“You got fuzz in my bass tone!” “You got bass tone in my fuzz!” Bass and fuzz really are two great tastes that taste great together. But the age-old trade off that comes with drenching a bass with fuzz tone is usually a drop in the air-moving goodness that makes a bass a bass. So, what if there were a way to crush great fuzzy sounds and keep the bump moving at the same time? Such are the capabilities of the new Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Pi 2 pedal.
The Bass Big Muff Pi 2 has regal lineage—rooted in a fuzz that many bass players consider the best for their particular line of work. Various versions of the Big Muff have been used by bassists like Flea, Bootsy Collins, and John Paul Jones, to name just a few. And the tones these gentlemen produced exemplify the Big Muff’s wide range of capabilities, from a slight bite to downright raucous. How does one improve on such goodness? Simple—research and passion, which are what led Josh Scott of JHS to the notebooks of Bob Myer, the co-inventor of the original Big Muff. Bob designed a circuit that never made it into production, and Josh decided it was time to make his ideas into reality.
Pie for 2
Sitting in a svelte, compact housing, the Bass Big Muff Pi 2 is a straightforward and easy-to-use affair. Pi = 3.1412, which is about how many seconds it took for me to dial in a great tone. Dual op-amps (which give the Bass Big Muff Pi 2 its name) grind out subtle to aggressive tones, and a bass boost switch summons more low end when the fuzz overpowers the bass foundation. The blend knob makes the Bass Big Muff Pi 2 even more flexible, opening up tonal possibilities a conventional Big Muff cannot—enabling you to summon just the right amount of grunt and filth, and again, tame the fuzz when you need a more naked bass tone. Dial in 25 percent and you’re in the pop bass drive zone. At 75 percent you’ll rule the roost with fat, buzzing notes. Tone and sustain controls also help the BBMP 2 bloom to straight up doom. A delightful feature in this pedal is the latching/momentary switch. It’s brilliant for adding a fast blast of big bass when a song calls for it.
The Verdict
The tones on the Bass Big Muff Pi 2 are fantastic. And while this is a Big Muff pedal, I’d argue it lives in a space somewhere between fuzz and overdrive. In a perfect world, this pedal would live on my pedalboard indefinitely — a versatile, footprint- and budget-friendly alternative to its big brother.
