[king_buzzo]

on which songs do they use the blue box (mxr octave thingy) on?? i wanna hear how that thing sounds.

also whats the base of thrustons tone? big muff?

[next step]

you can hear it on the first part of the vid of Kool Thing here: http://www.leeranaldo.net/starfieldroad/Pages/sound.htm

then he uses the blue on 1000leaves/wildflower.....but it seems to my ears that they use the blue box more for live performances especially for white climax or quite noisy moments though.

about the tone, I think he plays mainly in the lead channel near the crunch of his peaveys with SY, then the main dist pedal could be the turbo rat cause it does not affect the sound in brutal way. He uses the big muff mainly for high noisy moments I think.......

[king_buzzo]

ok thanks. that video wont load

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It should be work........it works on my computer....

[DoubleNickels]

I know the end of "Ineffable Me" is DEFINITLY distortion+blue box

[spirale]

try to listen to the beginning of "anagrama"...pure blue box theory!

[CHOUT]

Cool. I was kind of curious about this too before. Just got an MXR Dyna Comp that I dig.

[shentov]

you get new stuff like every week. bastrard.

[thegrump]

[quote=king_buzzo]on which songs do they use the blue box (mxr octave thingy) on?? i wanna hear how that thing sounds.

So ya wanna know one way the Blue Box can sound? (kind of the way it was meant to sound, rather than the fun funny noise way it can be used.) Led Zepp's song "Fool in the Rain", the guitar solo is 100 % Blue Box.

The real King Buzzo of the Melvins also used the Blue Box, then later DOD made a similar pedal for him called The Buzz Box. I think that may have broken down and he went back to his original Blue Box. I had an original 70s Blue Box I bought used in the late 80s for $35. It was cool, though I sold it when I got bored, a not so bright move. I say that because I bought a reissue one in the mid 90s and used it for a while, and while I liked it, it did not have the same tone (or quite as much low octave madness factor) as the original 70s era Blue Box I had once. Also, the original one had way more output, it could STOMP! The reissue did better when boosted by my Carl Martin compressor. My recomendation is that if one has the cash, shell out for the original non-LED version, probably would cost $200 or so on the vintage market, but trust me, it's more over the top. Wish I had kept that one. You see, some vintage effects use certain transistors, op-amps, etc, that are not available now. So the "reissuse" often do not sound exactly like the originals (unless you are buying a handmade boutique pedal replica, where someone has taken up the task to try and locate vintage parts, something a large company like Dunlop can't and won't do.) This is one of the reasons I won't get rid of my late 70s era Big Muff, the new ones are good, but don't sound exactly like it (close, though.) In regards to the Blue Box, I also think they (Dunlop) tried to "tame" the newer Blue Box to make it a little more user friendly, and lowered the output too much (probably to avoid risk of speaker damage.)


What I do have that is fun and gives some simular moments is a Rocktron Purple Haze pedal. It combines a low-octave (simular to a Orberheim octave synth sound) with an octave up like an Octavia, you can combine the two sounds, and it's total Robert Fripp mid-70s King Krimson prog fuzz fun.

[scott v]

I have a blue box that is sorta fucked... i did the mod (highly recommended! as it increases treble response and gain that seems to be missing on the reissues) that greatly enhances the tone, but now it really reacts detrementally with my guitar sustain/tone when in my pedal chain (i was able to isolate the problem to the blue box byt pluggin all my pedals in one by one) even when the pedal is not engaged it cuts/clips off any resonating sustained note that i play, i put in a new battery and still does it. so i don't use this in my guitar effects chain anymore, i still do use it when i plug a walkman or my FM3 Buddha Machine Soundbox thru it between songs during my bands live sets.

[thegrump]

Did this happen after the mod? A properly working pedal should not do that, so maybe you messed something up with the mod, or maybe the mod just does that, which makes the Blue Box useable only for recording (or for you Soundbox noise fests.)

[next step]

Originally Posted by scott v

I have a blue box that is sorta fucked... i did the mod (highly recommended! as it increases treble response and gain that seems to be missing on the reissues) that greatly enhances the tone, but now it really reacts detrementally with my guitar sustain/tone when in my pedal chain (i was able to isolate the problem to the blue box byt pluggin all my pedals in one by one) even when the pedal is not engaged it cuts/clips off any resonating sustained note that i play, i put in a new battery and still does it. so i don't use this in my guitar effects chain anymore, i still do use it when i plug a walkman or my FM3 Buddha Machine Soundbox thru it between songs during my bands live sets.

hey scott I think it's the mod cause it's the same to me too. cutting freq. Maybe I'll try to mod it again with a true bypass but to do that I have to enlarge the box cause the reissue it's not so easy to modify.

[scott v]

i have had a feeling its the mod, which is basically clipping one of the leads to the C11 capacitor... because you're right it should not do this and it didn't always do this (before the mod it was fine) its an easy fix for me as i never actually removed the cap, so i can just open it and resolder... though next step is probably in the right direction by giving it true bypass since as far asi know most if not all of the mxr reissues are NOT truebypass.

this is the link to the mod, though i did not do the switchable (mod/unmod) aspect...
http://www.noisefx.com/article/mxr_blue_box_mod