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Swolen Pickle Suggested Settings

Here's what worked for me.

IMAG0407.jpg
 
I want a Pickle for fuzz for sure, but the last time I played with one (Friday, with my Ric) it sounded a little strange - like whenever I would dig into a note it sounded like it started "ducking" (dropping volume, like you might hear with a really heavy compressor setting). Never heard that from a Pickle before. What could that have been?
 
Interesting - what settings, ya think?
I started with one of the recommended settings then I adjusted for taste. There are a couple really good swollen pickle threads if you look, worth a read. When I get the pedal in my hand I'll post my settings. Settings you like will depend on your bass, other pedals, your amp, and your personal taste in fuzz tone.
 
Hey all -- I know this is an old thread, but just need to say this. I almost completely gave-up on this pedal. Could not get a usable sound whenever I tried it with my band. But... thanks to the info and advice here, I was able to work things out and understand the pedal much better.

One thing I would like to add along with my settings is a general point of reference of the tone or type of sound I was after when dialing into my settings. Just throwing out each knob's value might not be enough for someone down the road to find what is working for me.

Another piece of advice to anyone trying to get this pedal going, try all the settings listed in this thread but really focus on the internal trim pots, how they shape the tone and get them to a place where you can then close-up the pedal and fine tune the external knobs. My goal was to nail the internal trims in a way that allows the external knobs to give you versatility and more than one tone per se.

Internal Trim settings I like:
  • CLIP 3
  • VOICE MAX
FU MANCHU/Godzilla (melt-the-earth-sound)
  • LOUDNESS (to taste)
  • SCOOP 10:30
  • FILTER MAX
  • CRUNCH 9
  • SUSTAIN 3
QOTSA/"Little Sister-ish:
  • LOUDNESS (to taste)
  • SCOOP 1
  • FILTER MAX
  • CRUNCH 11
  • SUSTAIN MAX

Anyhow, thanks again to all the people who took the time to post their settings and advice. Awesome.

--theDove
 
Played around more yesterday and to be honest not very happy with this pedal so far. It seems to really suck the tone of out my bass. At some settings it made my bass sound really muddy and made my notes difficult to hear (more boom if anything).

Need to try some more, but to give you an idea of the tone I am looking for here:



That's a Micro Synth in the Dead Weather stuff. More specifically the vintage/original Micro Synth. Check the video below.

 
Just popping in to reiterate the usefulness of those internal pots. I recently stopped using the preamp in my head and switched to a Two Notes Le Bass running into my effects return, and where the Pickle sounded awesome with the head, I was struggling to make it pkay nicely with the Le Bass - it sounded muddy and unwieldy unless I had my overdrive on as well (FYI, a Fuzzrocious Demon going into a Pickle sounds soooo good).

I had completely forgotten about the internal pots until this thread popped up. Opened up the pedal and messed around, and now I have it sounding good again (I wound up rolling both internal pots back from where I had them). Still sounds awesome stacked with my Demon too.
 
Agree - so much of this pedal's sound shape is controlled by those two trim pots, with that said, why in the world did way huge think it's a good design putting them in a less convienient place. Why not have them available externally??!!?

--theDove
 
Hey pickle heads!!! So I thought I'd bump this one. We should def be sharing some of these with each other. I recently got the Russian pickle and it's reinvigorated my dig on the swollen pickle. So here are some settings im liking now.

IMG_7378.JPG
 
What do you have the internal pots set at?

I think they're stock. I may have had the mids slightly adjusted. But I'm almost sure they are stock.

I messed with the internals for a while and found I liked the gain much better in the stock position but didn't experiment much with it. The mids were boosted for a bit (maybe?). But all in all, I think I mainly have stuck with the stock trim settings inside.
 
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Just thought it worth bumping the thread to share this setting, which took a while to find. The settings already listed didn't seem to work for me, but this did:

Clip: 9 o'clock
Voice: 2 o'clock
Loudness: 9 o'clock
Filter: 1:30
Sustain: 3 o'clock
Scoop: 9:30
Crunch: 7 o'clock (zero)

I was looking for something that still allowed for really clear notes and huge fuzz that carried from one note to the next, really big warm sustain that got away from a scratchy buzzing and that big muddy woolly fug of sound that seems to be a problem with lots of people who are coming here.
 
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I want a Pickle for fuzz for sure, but the last time I played with one (Friday, with my Ric) it sounded a little strange - like whenever I would dig into a note it sounded like it started "ducking" (dropping volume, like you might hear with a really heavy compressor setting). Never heard that from a Pickle before. What could that have been?

I know exactly what you mean. I play a P bass and with default internals the Pickle would choke on notes B2 and below, more on the E string than the A.

Things that helped me in the past were reducing input volume, playing through J bridge pup, kicking on an overdrive before the Pickle. If you have an active EQ cutting some low end would probably help too.

What fixed this issue for me was setting the VOICE internal pot to MAX :thumbsup: The fuzz response became even across the board.
 
Been a while, but if anyone is still looking for tips, this video is the best explanation I've ever seen of the Pickle:
The Swollen Pickle Overexplained (for Bass Guitar) - YouTube

My settings are as follows for a nice, open, doomy tone similar to my favorite tone on the Pharaoh Supreme (MOSFETs and it's fairly even dirt-wise across the spectrum). This is slightly gainier than my Pharaoh, but not excessively so, and it also works better than the Pharaoh is some instances. It almost annoys me how many knobs are at one extreme or the other and how long it took for me to find that they work best for me that way! It could have been so much faster...

Clip - Max (aka all the way "open")
Voice - Max (aka the scoop control is most sensitive)
Scoop - Max (flat mids!)
Crunch - Minimum (little to no compression)
Filter - 11:00 (slight bass boost and treble reduction - more to even out the tone spectrum than anything)
Gain - 8:00 to 8:30
Loudness - as needed (10:30ish for me)

Hope this helps someone out there!
 
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