MXR M-181 Bass Blowtorch Overdrive

The knobs are pretty straightforward and it's easy to get a nice sound, but harder to find a range that isn't already occupied by your guitarist. It's nice to have this much EQ and a blend control on a bass fuzz though - really comes in handy for that sort of thing. They've thought about this pedal.

I'm giving this a 10 because it's typical MXR - noise-free and workmanlike. While it does what it does very well, this score doesn't mean it's all the fuzz you'll ever need. It's a very smooth, hi-fi sounding fuzz with lots of tone options. I hate to describe a fuzz as "synthy"... Note that it won't give you those wooly n' wild vintage fuzz tones though so if that's what you want then look elsewhere. Interesting results to be had with modulation effects after it.

I don't trust the switch on the side, it looks flimsy. Everything else should be reliable though.

I don't think this would ever be the only fuzz on my board, but it does cover modern sounds as well as any other fuzz I've had, and it plays nice with other pedals so it gets switched on a lot.

I have one of the original models with the [ Torch button } on the side instead of boost. Lots of sound variations that are not hard to dial in. Manual is pretty self explanitory like the pedal itself.

18vt electronics make this pedal very quiet at high volumes.
I have used it with a SWR Workingmans 15 and a Bassman 150 1X12.
Both amps have a high attentuator and the pedal is quiet even with the attentuators at max. This pedal is equivalent to the boutique Wooly Mammouth at half the price and with more sound shaping capabilities. I don't know how anyone could trash this pedal.
It does what it's suppose to plus some. It doesn't lose bottom end.

Built like a tank!
You could kill someone with this pedal.

Customer support is excellent! I e-mailed Dunlop explaining to them that I was having a hard time finding an 18 volt adapter for the pedal. They are sending me one for free! Awesome service!

I've been playing almost 10 yrs. and I have tried many bass OD's and distortions. This and the Wooly Mammouth are the only ones that really do their job. The Blowtorch being half the price and sonically more versatile gets my vote.

I've had this thing two days and got great sound out of it right away.
The knob are big and chunky and you can tweak them with your toe if you have monkey toes like me.

I, too wish the torch button was made of metal and on the top. But that's my only gripe.

When you crank up the gain you can definitely hear the difference between the mid switches, and I think where the mid switch is kinda determines how 'in your face' or 'in the mix' you are.

I love that I can dial in my clean tone and do the slap stuff that I do or play softer and get the fuzzy tones.

The thing fell off the top of my amp this morning and didn't even chirp.
It's build like a tank!

My band plays New-Wave/ Punk/ Funk and I think it's going to fit into my band nicely. But this would be a great pedal for a metal band (I have no idea what the complaints are about).

I've been playing bass about a year and I run a 350Watt modded GK head into a Lifetone Cab. I play an Ibanez Soundgear bass (for now)

If you're a Stoner Metal guy (Sabbathy, Cathedrally stuff) then this is the duck's nuts for you. Ditto if you play in an Industrial band. But really you can use the thing in a variety of situations. I'm trying to figure out how to work it in subtly (hahaha) wherever I can.

This thing can peel paint off walls and in my universe that's a nice damn thing. Watch your guitarists get pissed off when you have more crunchy fuzz than they do!

If it was stolen I'd have to buy a new one fo sho.

There are a lot of knobs, switches, and buttons but it is very hard to dial in a good sound. The mids switch only really sounds decent in the middle position, and like one reveiwer said it would be much nicer to have the torch button on the top. the 18 volts needed for power sucks too because it makes it imposible to easily power it up.

I was looking to get a good bass distortion to fill in the rythem on hard rock originals when the guitarist went off to solo. This pedal just sucked at it. It is very hissy and just creates a lot of muddy fuzz, no good overdrive or distortion at all. There are much better pedals out there for creating fuzz on bass as well.

seems very sturdy, except for the torch switch on the side. The tone was too bad for me to use it on a gig.

I play hard rock originals in the vein of disturbed, bls, alice in chains, and lacuna coil. The pedal is terrible for my style of music, and I think it would be for most other styles as well.
There are better fuzz pedals (EH nano metal muff, EH Big Muff) there are better distortions as well (the boss bass overdrive fills the role nicely)

My other bass gear consists of an epiphone thunderbird, peavey milenium 5 string, spector performer, boss bass limiter/ enhancer..tu-2..ph-3..bass overdrive, MXR phase 90, digitech digidelay, ampeg b2r, ampeg ba115, peavey tour 1x15" cab.

I'm trying to get rid of this pedal, I would never buy it again

7 : There are a lot of knobs to be turned, it is tricky to remember settings without writing them down.
I don??t like that they made the device run on 18 V...

9 : I love it. You don??t lose the bottom end (as MXR claims), you can make your bass sound like a chainsaw... which I like.
You can also get very synthy sounds, much like a vintage synthesizer. (e.g deeper underground by Jamiroquai)

9 : it??s a rock.

Never dealt with them.

9 : We play funkrock, it fits very well in our band.

Well - it's a bunch of knobs, switches and buttons. Not too difficult to figure out.

This pedal does one thing and one thing only. The distortion sounds like a chainsaw. I've never heard anything quite like it. If you're looking for some crusty old warm vintage fuzz sound, this is not the pedal for you. If you want a thick driving buzzsaw, this is it. It sounds downright evil, especially if you overdrive the tube pre in your amp as well. The problem is, it's not very versatile. I find that the most interesting sound is with most of the knobs/settings turned up all the way. Anything less, especially in the mid, treble, blend and gain knobs, yields a kind of muddy bland sound. That said, the distortion is amazing. It cuts right through the mix because it is tonally distinct from most guitar distortion. The other big plus - even with everything cranked, you don't get a lot of feedback. This has always been my problem with bass distortion. I've had to run a gate in front of everything and even then the feedback can take off on you if it's above the threshold. I'm a huge fan of this pedal but I'll give it an 8 for lack of versatility.

I've had mixed results with MXR guitar and bass pedals. Generally speaking they've been reliable but I've had problems with the M80 Bass DI and distortion + guitar pedals. I just bought this so I can't really give a fair assessment.

So so on the problems I've had before.

This pedal is essential to my bass sound. I love it. I play in a band that's sort of no-wave/thrash/garage and the bass really drives the entire band. The blowtorch makes my bass sit perfectly in the live mix without any loss on the low end.

The controls are pretty intuitive: it has a standard three-band eq, gain, blend, volume, variable mid switch, a fuzz-boost button ("torch") and an on/off switch. The only thing I don't like is the location of the torch botton, on the side of the pedal. I personally see no reason for it to be there, as it could have been located on top, which would have been great for switching between synth-like fuzz and distortion. And there's something else you should watch out for: changing many of the settings (especially the eq) changes the device??s output dramatically, so after any tweaking you should immediately check the output level... I blew an amp's cone once after maxing the mids and playing affressively without lowering the output and killed my cone.

Ok, many people have complained about this product, but it's usually because they ignore thing: this is not an overdrive pedal. Sure, with extensive fidgeting you can get mellower tones, but most of the sounds you can get from this thing are abrasive fuzzes and distortions. That was precisely why I bought it, and I am beyond satisfied. Ever since I heard Muse I've always loved deep synthy distortion, and I first bought the Digitech Bass Driver and was way dissapointed... sure, it had tons of tones and kept the low end, but it it sounded "smooth". Not this pedal... You can get low, synth-like fuzz (as in Muse's Time Is Running Out), screaming distortion, and everything in between. I've dialed in two tones that I use consistently in a post-hardcore band: A distored grit that I use almost all of the time and a torch-on, deep fuzz that makes my bass sound not like a bass that I use on piano interludes.
I'm playing with a 4-String Warwick Corvette Pro-Line permanently tuned to drop D (I've strung it with a light-gauge B string), and even on the open D the low end is preserved beautifully thanks to the blend knob and the EQ. On certain settings it does have some feedback, but it's usually when I fool around with extreme gain and eq settings that I don't really use, on settings with a balanced blend and a good equalization there's no noise at all. Something else worth noting is that I didn't find all of the possible sounds usable, in fact I'm using only two... but the ones that are are simply amazing. Like I said, I was looking for Muse-type synthy distortions and I found them in this pedal. Oh and one more thing... although I haven't played through a big muff, a friend of mine told me that some of this pedal's tones sounded like a big muff with better definition and low-end clarity.

Definetely, it's really well built.

I play Screamo/Posthardcore with some trippy electro bits and this pedal has fit in wonderfully. I've been playing for five years and also own a Digitech Bass Driver, a Digitech Bass Synth Wah and an Electro-Harmonix Bass Micro Synth. I also love the distortion on the Micro Synth, but it's low end sucks, which is why in the end I prefer the Blowtorch. If it were stolen or lost, I would but again for it has become an essential part of my sound. I love that it cuts through the mix nicely and gives my lines a more pronounced presence in the music.
I can compare it to the Digitech Bass Driver and the Electro-Harmonix Microsynth... The Digitech has more tonal possibilities, but I don't really like any of them... The Microsynth has amazing distortions but can't hold up the low end... That's why I prefer this pedal.
I wish it had the torch button on top... That's about it. Buy this if you're looking for distortion, if you're looking for OD, try before you buy... Cheers!

I was not able to get a good distortion sound out of it.

The idea of the pedal is good, but the distortion is extremely gravelly, synthetic, and buzzy. However, without the distortion it works quite well as a clean sounding boost pedal (very nice mids).

Don't know.

Don't know.

I play soft rock, hard rock, and heavy metal for the past 25 years.

Using the Sample settings shown in the manual, everybody will be able to get a good starting sound. Right now I spent two hours experimenting with its controls and got at least ten very nice sounding variations.
Disadvantage: Only two sample sounds are shown in the manual.

I am using: American Standart J-Bass/MM-Stingray => Blowtorch => Ampeg SVT Pro3 + Svt4X10HLF/Directly into PA. I always start testing new effect units without other effects in signal chain!!!

When I switched on the unit, the first thing I recognised was that my J-Bass was much more quiet than without the unit!!!

I fooled around with the controls and for each mid-switch position I found a very nice sound with and without the torch-switch engaged. I am not looking for someone others sound! But with the right fine tuning, I think it will be possible to remodel most of the sounds Tim C. used on the RATM and Audioslave Albums.

The distortion doesnt mess up the low end definition. I tried some other distrotion units for bass like the Boss ODB-3 or Sansamp Bass-DI. The ODB sounds like crap compared to the M-181, very undifined and muddy. The Sansamp is better but not as direct-sounding as the M-181. The M181 has got a very nice high-frequency distortion.

All in all the best sounding unit I ever played.

We'll see.
But built like a tank like all of those MXR units.
Only one thing to complain about: The battery case is made of some kind of thin plastic. You can see the units main board through it. This may be its weekness. Furthermore the Torch/On switch seems so be made of some weak material.

My bands guitarist has got the Zack Wild Overdrive. The switch was broken. MXR replaced it for free.

I play Funk-Rock and Hard-Rock. For both styles the unit matches very well. I wish I could afford two of them two get two great sounds :-). I#Ve been playing electric guitar and electric bass-guitar for more than 10 years now. M yfavourite feature about this units is its mid shift-switch.