Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Pi 2 review: all the low-end grind you could need?
$122/£124.99, ehx.com
You’d think at this point we’d have run out of things to say about the Big Muff circuit, but alas, it keeps on being relevant and interesting, despite its basic formula being pretty nailed-down for nearly 60 years at this point.
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The latest big development in the Big Muffverse was, of course, when Josh Scott teamed up with EHX to issue a hitherto unreleased version of the circuit – an early, unrealised variant of the dual-op-amp Big Muff Pi, warranting a big ol’ “2” on the box. It’s the sequel to the Big Muff!
Image: Press
Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff 2 – what is it?
So are we talking Terminator 2 or Jaws: The Revenge? Luckily, a little more of the former – like any good sequel, the Big Muff 2 keeps the core appeal of the original, while still jumping off into new territory. It is still a bunch of clipping gain-stages in a row, with a dual-filter tone control – but there’s a bunch of tonal tweaks that make it a compelling alternative to even the other op-amp variants of the circuit, perhaps most notably an extra pair of back-to-back clipping diodes in the first gain stage, where almost all other Big Muff variants only have clipping diodes on the second two (out of four total) gain stages.
Most important for today’s purposes, though, is the fact that the Big Muff 2’s altered layout did lead to a little more grind and thickness, making it primed to be worked into a new version of the Bass Big Muff Pi. Bass fuzzes are notoriously finicky to voice right – will this be a sustain-soaked success or a flubby mess?
There are two additional controls here when compared to the regular three-knob zero-switch Big Muff 2. There’s a clean blend control and a bass boost switch. The clean blend goes from no clean blend at all to fully clean – albeit still boosted by the pedal’s volume control to properly compete with the fuzz signal. There’s also a bass boost toggle switch, which does what you’d expect.
Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff 2 – usability and sounds on bass
Allow me, for a moment, to inject a little narrative into this review. Thanks to an incident involving my bassist’s car’s clutch dying a surprising and noisy death, he was left without access to his usual gear for a week. And so he had to play a gig with an improvised mini-pedalboard and the venue’s backline bass amplifier. In some ways, this laid a perfect test-ground for the Bass Big Muff 2 – it was his only source of distortion for a set that very much needs bass distortion.
The sounds this pedal can create are nothing short of fantastic – through an affordable MarkBass head set dead clean and a 1×15” cab, it provided a thunderous amount of low-end, even with the distortion maxed out. The clean blend was very welcome for the sake of retaining this low-end and clarity, and also midrange – the Big Muff 2 still keeps a version of the famous Big Muff tone stack, infamous for making your sound disappear in a busy band mix, but here, the boosted clean sound bolsters the sharp, singing saturation of the distorted side of the pedal. And so in what is perhaps one of its most crucial environments – on the board of a bassist in a doom metal band – the Bass Big Muff 2 more than does the job.
Image: Press
Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff 2 – usability and sounds on guitar
Now, just because it says ‘bass’ on the box, that doesn’t stop us from having a little six-string fun. The pedal’s bass-friendly features are just as handy for accentuating the tones of any electric guitar, not just a doomy downtuned one. The Big Muff circuit has a reputation for completely removing all hope of complex chord voicings; however, the presence of the clean blend lets you bring some of that back in some unconventional ways.
With a light overdrive in front of the pedal the clean blend is then mixing between this light overdrive and the sound of a bassy Big Muff, tightened and boosted by an overdrive pedal – it’s a really cool combo – if your amp has the headroom to deal with the sound as is, it’s a unique parallel drive sound. If it doesn’t, it’s an equally unique over-fuzzed tone. For six-string use the bass-boost switch will very much need to remain off, as with a guitar amp it’s likely a one-way ticket to flub town, but the overall voice of the pedal is still interesting in a non-bass context.
Image: Press
Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff 2 – should I buy one?
As a “sequel” to the original bass Big Muff, this new pedal does indeed elevate the formula. Whereas previous iterations had some of these elements, the “dry” switch was a binary toggle. The clean blend knob brings in a very cool feature from the Deluxe variant of the pedal, adds it seamlessly to the affordable single-stomp version, and uses a new Muff variant that works fantastically for bass. In that regard, it’s pretty successful.
It also manages to dodge the previous curse of EHX’s bass-focused Muffs, in that it’s actually a pretty good-looking pedal – the less said about the original’s shade of green and border of unfinished metal or the deluxe’s faux-crackle, the better. EHX has also recently started knurling their knobs, meaning you can actually turn them in the middle of a sweaty gig, which is good!
Is it for everyone? Well, it is still ultimately a Big Muff-derived thing – and even with the clean blend in play, tonal subtlety is still hard to wrangle out of it. Fans of a tasteful smattering of overdrive will find the fuzz side of the pedal quickly getting too distorted. But if you like that thick, sludgy distortion – then you’re in luck.
Bass Big Muff 2 – alternatives
If you’re the kind of person who wants flexibility above all, the Way Huge Pork And Pickle ($199/£189) is a cool two-mode bass-friendly fuzz/overdrive combo with a clean blend, and can go from subtle to saturated. If you’re the kind of person who just wants a straightforward bass-friendly overdrive without the bells and whistles, the EQD Blumes ($129/£124.99) will have you covered. And if you’re the kind of person who lights cigars with burning $100 bills and employs a dedicated monocle polisher, then you could look into the Walrus Audio Mantle ($749.99/£719) for a bit of bass saturation.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
