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Bass Big Muff Vs. MXR El Grande

Snakeman1066

Snakeman1066

Sep 17, 2007
6,330
6,357
Central Valley
#1
After listening to all the hype and reading the reviews of both pedals, i fnially tried them out side by side

These are based on my personal taste and playing applications (please keep that in mind)

The El Grande.....the foot print is nice takes up very little real estate...nice and shiny aluminum casing with a blue LED...however after taking the knobs off i discovered that the pot shafts at least on the pedal i tried were plastic! (cost cutting?).....I found this pedal to be way too agressive for my personal taste reminds me of the Blow Torch in many ways. If your a metal head or you like to play pinch harmonics then this is your pedal.....the deep switch was actually quite friendly and reacted well with my rig....i did notice however that this pedal played much nicer with my passive basses vs, my active ones....for $100.00 i expected more, not to mention to my ears and for my personal applications i only found one setting to my liking.

The Bass Big Muff....(Well after dogging the NYC regular Big Muff Pi for so long) i wasn't looking forward to even trying this pedal, but i have to say that it was quite a pleasant suprise (currently eating crow)...I found that with the mini switch on the dry setting much more to my liking than the other settings (Normal and bass boost)....(but to each his own) based on my personal taste and applications (mostly stoner rock) i much prefer the sound of the Bass Big muff. also with the dual outputs i found the pedal to be much more versatile useful than the El Grande. I was also able to dial up three different setting that were just sheer awesome....not to mention the $80.00 dollar price tag also made this pedal much more attractive. This pedal also played nicer with my passives basses vs. my active but i discovered if i backed off my volume output just a bit it seemed to help.....much more fuzz for the buck IMHO (favorite setting on the Big Bass muff was with the volume knob at the 1 o'clock position...the tone at the 11 o'clock position, and the sustain, at the 3 o'clock in the dry mode but i found settings i can use in both the normal and bass bost positions....

I think my Voodoo labs Superfuzz pedal will make its way to my guitar board....lol

If it were me i would buy the Big Bass muff and use the extra $20.00 to buy an adapter and a patch cable....lol


Bass Big Muff



not quite a tecnical review but i included a couple of videos by the same person to give you an idea....and let you decide....

currently waiting on Grygrx to review the El Grande
 
#2
Nice review snakeman, I have also owned both of these and found the BBM to be the keeper of the two. There just doesn't seem to be a way to switch off the "aggro" vibe of the ElGrande, though I have to admit the BBM is less interesting for running through tremolo. I still need a more aggressive fuzz than the BBM offers every now and then, but an OG messdrive costs less than an ElG...just for instance...
 
#3
RCCollins said:
Nice review snakeman, I have also owned both of these and found the BBM to be the keeper of the two. There just doesn't seem to be a way to switch off the "aggro" vibe of the ElGrande, though I have to admit the BBM is less interesting for running through tremolo. I still need a more aggressive fuzz than the BBM offers every now and then, but an OG messdrive costs less than an ElG...just for instance...
Click to expand...

I like the "Aggro" of the El Grande. Unfortunetly, Aggro is not useful in all applications. Plus, with my bass changeover, (Omen-4 to Squire VM Jazz with end-user installed Series/Parallel switch), I need to re-tweak the internal trim-pot.
But, all-in-all, I like it. I haven't tried the BBM, and I don't feel a need to, as the El Grande reminds me of my Little Big Muff, but more bass friendly. I've found I tend to run everything balls-to-the-wall anyway, and the El Grande suits that. I just wish I still had my compressor...that might make things a little more interesting.



Also, props to this thread!
 
#5
I may not be the best person to ask......I'm not a big fan of Boss pedals.....the ODB-3 was a great pedal for its day and a lot of people still use it......but IMHO it is a 1 trick pony and sounds kind of sterile to my ears...and for versatility IMHO the Bass Big muff blows it out of the water but YMMV...as it so far for me is a three trick pony...lol

seriously i prefer the Bass Big Muff over the Boss all they way....
 
#6
Snakeman1066 said:
I may not be the best person to ask......I'm not a big fan of Boss pedals.....the ODB-3 was a great pedal for its day and a lot of people still use it......but IMHO it is a 1 trick pony and sounds kind of sterile to my ears...and for versatility IMHO the Bass Big muff blows it out of the water but YMMV...as it so far for me is a three trick pony...lol

seriously i prefer the Bass Big Muff over the Boss all they way....
Click to expand...

I like my ODB-3, but as you said it is a one trick pony. I don't want to get rid of it because I do like its one trick but I'd like something different and better. Sounds like I need to check out a Bass Big Muff.
 
#7
Thunderscreech said:
I like the "Aggro" of the El Grande. Unfortunetly, Aggro is not useful in all applications. Plus, with my bass changeover, (Omen-4 to Squire VM Jazz with end-user installed Series/Parallel switch), I need to re-tweak the internal trim-pot.
But, all-in-all, I like it. I haven't tried the BBM, and I don't feel a need to, as the El Grande reminds me of my Little Big Muff, but more bass friendly. I've found I tend to run everything balls-to-the-wall anyway, and the El Grande suits that. I just wish I still had my compressor...that might make things a little more interesting.



Also, props to this thread!
Click to expand...


I was looking for this thread :ninja:

it looks like I spoke to soon on that post....:hiding: Now i eat my words.

My El Grande isn't cutting it for me anymore. I dunno, it just doesn't sound, like, fuzzy enough.

So, now, I'm after the BBM now. Another convert :smug:
 
#8
miss g said:
how does the bass big muff compare to a boss odb-3?
Click to expand...

Here's the thing about the ODB: Boss is very guitar oriented. Most guitar players use tube amps, and an "overdrive" for guitarists means a "boost" of some sort in bass player terminology. This is because by the time bass effects became marketable, most bass players were already using solid state amps. So most current "bass overdrive" pedals (not all, mind you) could arguably be better described as "distortion" or "tube simulation" effects.

If you play with a tube amp, all you really need to do for an overdriven sound is crank the gain. If you need more, a boost of some sort will surely be more than enough to get the grind you're looking for. If you use a solid-state amp, there are no tubes to push. You might be able to get a "tube-like" sound out of certain preamps, but it will generally take an off-board distortion (or "bass overdrive") effect to achieve anything close to that "SVT grind" or whatever tube sound you are looking for.

Back to the ODB: It's more of a colored boost (in the manner of guitar OD pedals) than a modern "bass overdrive". It doesn't offer a huge vafriety of tones because it is really designed to drive tubes, rather than to simulate the sound of driven tubes. It does what it was designed to do very well, but since its release, a lot of more flexible distortion effects for bass have hit the market.

If you have a tube amp, it's worth the $50 I guess. For a little more scratch you could get a boost with more flexibility if you need it. BUT I wouldn't recommend the BBM or the El Grande for OD: both are fuzz pedals - a different category of distortion that doesn't really sound like pushed tubes..
 
#11
varunkapahi said:
what is the size of BBM like ? as compared to a boss single pedal?
Click to expand...

Hows about a picture for your comparing pleasure?
DSC_0974.jpg


I know it's the LBM, but the BBM is made using the same enclosure.
 

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