The Hoof is a Muff-style fuzz, based on the green Russian Big Muffs from the early '90s. It's a mean fuzz, and the added Shift knob, which controls the amount of mids present in the signal, makes it an incredibly versatile one as well. It was the first Earthquaker pedal I owned, so it has a special place in my heart. It was my go-to for 3–4 years, but after a while I started to notice some of its limitations: it would get mushy and lose its clarity when pushed with a lot of bass, and it would drop out a significant amount of the bass. I think that after many years of playing bass/music in general, playing in bands and stuff, I became more aware of my tone and the sounds that I was producing, more adept at identifying both flaws and qualities that I like, and how to dial in those desired qualities: which knobs are controlling what, which frequencies I want to hear, the amount of gain that's necessary, which pickup configuration to use, where to pick/pluck—the holistic act of producing sound. Over time I've leaned towards simplifying my process and decreasing the number of variables, i.e. keeping the on-board EQ in the same spot, keeping the amp EQ the same, things of that nature. I don't want to be fiddling with too many knobs on my bass or pedals while trying to play or perform, so I've dialed in a clean tone that I like on my bass/amp and want to incorporate pedals and such so that they complement and embellish that baseline. The Hoof didn't end up working well in that framework, and I've found some other options that are close to a perfect fit.