CMC Audio Bi-Filter Fuzz (BFF)

[Sibob]

Some of you will have seen that CMC Audio have today released their new Fuzz pedal, which integrates an envelope filter into the sound.

 

 

I’ve had it for a little while now as I happened to get chatting to Christoph about fuzz pedals around the time this was around 90% developed.

 

FWIW, I paid for mine, so this is not a marketing spin, I just wanted to start the conversation around it as I believe it deserves all the exposure it can get! 
 

I made a very quick video for Instagram this lunchtime haha, with a single tone:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPguOWSiO9J/?igsh=Z3pkcnk4c2V3NDk5

 

And I know Si Francis and a few others also put out vids, which I (or someone else) can post below.

 

Cheers

Si

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:01 by Sibob

[Sibob]

 

 

 

[admiralchew]

I've been really looking forward to this one. The demos make it sound capable of a ridiculous variety of tones. The low gain settings sound thick and some of the wilder ones sound very useable for synth bass. This strikes me as the first real competitor to the Doom 2 (but I'd be keen to hear @Sibob and @pilotbicycles's experiences) so it'll be interesting to see how things play out.

[lowmid]

hello guys, Christophe from CMC Audio here, thanks for the kind words! I hope you'll like this one, I'm here if you have any questions.

[pilotbicycles]

Jumping in here - it's an incredible pedal.
Similarly, I paid for mine, so no spin from me.

Proper exciting pedal. Had chats with @lowmid early on in the development, and have been anxious for it's release from the first peek.

If you can bare me wattling on for almost half an hour, I put what was intended to be a quick video together here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/botmadte9s3tanj39p9e0/BFF-Demo-Manual.mp4?rlkey=hzkmpppncumlkkuikwqqeox8g&st=6if3icnw&dl=0

It ended up being a fairly extensive video-manual type thing, trying to explore as much of the pedal as I could. Hopefully this will be helpful for people.
The expression input has so many possibilities within, and I plan to do some more videos exploring that side of things more.

 

It's very easy to use the expression input to have easy access to two different sounds as well - e.g. with upward envelope modulation you can have a squelchy/synthy sound with expression at heel down, and then with the expression fully opening the filter you have a more standard/straight-forward fuzz.

 

Does the synth thing very very well with an octave before. 

I'd encourage exploring modulation before the pedal too, as the way it interacts with the envelope follower can be really rewarding for some very animated tones.

 

The Peak filter is the secret sauce as well - really sets the voice of the pedal. Peak gain at minimum will help for exploring those low gain tones, but you can also boost the peak frequency to bring out higher harmonics, or just get things super slice-y.

Happy to try and grab basic video/audio of anything people want to see/hear as well.

 

 

[lowmid]

@pilotbicycles thank you Simon!
For all you Basschatters: I scratched Simon's mind a lot on this one. it started with the name: Bi Filter? yeah peaking filter and Low pass filter in a pedal. I love the peaking filter to tune the fuzz harmonics, and the Low pass filter is all the lovely moog/MS20 sounds+ the envelope as the cherry on top!

Go watch the dropbox vid, it really explains this well!

 

 

[HoorayForAnonyms]

8 hours ago, pilotbicycles said:

Jumping in here - it's an incredible pedal.
Similarly, I paid for mine, so no spin from me.

Proper exciting pedal. Had chats with @lowmid early on in the development, and have been anxious for it's release from the first peek.

If you can bare me wattling on for almost half an hour, I put what was intended to be a quick video together here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/botmadte9s3tanj39p9e0/BFF-Demo-Manual.mp4?rlkey=hzkmpppncumlkkuikwqqeox8g&st=6if3icnw&dl=0

It ended up being a fairly extensive video-manual type thing, trying to explore as much of the pedal as I could. Hopefully this will be helpful for people.
The expression input has so many possibilities within, and I plan to do some more videos exploring that side of things more.

 

It's very easy to use the expression input to have easy access to two different sounds as well - e.g. with upward envelope modulation you can have a squelchy/synthy sound with expression at heel down, and then with the expression fully opening the filter you have a more standard/straight-forward fuzz.

 

Does the synth thing very very well with an octave before. 

I'd encourage exploring modulation before the pedal too, as the way it interacts with the envelope follower can be really rewarding for some very animated tones.

 

The Peak filter is the secret sauce as well - really sets the voice of the pedal. Peak gain at minimum will help for exploring those low gain tones, but you can also boost the peak frequency to bring out higher harmonics, or just get things super slice-y.

Happy to try and grab basic video/audio of anything people want to see/hear as well.

 

 

I was interested in this pedal before. I’m really interested now having watched your video. Thanks so much for putting together such a thorough overview. Really helpful! 

[fretless bob]

I got one as well, I found some pretty awesome sounds on it relatively quickly and most importantly… it’s pushed the doom 2 off my board 😵

 

which I was surprised as it’s been a mainstay since I got it whenever they released, but the BFF does the things we all love about the doom and so much more. 
 

I prefer the feel of it while playing, soemthing much more even feeling about the bff. 
 

Dave

[pantherairsoft]

Very tempted. It reminds me of aspects of some other pedal's I've loved over the years, most namely the Tech 21 Red Ripper, and the Fuzzrocious Croak, but certainly has its own flavour.

I sense a purchase incoming.

Edited 2 hours ago by pantherairsoft

[lowmid]

3 hours ago, fretless bob said:

I got one as well, I found some pretty awesome sounds on it relatively quickly and most importantly… it’s pushed the doom 2 off my board 😵

 

which I was surprised as it’s been a mainstay since I got it whenever they released, but the BFF does the things we all love about the doom and so much more. 
 

I prefer the feel of it while playing, soemthing much more even feeling about the bff. 
 

Dave

thank you Dave!