MXR M287 Sub Octave Bass Fuzz Pedal Reviews

I like this pedal a lot. It boosts your volume immensely. This can be good and bad. Even with everything dialed back to zero, it acts like a very hot dirty boost. I personally like this and I leave it on all the time, dialed to zero because it just makes my P bass sing in a very warm, analog fashion. The octave on it is not analog. It creates a sort of square wave an octave below your note. Sort of like a POG, but more aggressive. It is definitely much more than a toy if you know what you want and how to tweak it. It has saved space on my pedalboard and on general, its very well made as all MXR products are.

I"m a big, big fan of this pedal. The red light fuzz sound is very muffish, but a little sizzly for my taste. I rock the blue light fuzz all the time. It"s a super aggressive, almost gated fuzz - reminiscent of a Mastotron. Interestingly my two favorite settings are with the gain at about 2 o"clock (just wild), and then the gain almost rolled off - both very usable sounds that sit well in a mix. Being able to fine tune the mids on the clean signal is cool, but I"ve found that with my particular bass if I turn the mid dial even just a smidgen past noon it starts to get pretty honky.
What can I say about the octave? It"s great! As a long time user and huge fan of the M288 I was excited that that is what was specifically used in this pedal. Sure, it does track well below a G in the E string.. but seriously, who actually needs it to?
Overall, I can"t say enough good things about the sounds you can get out of this pedal and the layout of the controls is fantastic. If I could only ever have three pedals on my board, no matter the gig, this will always be one of them.
So, why the 3.5 star review? This was/is a big deal for me, and it"s something I"m still wrestling with - you cannot engage the octave without the fuzz being engaged.. as in, you cannot use the octave independently from the fuzz. You can use the fuzz independently from the octave, but not vice versa. Maybe this is addressed somewhere and I just missed it, but it was super disappointing to discover upon receiving the pedal. Maybe MXR figured that if somebody wants the pure octave sound without the fuzz they"d have an M288, but I think it makes the octave side of this pedal significantly less usable. Unfortunately I had already gotten rid of my M288 before receiving this pedal, and debated returning this pedal but I just love the fuzz so much. For now I cam get an octave without fuzz sound by engaging both switches and turning the fuzz level all the way down, but I really wish I didn"t have to.

Decent fuzz tones, but the volume output, erroneously labeled as 'Fuzz', is fairly limited in actual output db. Readily outpaced in this regard by some other bass fuzz pedals out there. The overall fuzz could, and should, also be way more dense than what this puts out. So, not bad on the whole, but truly needs to go back to the bench by the MXR design team for further modifications before it can be considered that useful.

Its hard for me to rate this, my first review was bad I didn't like it at all, my problem with this pedal is the volume drop, You turn on both the sub octave and fuzz it sounds good real good. My main problem you turn one of them off rather it is the Fuzz or octave there is such a volume drop big time, and its whole character changes. if i was going to keep it, i would just use it both together. I don't know yet, part of me wants to send it back part don't. But once again use each effect separate volume lost and each sound awful , but You could just leave the octave and fuzz on its great. I just don't know. My friend Ben Porter you can delete the first review this is the one I wanted to get across. I am going to give it a couple more days and see.

I have reviewed this pedal a view times. I liked it then didn't. Like after using it a while then at church were I play . I find you can't keep it under control, it's loud all the time. The pedal is like having 2 pedals in one. My problem is one doesn't sound good are works good with out the other. And again it's almost uncontrollable, it only sounds good loud. It also drove our sound man crazy, it was noisy through the board even off, evidently it not quite a true bypass. I am hoping Sweetwater will take it back, and I am just going to go back, to what I call a short board. A delay, Keeley Bassist, and TC Electronic poly tuner. If they will let me , I would like to trade it for a Kala U bass. But I must say I don't buy any where else but Sweetwater they are wonderful. And this is going to be my last review on this pedal, for me it just don't work for what I play and do.

With all the respect but I'm very disappointed. A lot of fiddling and frustration. Low end notes are unusable. I don't understand why this pedal that sounds more like a toy.... Really? With this money I would instead buy a whole amplifier combo with speakers and some effects included. I regret this buy.