If you like your fuzz measured in megatonnage, the Death By AudioFuzz War is one of life’s great joys. And if you’re a bass player with similar predilections and accustomed to watching guitar players have all the fun, the new DBA Bass War will be sweet revenge.
The original Fuzz War is a creatively twisted derivative of the Colorsound Supa Tone Bender But while you can hear some family resemblance among the Tone Bender, the Fuzz War, and Bass War, the latter is a very different animal indeed. I’m pretty sure it’s louder than the Fuzz War (holy #@*!). The fuzz is also much brighter than a Fuzz War, which sounded positively muddy by comparison.
That means a bass player has lightyears of headroom and range within which to shape their tone. And for such a loud, hectic pedal, it can be really precise and surgical. The experience of reshaping fuzz sounds is made easier, more fun, and much more expressive for the oversized outboard tone and fuzz controls, which can be swept with your toe to achieve wild filter effects. Along with the cutting fuzz tonalities, that lends the Bass War an almost synth-like feel and functionality. The pedal also responds in interesting ways to bass volume and tone attenuation: Lower bass volume generates less compressed, more focused, but still very insane tones that can be boosted to superheated levels with the pedal’s volume knob. Add in the dry/wet mix knob, which lends exponentially more complexity and range to the Bass War’s voice, and you’re talking about an exceedingly varied and evil fuzz device. Oh ... it sounds freaking amazing with guitar, too—yielding psychotically piercing lead tones, vintage biker fuzz, and vicious punk and metal grind. Wow.
