The best bass fuzz and distortion plugins
The trick with bass fuzz is keeping the low end clean while the top gets filthy. Free: Big Stuff or Kilohearts Distortion on a parallel bus. Paid: Neural DSP Parallax X for a full bass rig, Doomagorgon for octave fuzz, or my La Bestia if you want one bass to sound like bass plus guitar, Royal Blood style.
Put a guitar fuzz on a bass and the low end turns to mush. Every good bass distortion solves that the same way: split the signal, keep the lows clean and tight, distort the mids and highs, then blend. Some plugins do the split for you, some you run in parallel yourself. Here is the list.
I make Siesta Audio plugins, and mine are on this list, marked as mine. Everything else is here because people actually recommend it. Prices are rough list prices and change often, so check before you buy.
| Plugin | Price | Formats | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Bestia (mine)Siesta Audio | $39 | VST3, AU, StandaloneMac, Win, Linux | Splits one bass into a tight bass rig and a fuzzed guitar rig at once, with octave-down weight and octave-up bite. Dirt and Blend on the front. |
| Parallax XNeural DSP | €99 | VST2, VST3, AU, AAX, StandaloneMac, Win | Parallel bass processor: compressed low band, separate mid and high distortion, six-band EQ, cab sim, transpose and tuner. |
| DoomagorgonAudiority | $49 | VST3, AU, AAX, CLAPMac, Win | Octave fuzz and distortion: a SuperFuzz-style octave fuzz channel plus an HM-2-style chainsaw channel. |
| Efektor FZ3603 FuzzKuassa | $25 | VST, VST3, AU, AAXMac, Win | Five fuzz box models with a dry/wet blend (useful for keeping bass lows) and up to 8x oversampling. |
| Big StuffNembrini Audio | Free | VST2, VST3, AU, AAXMac, Win | Big Muff-inspired fuzz and sustain with a tone filter and a cleaner -15 dB option. |
| DistortionKilohearts | Free (account) | VST3, AU, AAXMac, Win | Five distortion shapes with a dry/wet mix and dynamics preservation. |
| TONE3000 + Neural Amp ModelerTONE3000 community / NAM | Free | NAM plugin: VST3, AUMac, Win | The biggest free library of amp and pedal captures, including real bass rigs and fuzz pedals, played through the free NAM plugin. |
How to fuzz a bass without losing the low end
The parallel trick, with free plugins
- Duplicate the bass (or use a send). One copy stays clean.
- Clean copy: lowpass it around 200 to 250 Hz and compress it. This is your floor.
- Dirty copy: highpass it around 150 to 200 Hz, then Big Stuff or Kilohearts Distortion. Go further than feels right.
- Blend until the bass sounds huge but the lowest notes are still solid.
That is exactly what Parallax X and La Bestia do internally, so you can skip the routing. Parallax gives you every band to tune. La Bestia assumes you want the "one bass is the whole band" sound, so it sets the split for you and adds the octave up on the guitar side.
Octave fuzz for bass
Octave-up fuzz is what makes a bass read as a guitar on top of itself, which is the core of the Royal Blood sound and of Death From Above 1979. Doomagorgon is a dedicated octave fuzz. La Bestia puts the octave up on its guitar side and an octave-down sub under the bass side. For octave-down doom on guitar or bass, my Drown stacks a fuzz over an octave-below sub.
Which one should you get?
- Free, and you want a real captured rig: TONE3000. It is the best free resource for amp and pedal tones there is; search it for bass amps and fuzz captures and load them in the free NAM plugin.
- Free, and you do not mind routing: Big Stuff on a parallel bus.
- A complete bass rig with every control: Parallax X.
- Doom and stoner octave fuzz: Doomagorgon, or Drown.
- One bass that sounds like bass plus guitar, two knobs: La Bestia.
More on specific players: Muse's Hysteria bass, Tool's bass tone, one bass as a whole band.
Quick answers
What is the best free bass distortion plugin?
Nembrini Big Stuff and Kilohearts Distortion are both free. Run either on a parallel copy of the bass with the lows filtered out, so the low end stays clean. For free captures of real bass amps and fuzz pedals, TONE3000 is the best resource.
What is the best bass fuzz plugin?
For a full parallel bass rig, Neural DSP Parallax X. For octave fuzz, Audiority Doomagorgon. For a one-bass-as-a-whole-band sound in two knobs, La Bestia.
Is there an octave fuzz plugin?
Yes. Audiority Doomagorgon has a dedicated octave fuzz channel, and La Bestia adds an octave up on its fuzzed guitar side.
Why does fuzz make my bass sound thin?
Fuzz compresses and smears the low frequencies. Keep a clean copy of the bass for everything below about 200 Hz and only fuzz the rest.