AinsleyWalker Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 Looking for a new fuzz and currently the Malekko Diabolik and Amptweaker TightFuzz Bass Jr are currently likely contenders. Any opinions on how they compare/contrast? Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisisswanbon Posted January 16, 2023 Share Posted January 16, 2023 17 hours ago, AinsleyWalker said: Looking for a new fuzz and currently the Malekko Diabolik and Amptweaker TightFuzz Bass Jr are currently likely contenders. Any opinions on how they compare/contrast? Cheers! No experience of of the Amptweaker, but I recently bought a Diabolik and returned it. They get amazing reviews by both critics and forum users, and the youtube videos sounded extactly what I was looking for... I just couldn't get anywhere near those sounds! I tried an 18V fender jazz in active and passive, a Harley Benton passive MB4, and a passive P bass, and all of them sounded thin and trebly unless there was more clean signal than I wanted to have. Even then, there wasn't the massive low end described by other users. A couple of guys on talkbass did say they had a similar experience. Again, take this with a pinch of salt as it could've been something I was doing. Then again, there's only so much you can do with 3 knobs! FWIW, I went back to my EHX Sovtek Deluxe big muff. Doesn't do the gated thing but it's got all sorts of fuzz tones and gets close to synthy territory with sweepable foot switchable mids, wicker control and clean blend. Might be worth checking out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AinsleyWalker Posted January 16, 2023 Author Share Posted January 16, 2023 (edited) 3 hours ago, thisisswanbon said: No experience of of the Amptweaker, but I recently bought a Diabolik and returned it. They get amazing reviews by both critics and forum users, and the youtube videos sounded extactly what I was looking for... I just couldn't get anywhere near those sounds! I tried an 18V fender jazz in active and passive, a Harley Benton passive MB4, and a passive P bass, and all of them sounded thin and trebly unless there was more clean signal than I wanted to have. Even then, there wasn't the massive low end described by other users. A couple of guys on talkbass did say they had a similar experience. Again, take this with a pinch of salt as it could've been something I was doing. Then again, there's only so much you can do with 3 knobs! FWIW, I went back to my EHX Sovtek Deluxe big muff. Doesn't do the gated thing but it's got all sorts of fuzz tones and gets close to synthy territory with sweepable foot switchable mids, wicker control and clean blend. Might be worth checking out. Thanks for the feedback! Makes sense to me, my main concern with the Diabolik was to do with the lack of control available. Apart from the Squish, there isn't much you can do to tweak. The Amptweaker seems to offer a lot more flexibility in a similar footprint. The EHX Sovtek Deluxe big muff looks decent, just a bit big for my current setup unfortunately! Edited January 16, 2023 by AinsleyWalker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted January 16, 2023 Share Posted January 16, 2023 Definitely helps with the Diabolik to run a passive bass direct in, then the clean tone sounds really dark and bassy. Flick to active, or put any buffered pedal in front, and the clean tone sounds thinner and full range. I’ve not used the Amptweaker either, but seems more versatile, perhaps a bit more utilitarian / vanilla / boring. Whereas the Diabolik might be more limited but it has an incredible sound that you might struggle to replicate and it’s more likely to generate bass face. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisisswanbon Posted January 17, 2023 Share Posted January 17, 2023 8 hours ago, dannybuoy said: Definitely helps with the Diabolik to run a passive bass direct in, then the clean tone sounds really dark and bassy. Flick to active, or put any buffered pedal in front, and the clean tone sounds thinner and full range. I’ve not used the Amptweaker either, but seems more versatile, perhaps a bit more utilitarian / vanilla / boring. Whereas the Diabolik might be more limited but it has an incredible sound that you might struggle to replicate and it’s more likely to generate bass face. I did try this also, although the only things I had in front of it on my board were a true bypass tuner and true bypass 3 Leaf octabvre mini... I had very similar results with all 3 basses when the pedal was the only thing in the chain. You're right though, I still watch the JMJ demo on youtube and the bass face comes out every time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AinsleyWalker Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 On 16/01/2023 at 23:42, dannybuoy said: Definitely helps with the Diabolik to run a passive bass direct in, then the clean tone sounds really dark and bassy. Flick to active, or put any buffered pedal in front, and the clean tone sounds thinner and full range. Makes sense, hear that's the case for a lot of fuzzes. Though the only person I've seen running a Diabolik (Dishan Abrahams) on their board had it last (see switcher)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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