Has anyone compared wooly mammoth clones to the real thing?

[Fro 20]

I love the sound of the WM. But dang, mang, that price. And I am getting impatient as I have "the sickness."

How close do these clones get to the real thing? Looking into this, it seems that there are a couple of different plans people use for the WM clone. Knowing very little about pedal building, and clones in general, I was just wondering if anyone's done any comparisons (there is very little on youtube) or thoughts from someone that might be familiar with these or who makes a better one.

Thanks talkbass

 

[Kobaia]

if you've got the same circuit, then you've got the same circuit. not sure what else besides quality of parts would change it if you cloned it. I have a friend who has built several clones of it. and he says that it sounds just like the Chuck Z circuit

 

[Derek Balonek]

Pick up a Mastotron. It gets a similar tone at half the price and is less picky about signal chain location.

 

[Pollinator95]

Same circuit = same sound, basically. The only thing is that it's a rare builder who can resist the temptation to modify it slightly.

 

[Crater]

The wooly mammoth doesn't use any rare, old or otherwise hard-to-source parts, that's not the case with some fuzz pedals that get their sound from old, out of production germanium transistors. But the WM uses common silicon transistors, so it should be easy to build a clone that sounds just like a genuine WM.

 

[nextdimension]

Pick up a Mastotron. It gets a similar tone at half the price and is less picky about signal chain location.

The Mastotron is awesome for sure, but I don't know about not being picky about location in the chain. Never used a mammoth so I can't compare but the mastotron seems to almost cancel out anything you put before it.

 

[Flump]

I've built 2 clones. One for myself and one for a buddy. Couldn't tell much of a difference at all from the real thing except some of the extremes of knob positions. Most likely due to small manufacturing differences.

Also, if you're building a clone you can include a pickup simulation circuit so it can go anywhere in the chain. One of my buddies did a crazy version of a fuzz factory with a clean blend and some other goodies in it and had to use the pickup similation circuit due to the blend. Works great.

 

[Stompin Tom]

The Mastotron is awesome for sure, but I don't know about not being picky about location in the chain. Never used a mammoth so I can't compare but the mastotron seems to almost cancel out anything you put before it.

The WM likes to see passive pickups. So it sounds best first in the signal chain. I thought the Mastotron was basically the same circuit, so it would behave the same... But I'm not sure. In anycase, the WM is an easy build. So build one!

 

[Fro 20]

The wooly mammoth doesn't use any rare, old or otherwise hard-to-source parts, that's not the case with some fuzz pedals that get their sound from old, out of production germanium transistors. But the WM uses common silicon transistors, so it should be easy to build a clone that sounds just like a genuine WM.

Ah.

ok this is very helpful thank you

 

[Derek Balonek]

The WM likes to see passive pickups. So it sounds best first in the signal chain. I thought the Mastotron was basically the same circuit, so it would behave the same... But I'm not sure. In anycase, the WM is an easy build. So build one!

The Mastotron has a knob for source impedance to help it play nice with low output impedances. It's an easy thing to put in. Otherwise they're basically the same.