4 Ways to Make Pedals Bass Friendly

[@CScott-zu5mv]

Here it is 2024 and this was exactly what I was searching for. Why you don’t have 100,000 views is beyond me. I will watch it at least twenty more times. Thank you.

[@zachary963]

I searched online for an hour last night trying to figure out how to get a blend knob into my circuit. I should have known to just check your channel. Y’all rock!!

[@nonoyes8613]

Just made my first pedal this week and really wanna thank you and your channel for giving me the confidence to take on this new hobby! I made an eqd dirt transmitter clone and this type of fuzz sounds really awesome on bass. I'm still just barely grasping the more conceptual parts of circuits but really dig this video and will keep it as a reference bc most my pedals are for me to run on my bass set up! Thanks a ton!!

[@erikvincent5846]

Glad it helped!

[@EDGARDOUX1701]

Love these video dude! Want more on how they work too. Thank you

[@DeltaDonnaLynn]

Circut diving is a good thing, feel free to feed us more information like this.

[@jean-michelfarley9135]

Really great video! I'll be coming back to it many times.

[@peterjohnson4932]

I'm a bit late to this party so I hope you see this. As a guitarist who dabbles with bass, I've found this to be incredibly useful and informative. You've given me a lot to think about and experiment with, and already sparked half a dozen new ideas. Thank you so much!

[@bertrandmajorik6589]

Thank you for the info, man !!!! Really enjoyed your video.

[@jeffp5138]

Great info, love the very clear schematics.

[@FairlyUnknown]

This is so fantastic! It was presented very well. Thank you

[@nicolasaraistrujak208]

God bless you, I was looking for a video like this on how to mod a fuzz to use on Bass, also thanks for explaning how to EQ the Bass, wish I had found your channel befor buying a better power supply to remove the humming noise from my pedalboard

[@Loscha]

I really liked this in depth analysis video. I particularly appreciated the commentary about which parts of the frequency spectrum make up different parts of the sound. I've got some of those EQ charts (somewhere), but it's good to hear it spoken about. It made me think of those DOD pedals with the weird names on the control, and how you could make them actually useful for a bass preamp. "Slap", "Picking", "Fretless Nasality"

[@erikvincent5846]

Yeah, just my preferences, and sometimes I'll even contradict myself, depending on the situation. Like with the string clank. If I am trying for that "Djente" bass sound or Anthrax clank, then I need those frequencies back in there.

[@9cookiesmonster]

Great video and very helpful 🙏

[@arx_wtf]

these circuit explanation videos are so damn good! I learned a ton, thank you Erik :)

[@stonecrow00]

Thank you for this! I can now take those pedals that 'almost' sound the way I want them and make them work for me 100% how I need them to.

[@Yt5hdf5g5g5g]

Yes., yes, yes... Now I understand how to mod👍great video very helpful

[@juanmoulinho]

Great topic!

[@justindpeak]

How about synth friendly pedal mods? I am sure it's something similar but with some info about line lvl vs instrument lvl? This would make a great video, too IMO

[@pablo.l]

this!

[@arx_wtf]

I'd love to see this as well!

[@sweeterthananything]

kind of a late reply but - i've been using pedals on synths from the beginning of using both/either, and it's very difficult to make broad recommendations beyond controlling for the line level + potentially impedance issues, and adding a blend control when possible as shown in the video. synths are used to create too many different types of sounds with a wide range of synth technology/sampled instruments compared to the role of bass guitar in a conventional band. but there are a few more things to try. for fuzz circuits (especially classic FF type designs), look into AMZ's "pickup simulator" schematic that uses a common transformer (and optionally standard guitar volume + tone controls) to behave more like passive guitar pickups with the loading behavior. earthquaker eruptor fuzz has this type of transformer built-in. there's no guarantee that you will like the end result, but it is another option to try. otherwise, often the best you can do is look at how you want to actually use these effects, and compartmentalize - build a gentle overdrive with the filters optimized primarily for your analog synth basses, then later make a distortion tuned for aggressive high end to primarily use on leads, etc. OR you can make the input and output caps switchable, between 2+ values that seem most versatile tested on breadboard. one more option to experiment with is adding pre- and post- effect emphasis+deemphasis EQ, to sort of disguise the synth as a guitar signal as it passes through the effect, and then gets compensated in the opposite direction to try to recover its original curve - dan worrall has a great video on that topic for mixing with compressor plugins etc but it's the same concept in pedals. and this might be obvious for some, but when using a pedal on a synth, i find that the synth's patch usually should adjust and compromise to work best WITH the pedal, instead of plugging it in with the synth's output set in stone and trying to force the pedal. anyway thanks for the opportunity to dump part of my messy brain out!

[@nicksregor4208]

I'm not saying he's wrong, but most people consider bass frequencies to be below 100hz. It's absolutely true that distorting those frequencies can get muddy, especially in high gain settings, but I would definitely not use 200hz as a gold-standard for cutoff frequencies. HIGHLY recommend the blend circuits they talk about for bass pedals, though. Just make sure you're in phase when you mix the clean & dirty back together!

[@CScott-zu5mv]

Did you see something in the schematics of the blender that needs to be addressed? I was planning on trying these blend circuits. Any thoughts on how to go about keeping phase in check?

[@nicksregor4208]

@@CScott-zu5mv Just stay away from any inverting gain stages/odd numbers of inverting stages! Nothing wrong with the circuit, though.

[@CScott-zu5mv]

@@nicksregor4208 Great, thanks for the response.

[@zachary963]

hi there, watching this again... can someone help me with something? at 6:30, in the bottom right, there's a circuit that appears to be completely unrelated to the rest of the circuit. it looks like it's doing something with the voltage? can someone please explain that to me? thank you!!

[@adronsro]

That is the power supply filter circuit. It filters any noise going to the pedal. So then you dost have a noisy pedal.

[@erikvincent5846]

Michal is correct. That's the power supply. R10 is there to put a slight voltage drop on the power, going into the bulk capacitors. The large one is just for bulk, so that the circuit doesn't have any power lags, and the smaller one is to filter noise on the line. It then goes to a set of resistors that are used as voltage dividers. This is so we can make a 4.5V reference to bias our op-amp in the circuit.

[@rafaelsolis6845]

Thank you 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@stephenheise6995]

This was a really helpful video - thanks! One thing I'm curious about. "Can't typically use buffers at the begining or end of a fuzz because it will mess with the sound" - why is that? What happens if you put a pedal before the fuzz that has an buffer on it's output? Is there somewhere I can read up on that issue?

[@FelipeGuiffra]

gold !

[@mohhie]

this is great!

[@ftomasi]

Maybe you can help me, i have in my bass pedalboard, at the begining of the signal chain a bass bif muff pi, that has two outputs, one affected by the fuzz and a dry out. Is possible to split the signal there and add in the wet signal some guitar pedal and re-join both signal paths before the preamp with the xlr out? An ABY switch usig two inputs and one output will do the trick? I've read somewere about phase isues, but i don't know what that means or how to solve it.

[@kigwaindierebeloutfitter2837]

nice!

[@Bob-Whiting]

Love the circuit diving, thank you so much! Have you done one on modding the N>UX HG-6 high gain distortion pedal. I could use some help cleaning that bitch up some!

[@adamjarabak]

Hi, Im planning making diy guitar pedal as my ECE final exam project, what pedal you think is good for it ? My proffesor told me it should be multi fx, but I dont know how to program so if its possible to do it without programming

[@adronsro]

Some PT2399 Stuff. You can make all sorty of stuff with it. Delay, reverb, chorus,....

[@adamjarabak]

@@adronsro is it possible to make chorus, reverb, delay with PT2399 in one pedal ?

[@adronsro]

@@adamjarabak Yes, but youll need 3 PT2399 chips. If you want a multieffect i would recommend FV-1. Something like JHS VCR.

[@adamjarabak]

@@adronsro But FV-1 need to be programmed, without program it wont work :/

[@erikvincent5846]

@@adamjarabak It is true, you can write your own EEPROM code for the FV-1 to use, but it does have an internal ROM that has 8 pre-programmed effects already in there. They are actually really good. If those are all you intend to play with, then no programming is required.

[@nicksregor4208]

He got the big muff cap values reversed too... NY version has way bigger clipping circuit caps than the green Russian! Look it up!

[@erikvincent5846]

Yeah, I did goof that.

[@electronicornpartypus3948]

Will the blend mod work on a Tube Screamer? I love the mid-heavy Motörhead clang from my TS but I also want to blend it with my clean signal

[@erikvincent5846]

Yep, a blend circuit would apply to a Tube Screamer rather well.

[@electronicornpartypus3948]

@@erikvincent5846 Thank you for your help. This is so cool and kind of you. I'm very much a beginner at pedal modding and this video is *extremely* helpful. I have just a few more questions if you'd be so kind. The Bulldozer schematic seems the closest to a Tube Screamer because they both have input & output buffers, but the Bulldozer uses ICs and the TS uses transistors. 1. Is the first blend method the right one for a TS? And 2. If so, how would I wire that up?

[@javirojas92]

Sorry, I'm an absolute noob on making pedals, but I'm trying mods on a bazz fuss. So i think the best way to blend it is the parallel lpb1 circuit to have a clean signal pot with no buffer. But i have a question: can you put a drive for example on parallel with a fuzz with this method? So i can try two bazz fuss circuits, one with led diode and other with the standard bazz fuss diode and blend both?

[@erikvincent5846]

That will work, so long as both "pedals" have the same level of inversion. So, in your example, you'll be fine, as they are two of the exact type of topologies. However, what you can't have is two "pedals", one with a single inverting op-amp, and one with a non-inverting op-amp, because when you go to blend, they will cancel each other out.

[@javirojas92]

@@erikvincent5846 Thanks! I think i'll try it soon!

[@javirojas92]

@@erikvincent5846 I'm thinking of putting some sort of low pass filter for the clean bass blend i want. I hope it works with less phase/polarity problems

[@FilipeDGuedes]

Why can't we use buffers in a fuzz circuit?

[@erikvincent5846]

Though its not true with "every" fuzz circuit, a good chunk of them, when a buffer is before the pedal, it will cause the fuzz to sound thin or weak. It is because it needs to see a high impedance signal at the input in order to work correctly. As we need a buffer at the input to split a signal like we use in a classic "buff n' bend" circuit, this causes a problem.

[@FilipeDGuedes]

@@erikvincent5846 so could a simple boss pedal before the fuzz ruin it's sound? What about putting resistor after the buffer?

[@erikvincent5846]

@@FilipeDGuedes Placing a Boss pedal, which will have a buffer, wouldn't help a fuzz. You could add a resistor, but to get the resistance it would be looking for, you'd need it to be a very large value, like 500k to 1meg. At this point, the sound is so attenuated, it becomes thin. Exactly as if there was a buffer behind it.

[@FilipeDGuedes]

@@erikvincent5846 thank you, dude

[@joseislanio8910]

@@erikvincent5846 a way to kinda fix this problem is adding a small transformer in the input. Normally it's a way to use fuzz circuits with active pup's. Not great though, as it weakens the signal a little bit, and adds noise.

[@riffwizardsupreme]

now all i need to figure out is a mid cut/boost and an f.a.c. for the doomiest bass fuzz.

[@erikvincent5846]

As of mid cut/boost, it all depends on what "mids" you are speaking of. Take a look at our Bulldozer pedal and how it cuts/boosts mids as an example.

[@stoatystoat174]

:)