some changes to voice them better for bass, retaining lows.

And if you keep reading you'll discover that there are dozens of possibilities - and for Bass.....

..... stay away from the usual suspects - I find the boutique builders pay more attention to us bass players, where the bigger players (EHX, BOSS, etc) don't as much.

Look around.

CM

And there it is. I've tried a fair amount of dirt pedals (although nowhere near as many as a lot of folks here) and only liked a handful as a straight up dirt box more than the Muff'n. How I use the Muff'n, though, is as a preamp that takes solid state pedals and and makes them sound (to my ears) a billion times fuller, brighter, better. It's not just a tube thing either. I run it in front of an old Bassman 10 and I prefer it as a preamp there as well. I've had this on my board for 3 years. I'd love nothing more than to take it off since it is gigantic and has a power supply that make it more gigantic, but every time I try I put it back on in short time.

Colonel Monk obviously hated it. You should try it, see if it is for you. If you are bored or disinterested with the sound at a store, then don't get it. Otherwise, enjoy.

[LowB-ing]

Sorry for repeating myself, but you do NOT need a clean blend with this unit, only good EQ (Just for the record, I play 5 stringers exclusively). It is convenient to put the Muff'n and the EQ in a loop pedal though, so you can switch to OD with just one stomp.

Whether it sounds good or not is of course subjective. It is my main/favourite source of OD. I do own several other ODs.

[savinggrace]

Originally Posted by LowB-ing

Sorry for repeating myself, but you do NOT need a clean blend with this unit, only good EQ (Just for the record, I play 5 stringers exclusively). It is convenient to put the Muff'n and the EQ in a loop pedal though, so you can switch to OD with just one stomp.

Whether it sounds good or not is of course subjective. It is my main/favourite source of OD. I do own several other ODs.

I agree. There is VERY little low end lose on this. If you need more bass, an EQ will work just fine.

It also does fatten up your sound, even it you are not overdriving it. In other words, a thicker clean tone all around.

[tomhanzo]

Originally Posted by cheapbasslovin

And there it is. I've tried a fair amount of dirt pedals (although nowhere near as many as a lot of folks here) and only liked a handful as a straight up dirt box more than the Muff'n. How I use the Muff'n, though, is as a preamp that takes solid state pedals and and makes them sound (to my ears) a billion times fuller, brighter, better. It's not just a tube thing either. I run it in front of an old Bassman 10 and I prefer it as a preamp there as well. I've had this on my board for 3 years. I'd love nothing more than to take it off since it is gigantic and has a power supply that make it more gigantic, but every time I try I put it back on in short time.

I have a EHX Tube Zipper that I use and say this same thing about. Its my pre. Even though it is huge and has a weird power supply I can't replace it.

I have tried the Zipper, Muff'n and Hot Tubes. The Zipper is the best for adding low end. Muff'n is the most transparent. The Hot Tubes is mid scooped, making it a tube muff.

The Zipper is best in my opinion because it adds low end to pedals that cut it. Having an envelope in it allows it to IMO generate low end. I have it after my Tubescreamer and it makes it so bassy and powerful.

[Colonel Monk]

Originally Posted by Press4him

Hi all,
Would bass work through a EHX English Muff'N ???

I know I'm the voice of dissent here - but I thought I'd add a second opinion since the OP decided to buy one after one "yes" vote.

Looking again at his question above, maybe a more popular response would be, "what do you want to use it for?"

I bought one based on the buzz here at the time (where it was "the" pedal that month) and found I didn't like it.

It didn't take long to realize there were others here who felt the way I did, that it was overhyped. Probably I should have done more of my own research.

I wasn't using it as a preamp. I was using it as a tube-powered fuzz. With the gain cranked, it gets really thin to my ears, that's the buzzy thing mentioned earlier.

So it wasn't at all what I wanted.

There's a distinction - some of you are using it as a preamp just to warm up your sound, you probably didn't experience what I did.

So, to the OP - if you intend to use it like others have described, as an always on pre-amp, maybe it will work for you.

If you want it to use it for an all out fuzz like I did, there's a good chance you're gonna prefer something else.

As always, YMMV.

Rock Onward

[RCCollins]

Originally Posted by Colonel Monk

..... stay away from the usual suspects - I find the boutique builders pay more attention to us bass players, where the bigger players (EHX, BOSS, etc) don't as much.

A LOT of folks get good results from the Muff'N - It surely loses low end in some settings but I assure you, there's no boutique pedal remotely like it.

Do you really think ehx doesn't pay attention to bass players? What company has rolled out more bass-oriented pedals in recent years than ehx? whether or not you prefer them is another question.

[Colonel Monk]

I conceded that maybe as a preamp it's a different effect. Or maybe not even an effect.... All of my amps have tube-pre or are all tube so I never tried it that way.

If a guy has a sterile SS amp, I can definitely see how having the tubes between your SS preamp and your high-gain distortion pedals would sound much better, the tubes giving some natural compression that keeps the amp's pre from distorting.

As a tube distortion/fuzz effect though it's quite lacking IMO. My opinion.

The blue tube (genz benz era) - I paid 75 bucks for in new condish, and again, it kills in comparison. In comparison to the Muff'n as a tube overdrive/distortion. My opinion. And though no longer made, easy to find, and less than half the cost of the Muff'n.

As far as EHX goes - maybe a bad choice of words. I'm not dissing them, I have an original BMS and vintage bassballs, and have owned a POG and HOG both, as well as an older small stone. Just not impressed with their "for bass" offerings, particularly dirt pedals. "Bass Blogger"? Don't even get me started on the name....

I like it that independent builders have bothered to design super-high quality offerings with bass specific tone and bass specific features. I believe they deliver this much more faithfully than EHX/BOSS/Digitech/etc ever will. Having said that I do own fx from every one of these companies.

[paganjack]

My main issue with the Muff'n is that the top end is really shrill/tinny. I found that it worked pretty well for bass. I kept it about as long as I've kept most any OD pedal. I seem to get bored with any one OD tone after a while though.

[Eric!]

I personally wasn't a fan.

[cheapbasslovin]

Originally Posted by Colonel Monk

I conceded that maybe as a preamp it's a different effect. Or maybe not even an effect.... All of my amps have tube-pre or are all tube so I never tried it that way.

If a guy has a sterile SS amp, I can definitely see how having the tubes between your SS preamp and your high-gain distortion pedals would sound much better, the tubes giving some natural compression that keeps the amp's pre from distorting.

That's the thing, for me it isn't as simple as needing some tube mojo in between my bass and my speaker. I recently got myself an all tube amp to dig into (Bassman10 run into it's stock cabinet or run into the speaker on my GenzBenz combo, but not both speaker sets at the same time) and finally put to the test the theory of 'I have a tube pre cuz I really want a tube head and am too cheap to pick one up.' I prefer the Muff'n as the preamp to that head as well. There's something in that circuit I like that is more than just 'tube', although I've no doubt tube plays a fair role in it.

I'll be the first to admit if you want fuzz, Muff'n is the wrong place to look. If you want a bright distortion, I kind of like it, but there's plenty that is comparable. As a preamp to make everything else super smoooooove, I've tried none better. It doesn't mean that better doesn't exist, but I haven't tried it.