Got my first fooger last week, the freqbox, for use with my active bass. It sounds great when I run a gated fuzz into it- but… when I turn up the drive on the fooger, or the output from the fuzz (orange/red LED territory), the freqbox produces a single murmur after a very brief delay immediately after I stop playing (string totally muted). There is NO noise when the freqbox is bypassed (ie. gated fuzz only). What is causing this? Does anyone else run a gated fuzz into the freqbox? Mine is a Chunk Systems Brown Dog.
Could it have something to do with the gate? How could i correct it?
Umm, turn the drive down when you increase the fuzz? The 107 is a very picky animal. Adjust parameters with caution, or it will send you to outer space.
What are the other settings on the FB? Does it happen when set to sine wave or square wave for example… I’ve noticed artifacts if you will with this combination in the past, however, the fuzz box is usually the source, and the FB just the amplifier. You could try a compressor or noise gate in between the two and see how that changes things.
I have tried using a compressor between the gated fuzz and FB, to no avail. Perhaps i will try a noise gate. But there is no noise coming out of the fuzz that would cause the murmur, so i dont know what I would be trying to achieve… I am afraid to say that I am ignorant of how these things work- could the gated fuzz be sending a voltage that doesnt cause sound output, but that triggers the FB? Stabbing in the dark here…
And yes, the murmur happens whatever waveform/ frequency/ envelope is used, it just changes its tone accordingly. And it happens whenever the LED lights up, whether the drive on the FB is increased, or whether the fuzz is increased. So i am stuck with washy tones when i want ballsy tones! And it makes no difference if my bass in in active or passive.
Try just the freqbox in the signal path… Ie bass → FB → amp and see if it’s there.
Essentially what you said is what I’m wondering - if there is an unexpected sound source like a hum in your signal path that is causing the FB to activate, making the sound you hear. This would be a noticeable sound with the drive led running in the red, and probably less likely to happen with the drive led running in the green.
Isolate the FB, try different drive levels and see what happens. Do you only have one bass? How about access to another amp / computer…
Im pretty sure its the fuzz. I can replicate the sound by twisting the output knob on the fuzz box, even hough no sound is produced when the FB is bypassed. I dont really get it. Well, thanks for your help, I will turn my attentions to the fuzz
