The company is literally named Fuzzrocious. Of course their products are geared towards dirt.
Also, there are a ton of settings on most of my amps and pedals that I don't find useful. Doesn't mean I want my money back.
I don't want to keep beating this, but I feel obliged to respond to this kind of comment now, after hearing a number of "lots of things don't work for me, just flip it" kind of response.
I do not feel that my issues with this pedal are a matter of mere taste. This is an EQ, and what I am finding is that a significant number of the settings on it do not have the headroom to handle a *passive Jazz bass* without distorting on the low notes. To me this is more than just "it's not to may taste". I feel it is a fundamental failing of the product. I feel that is not an unreasonable thing to think.
If it was a distortion or fuzz pedal, alright then. But it's not, and it is clearly and explicitly described as NOT being a dirt pedal in its own description on the website and in the manual. It is a Baxandall active EQ circuit. As such, I feel like it should be able to tolerate a more input gain without distorting on any of the darker, and to me, more useful settings.
Also, I always post my findings with pedals here on Talkbass. When the Barbershop didn't work for me, I posted that - it didn't get clean enough for me. In that instance, however, I do not feel that was a fundamental issue with the pedal; in that case it just wasn't to my taste. It was a dirt box, and I didn't like the dirt it produced.
But none of my posts on how the Barbershop didn't work for me ever got any sort of defensive response from anybody. This experience has been entirely different. I feel like the Ryan/Fuzzrocious fanboy set is getting a bit too worked up over what I feel is a legitimate concern of mine. Let's face it: you are not going to convince me that I am wrong in my feelings, after 35 years of playing electric bass and countless amps, pedals, and basses I've owned, I am confident in my appraisal that out of the box this pedal was not up to snuff. Also, as much as might displease you fanboys, there might be another TBer who could benefit from my experience.
Now Ryan has been helpful, and I have yet to crack the pedal open and mess with the internal trim knob. I did some recording with it last night and I know what settings I *want* to work, I know what tones I like, they just distort in an unpleasant way from the low G down through the low E. With the pedal dialed in, I can work with the trim knob to see if it will help. It is an input gain issue as I can turn the volume of the pedal down well below unity and the distortion is still there. Hopefully the trim drops the input level, and I can make up the gain with the circuit's output, and all will be well with the universe. The manual itself does not mention the internal trim knob. I also asked about running it at a higher voltage; turns out that voids the warranty and the pedal isn't really meant to run at higher than 9 V, although Ryan did say I could try 12. I will try the trimpot first and see how it goes.
But the insistence that an active EQ that distorts on over half the settings, with a passive Jazz bass running into it, no matter what I set the volume knob on the EQ to, is somehow just an issue of taste is preposterous. It really is. I don't want to post on this anymore, but if people keep attacking me and my judgement, I will keep defending. Trust me on that.
