Mask Audio Electronics

[Ghost Hip]

Anyone able to explain how the Cascader compares to the rest of the MAE lineup?

Alec told me this was his and Ian's ode to the unique characteristics of the old ehx double muff, with their own fun twists. For me the base sound is sonically between fuzz and distortion and it kind of acts like an overdrive in terms of how you can manipulate gain/dynamics with your guitar's volume knob. Compared to Yes/No/Maybe it's not a very devi ever/octavia/oscillation fight with you pedal. I think outside of the Rat circuits he has done, this is the most distortiony of the fuzzes.

Settings:

No Yuh: it is a pretty straight ahead medium gain muff sound. More of a flat EQ cloudy distortion/fuzz than a scooped aggressive compressed fuzz, which makes it more versatile in the sense that it sounds solid in any set up. Makes me think of those fuzzy indie rock bands from the 2010s like Yuck. but yeah you can use a muff circuit for anything, it's 2024.

No Yuh w/ Cascade: more gain means more hum to buck buddy, rip a solo, play with feedback, annoy your roommate.

Yuh: Very gated fuzz. Could be cool in a chain, but on its own you have to strum moderately hard to get things to come through with average pickup output. This mode is useless with my Ovation Preacher stock pickups.

Yuh w/ Cascade: now we're talkin'. you're playing lead in a detroit garage rock band at a dive bar in hamtramck, you got the middle slot on the gig and the crowds high tide and feeling it, why not lay a little Ty Segall shred sesh on the locals? wow, everyone loved that.... ahem anyways in this setting it's giving death by audio apocalypse pedal energy.

My one complaint? I wish the foot switch went between by two favorite settings. No Yuh/No Cascade to Yuh+Cascade, because it'd be a perfect rhythm fuzz with a nasty lead switch.

[Gone Fission]

Huh. I might to have to ask Alec for broad details without giving up the whole schematic to have a guess at suitability for me. The schematic I see of the Double Muff looks like two of the earlier transistor Muff Fuzz, a very simple fuzzstortion thing with a couple cascaded transistor with a pair of hard clippers after. The Big Muff is an evolution but developed the concept further than just stacking two—it does the soft clipper stages and that tone stack. Based on my meh vibes on Tubescreamers, it could even be that the soft clipping is a bigger issue for me than the tone stack. But what you’re describing of the touch response seems maybe in my zone. Maybe?

[gila_crisis]

Anybody here happens to have (or has had experiences with) Black and/or Civil Maths?
What can you say me about these? How do they differ and any similarities?

[shikawkee]

Anybody here happens to have (or has had experiences with) Black and/or Civil Maths?
What can you say me about these? How do they differ and any similarities?

I had both at one time or another. As I remember, the Civil was more Russian-based Muff? Black was a little more crunchy/cutting in a good way.
Anyways, they were both great but just didn't fit my rig at the time. Both were fairly massive and well-tuned.
A step above most Muff clones IMO.

[gila_crisis]

Anybody here happens to have (or has had experiences with) Black and/or Civil Maths?
What can you say me about these? How do they differ and any similarities?

I had both at one time or another. As I remember, the Civil was more Russian-based Muff? Black was a little more crunchy/cutting in a good way.
Anyways, they were both great but just didn't fit my rig at the time. Both were fairly massive and well-tuned.
A step above most Muff clones IMO.

Thanks for the feedback! I was checking them out lately and yes, from the demo I was able to see, also to me the Black sounds more edgy and cutting.

[oldangelmidnight]

Black is based on a NYC Muff and designed to get a Jack White kind of tone.

[BitchPudding]

^^^^^^^^

I've been using my Black Math since Alec introduced the Peppermint color scheme variant. It rips. I boost it with my Super Overdrive for pretty much every big distortion sound my band does but it rips alone as well. I dunno what else to say other than its my favorite big muff variant. It just w o r k s.

I have an NYC and a Black Russian in my collection. It beats both of those.

[gila_crisis]

^^^^^^^^

I've been using my Black Math since Alec introduced the Peppermint color scheme variant. It rips. I boost it with my Super Overdrive for pretty much every big distortion sound my band does but it rips alone as well. I dunno what else to say other than its my favorite big muff variant. It just w o r k s.

I have an NYC and a Black Russian in my collection. It beats both of those.

The more I watch the demo, the more I think the Black over the Civil may do some wonderful mess with my baritone guitar and synths!

Btw I wrote with Alec, to ask if it would be possible to mod a Black Math to have the double gain boost of the Civil, and he told, t's something he would like to do, but not now...

[BitchPudding]

Oh man, that would be something else alright. The boost on it right now is already a lot in the best way.

Or just get Black Math and Civil Math and run them together. Double Math, call it an equation.