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recommend me a new distorfuzz

The DG Duality is anything but sophisticated and subtle. In fact, most of their stuff isnt that way so Im not sure where you got that from. The Duality is a snarling beast! Thats my opinion anyway. I do use it often btw,

I also second the SA OFD. I was really not too hip to the idea of a multi for a dirt pedal and or a dirt sim so to speak, but the OFD is pretty damn rad. Like ALL the OD's, fuzzes and distortions it does are VERY good. The added benefit of a 3 band EQ and a clean blend make this pedal a win win. Great dirt pedal. I would recommend this pedal to anyone who wanted to have multiple drivers on their board. Swiss army knife of dirt.
 
I picked up a used Markbass Distorsore. Not sure why this pedal wasn't more popular. Has a low and high eq, compressor, controls for both gain and tube drive, and a clean blend. Pretty much everything you need. This is the older one with a 12ax7, not the new solid state one. It goes from mild to wild, and when pushed with a clean boost it really sings. It was only $140... with a little bit of clean blended in underneath this pedal still lets you pound while giving you distortion. Grind on.
 
I built a Musket clone and dumped every other fuzz on my board. Its Pre knob lets you dial all the way from Fuzz to Distortion, the Focus knob goes from no-attack total fuzz up to nice punchy disto-type attack. Mid+Tone knobs take care of everything else. I highly recommend the Musket to any bass player looking for a versatile fuzz.
 
Mojo Hand: checked out the Colossus. Really good sounding Muff with mid control. Eventually I realized it's TOO tight and clean for me. Will check out the Socrates instead.

Earthquaker is another company I'll have to check into. Not really looking for buzzy fuzz or I would have already jumped on the Megalith. Have they got something more throaty?

I was really digging the Socrates when I got to check it out a couple weeks ago. There is someone else currently in the effects forum that just purchased one and was going to chime in with feedback - so maybe we can get some actual clips.

As far as Earthquaker - The Hoof or Hoof Reaper (both more Muff variants) might be something to look into, but I seem to recall that my thoughts on those two were slightly meh. Maybe you'd feel different:
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Also - another worth mentioning that I seem to remembering really liking when I had a few minutes with it a couple months ago was the Catalinbread Manx Loagthan (another Muff variant - sorry it seems there's no way around it). Nothing on bass, but here's a guitar vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maRfJqTfVnU

(at the end of the video Juan plays the Hoof Reaper).

Your best bet might be just to look through all of Juan's Pedals and effects archives and see if something hits your ears right).
https://www.youtube.com/user/PedalsAndEffects/videos
 
Darkglass: I knew this would happen. Ok, I'll try to be nice about this. Darkglass is too "subtle and sophisticated" for what I do. To my ears, Darkglass sounds like somebody put a LED on an empty box so fanbois would talk about how "transparent" it sounds. Sorry.

Yeah, not to be a fanboy but this is sort of objectively wrong. Darkglass has a clear "baked-in tone," it's absolutely not "transparent." It may not be your flavor, and that's fine, but transparent and subtle really misses the mark...
 
Yeah, not to be a fanboy but this is sort of objectively wrong. Darkglass has a clear "baked-in tone," it's absolutely not "transparent." It may not be your flavor, and that's fine, but transparent and subtle really misses the mark...


Thank you!! Seems to me the op may not have ever actually played a DG pedal. Maybe I'm wrong. But what he described doesn't sound like DG at all to me.
 
AMPTWEAKER jumped to the top of my short list. Really smart design with the buffered circuit, auto-bias, smooth switch to take off the multiband sound, and of course TIGHT knob. The Bass Tightfuzz seemed good until I found the Tight Metal. I played Excane's demo vid for my guitarist and he said it sounded like my rig in a box.

Musket is another one I've already been checking into. Compared to other Muff-type boxes it seems to have a thicker tone with more harmonic content. And the Focus knob seems similar (at least in purpose) to the Amptweaker Tight knob.

But so far I'm not finding what I'm looking for in any fuzz, it seems like a higain distortion is where I'm going.

You guys are correct about me having not tried the Darkglass. But I've been in the store when another dude with a Warwick was trying out the B3K. Had to ask him if the pedal was turned on... it was. *shrug* If I want to hear my clean tone I'll turn the pedal off.

The Duality demos show more fuzz on the right side. But that demo sounded so bad I couldn't even listen past 20 seconds in. The B7K sounds a lot better than the Duality, at least I could listen to the demo. But ultimately it's just more of the same - higher quality, multiband version of bees in a can. Kinda like the EBS. Didn't like that either.

Still looking and listening. So far, it's AMPTWEAKER for the win.
 
AMPTWEAKER jumped to the top of my short list. Really smart design with the buffered circuit, auto-bias, smooth switch to take off the multiband sound, and of course TIGHT knob. The Bass Tightfuzz seemed good until I found the Tight Metal. I played Excane's demo vid for my guitarist and he said it sounded like my rig in a box.

Musket is another one I've already been checking into. Compared to other Muff-type boxes it seems to have a thicker tone with more harmonic content. And the Focus knob seems similar (at least in purpose) to the Amptweaker Tight knob.

But so far I'm not finding what I'm looking for in any fuzz, it seems like a higain distortion is where I'm going.

You guys are correct about me having not tried the Darkglass. But I've been in the store when another dude with a Warwick was trying out the B3K. Had to ask him if the pedal was turned on... it was. *shrug* If I want to hear my clean tone I'll turn the pedal off.

The Duality demos show more fuzz on the right side. But that demo sounded so bad I couldn't even listen past 20 seconds in. The B7K sounds a lot better than the Duality, at least I could listen to the demo. But ultimately it's just more of the same - higher quality, multiband version of bees in a can. Kinda like the EBS. Didn't like that either.

Still looking and listening. So far, it's AMPTWEAKER for the win.

Bro...do you even know what settings he was using? He may not have known what he was doing. Maybe the blend and/or drive was all the way down. I can confidently tell you that my tone with the Darkglass (B7K) on sounds NOTHING like my clean tone, even at low drive.

As for Amptweaker I will agree that you might be on to something there. I've never had my hands on one but the demos are NICE and the feature list is pretty genius. A TightFuzz is on the short list of fuzzes I would like to try, and the TightMetal looks pretty sweet too (but I have something covering that ground).
 
Arion Bass Distortion. Straddles the line between distortion and fuzz nicely, and has separate Direct (Dry) and Distortion level controls. It also has Tone and Distortion controls, and the Tone only affects the distortion, not the clean. It's nice and tight and punchy as long as you don't turn the distortion control - which is separate from the distortion level control - too high. I like it with the tone from noon to full, and the distortion at about noon. And did I mention they're very cheap? They're also plastic, but I haven't heard any reliability complaints.
 
You guys are correct about me having not tried the Darkglass. But I've been in the store when another dude with a Warwick was trying out the B3K. Had to ask him if the pedal was turned on... it was. *shrug* If I want to hear my clean tone I'll turn the pedal off.

You may not like the sound of it, but I find that statement laughable, at best. Also, I think the Boss ODB-3 sounds more like "bees in a can" whereas the B3K and B7K have a very metallic attack. Fans of FNM/early Tool and other bands that have that bass tone favor that sound. I know that I was looking for that sound for years, and the closest thing I found was the Rusty Box, but I liked the mids better on the B3K because it didn't mess with my Ric's midrange.
 
You may not like the sound of it, but I find that statement laughable, at best. Also, I think the Boss ODB-3 sounds more like "bees in a can" whereas the B3K and B7K have a very metallic attack.

Yeah, not to pile on, but one last comment...I still can't believe the original comment is based on "I heard someone else using it at a shop." I would never criticize a pedal if that was my only experience using it. It's not even in the same realm as personal experience, manufacturer demo videos, or even amateur demo videos.
 
I'll throw in another vote for team awesome fuzz machine. When it's wound up I don't know how anyone could want a more distorted, heavy sound without having absolutely no definition.

I found the key for really heavy tone is to set it so the pre gain distorts the clean signal and blend that in. Distorted clean blend plus fuzz equals awesome.

To the OP, are you thinking of using this super intense sound with a band or on your own? I've always found that the most sick, distorted, heavy bass sounds I dial in at home have to be tones down with my band in order for any I my playing to be recognizable. Same thing with guitar players. Heavy sound on its own becomes muddy when you mix it with more of the same.

And now to make a long post even longer...

My favourite heavy bass tones come from Jay of the band Cancer Bats. He rocks a Fuzzrocious demon most of the time and although it's not super distorted, it sounds incredibly heavy with a guitar player and you can still hear what he's playing. I believe he also uses a b:assmater, attack goat, shredmaster, and hoof from time to time. I have a demon on my board and it took a few jams but I love it now that I have it dialed in.