New Pumpkins-Inspired Fuzz: Plume

[V_____]

Let's just get out of the way that this is not a muff variant. It's the result of some very fruitful breadboard tinkering and inspiration.

However, it does have that huge wall of fuzz sound as on early Smashing Pumpkins recordings. My approach was to aim for something closer to the very raw sounds on Pisces Iscariot than the more polished sounds of other Pumpkins albums and this is what I came up with:

https://soundcloud.com/shoepedals2/sets ... z-smashing

Not sure I captured the full impact of it in the room, really, but this is a very explosive fuzz when you step on it and works well both with cleaner amps and dirty amps. I've even gotten good results with the high gain channel of my JCM type amps.

Controls: Volume, Tone (non-muff style. Treble rolloff only for a wooly and not very mid scooped sound), High and Low Saturation Modes Footswitchable, Gain, High Saturation Voicing Switch.
Price: $145 to USA

[Tristan]

Sounds really nice!

[Seizurema]

How midsy/scooped can the pedal get?

The samples sound really intriguing. I play bass and need to keep my mids intact/boost the poop out of them with dirt.

[V_____]

You can get pretty much flat mids in the alternate voicing mode (there's actually only a low pass filter active in that mode as far as tone shaping goes. It's also something I could alter to have different voicings in the higher gain mode. Part of the circuit is sort of like a fixed setting on a muff-type tone control with rather different values than on a muff. Those spots on the PCB can also be wired up to knobs or set to whatever voicing I want, really, by altering values.

The PCB for this is in transit so they should arrive relatively soon I'd think. I've been trying to do as much building on PCB as possible lately to help speed up orders.

[CBA]

This sounds pretty darn good. I have an origianl V5 IC Big Muff that is the fuzz love of my life. I don't care for the Pumpkins beyond some Siamese Dream, but the IC Muff sound is exactly what I've always wanted.

Your fuzz here sounds great! What's the diff between the high saturation and low saturation?

C

[V_____]

High saturation is more intended for cleaner amps and adds an extra gain stage. Lower saturation seems to work better with some dirty amps but it's also just generally a lower gain mode.

This pedal isn't actually an IC muff though, just to clarify. It's actually not a muff at all, really.

[V_____]

My PCBs have arrived!
Made some alterations to the pedal's voicing while building up the first one and i think it sounds pretty awesome. Now the pedal has a lot more bass content but you have a knob to dial it in between a lot of bass and less bass than it had originally.
Sounds explosive!

https://soundcloud.com/shoepedals2/shoe ... saturation
https://soundcloud.com/shoepedals2/shoe ... e-and-bass
https://soundcloud.com/shoepedals2/shoe ... ation-mode

[Seizurema]

Oooo. Bass samples?

Definitely into the "more bass" option. I'm heavily considering one for a slightly-less oppressive (than the Earthbound Supercollider [which has a distinctly doomy flavor throughout it's range]), gazey-thick fuzz for the Rickenbacker.

(.. 'm worried about my mids, maan..)

[V_____]

I don't think mids will be a problem. I haven't done a clip of it on bass yet but I had a friend try it out on his legitimate bass rig (my closest thing to a bass amp is an old 60s bassman) and it sounded super huge.

I can see how the bassman handles it, though.