JAM Lucydreamer or Red Muck

@skyisblue Hi, I ordered and received both Lucydreamer Bass (Overdrive) and Red Muck Bass (Fuzz, based on 71 triangle & Red Army / Civil War Big Muff circuits) exactly today so I'll try them and give some feedback but Big Muff is not an overdrive they are quite different and the Vulcan being an Overdrive, it looks logical to get a Lucydreamer but check out sounds around first

 

Alright @skyisblue I'll give you my opinion, waiting for other people feedback.
I currently own Darkglass Alpha Omega as OD, Way Huge Pork & Pickle as Fuzz (Pickle side), Fuzzrocious Rat Tail as Rat Distortion, so I'll compare to them for my taste and equipment but had many others to have references of dirt (Darkglass B3K, Blackout Musket, Big Muff Pi, Bass Big Muff Pi, Tech21 Red Ripper, MXR Brown Acid, EQD Terminal, Acid Pig (Earthbound Audio Iron Pig)...)

 

Can't comment on the Red Muck, but I've had the Lucydreamer Bass for a while (important note, there are 2 versions of the Lucydreamer. I'm talking about the Bass version.). It's a versatile unit with lots of gain on tap that allows you to set your OD sound and then have another one with more gain on the second FS. You can set the amount of gain that you add by using the second switch. There is a load of useful bass sounds in there. I quite liked it, but sold it because I preferred the SolidGoldFX Beta DLX and the SS/BS Mini.

 

The better overdrive is the one that sounds better to your ears, not mine. I've never liked any Darkglass sound. For my personal sound preferences, they are too high gain, too modern sounding - even the Vintage.

The Lucydreamer is a different animal. If you want to find out, you should try and get your hands on as many as possible. Buy some second hand, borrow what you can or check out if something like Thomann or Sweetwater have a decent "try at home - free return" policy you could make use of.

 

I have a Lucydreamer (bass version). The less distorted side of it works well, but stock, I would never take that thing on stage - the other side, when you hit that switch, is just (for me) completely unusable - there is so much gain it's silly, and no way to dial it back. The footswitches are close enough to each other that I wouldn't take the chance that I might accidentally hit the "ugly sound/suck switch".

So...mine is modified. The lower gain side works, the higher gain side has been disabled. If you know electronics, it's not too hard to do, but if you don't, it's something I wouldn't recommend trying.

 

I haven't tried, so I don't know if it goes down far enough, but couldn't you just dial down the internal boost?

 

Mine hat an internal trim pot that would allow you to set the amount of added gain.

 

Mine does as well, but it couldn't be set anywhere near as low as I'd want it.

 

It is a great low gain OD that is quite touch sensitive. You can easily dial in a sound that sounds clean when you play softly and roars when you dig in.

 

It's good, but I have a half dozen good overdrives on my shelf, and a couple on pedalboards at any given time. Every so often, I decide I want to try a different drive, and I do a shootout and decide on one to use for a while on one of my pedalboards. The Lucydreamer was good enough to make the shelf, but so far hasn't made it to a pedalboard. it may one day be just my thing, but..... so far, close, but not quite.

 

I can speak to the Red Muck as it's all over the Freebassing album I recorded and it's still on my board. I have a unique set up as I only run the Red Muck through the low end using the Ric-O-Sound on my Ric. I'm able to blend it with a cleaner top end, I know this is probably the opposite of most, they'd leave the low end clear and muck up (pun intended) the top end, but it really works well for me. I can dial it in for what I'm looking for in that respect. It's super fuzzy and you can swing that either to the higher frequencies or lower. It works really well with the OC-2, so I'm sure it will play nice with the OC-5.

Without being too self promotional (unavoidable with the examples) you can hear it in a real song type setting on the following tracks off my record:

Bionic (blended in nicely)
The Pull (slightly in there)
Grit (full blown on and up)
Sweet Thank You (gently balanced with the Jam Waterfall on vibrato . . . since you said you have a chorus)
A Day at the ZoO (all over it in different parts of the tune)

The music is not everyone's cup of tea, so I get that. Listen at your own risk.

Here's a link to check it out and hear the Muck!

 

Glad it was a help. The Red Muck to me is a pedal worth trying. And thank you so much for listening to the tunes. We’re all just trying to make art after all.

 

I highly recommend the smallsound/bigsound mini