# Vintage Big Muff Users



## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Anyone running one of these? I used to have one and sold it. It was the king of fuzz, wish I would have kept it now.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

I don't have a vintage one but a couple of variations of Stomp Under Fott.
Matt is the king of muff and he haves good prices too!
Take a look: Stomp Under Foot


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Ti-Ron said:


> I don't have a vintage one but a couple of variations of Stomp Under Fott.
> Matt is the king of muff and he haves good prices too!
> Take a look: Stomp Under Foot


Is there a particular one that he has modelled after the Big Muff or are they just nice and fuzzy period


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I listened to the soundclips, and while they sound fine, quite honestly I couldn't tell the difference between many of them. Would they sound differently in person? Quite likely. But at the same time, many of the differences can easily disappear with a twist of the tone control or some amp twiddling. 

The heart of the BMP is the use of double clipping (clip-boost-clip-again) and the tone control with the dip in the middle. Everything after that tends to be like lining up identical quintuplets with different coloured glasses, and one parting their hair to the left while another parts it to the right. Yes, there are small differences, but nothing that supercedes what they share in common.

In an interview I found on-line, Mike Matthews notes that if you took any 4 BMPS off the line during the 70's not two would have sounded alike. Therein lies he paradox of the BMP. They're all the same, and no two are alike. Because they have been so consistently inconsistent, a lot gets attributed to this issue and that one, based on one or two examples of a given issue. That's a bit like comparing me to Perdita Felicien and declaring that women can run faster and jump higher than men. One shouldn't confuse an example with a whole category.

Even where there were identifiable hanges in transistor type of emitter resistors, the batch of transistors used can vary widely, such that use of a smaller emitter resistor value for transistor batch A has a different impact than the same emitter resistor for batch B or C. Quite honestly, I'd want at least a half dozen independent examples of each issue for blind testing before I put any confidence in anyone saying this issue sounds like this and that issue sounds like that.

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but there has been a mountain of mythology accumulated over time about the BMP, and a lot of it is hogwash and superstition. I've built several of them using the identical schematic, and they all sound different. In fact more different from each other than any of the soundclips from SUF do. I'm sure Matt makes decent pedals, but one should hear what IS there, and not hear what isn't.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

I've also been exploring them a bit lately. Built a BYOC kit to Ram's Head specs (the alternative is Triangle ((earlier)) specs, allegedly more scooped) - much rounder, not as much scoop or top end sizzle as what I consider a 'typical' Muff. Built an op-amp version (ala Smashing Pumpins Siamese Dream) and it sounds KILLER, it's a little tighter and more a distortion than fuzz. Have a Way Huge Swollen Pickle, which is a Muff variant...more tweakable, but in general IS much more scooped and sizzly, much like the current or recent American BM I had a couple of years ago and got rid of - except you can dial in some mids in the Pickle, and that makes all the difference in the world to me. Kid in my son's band has an 80's muff with the tone bypass, yet again another different sounding BM, again sounds great just different.

I was on the verge of buying 1 or 2 of the SUF versions then started building my own so dropped that plan. Drop me a line if you want to talk about getting one made up  But Matt's (SUF) stuff has a great reputation, I wouldn't hesitate. He builds basically all the variants that have come and gone over time, check out his page c/w clips here Stomp Under Foot - Muffs


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

To me, the early Billy Corgan stuff IS the big muff sound that I dig


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

+1 for the Way Huge Swollen Pickle, but I also love my Sunface I just wish it had a DC jack.


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## mattpas (Oct 10, 2009)

mhammer said:


> I listened to the soundclips, and while they sound fine, quite honestly I couldn't tell the difference between many of them. Would they sound differently in person? Quite likely. But at the same time, many of the differences can easily disappear with a twist of the tone control or some amp twiddling.
> 
> The heart of the BMP is the use of double clipping (clip-boost-clip-again) and the tone control with the dip in the middle. Everything after that tends to be like lining up identical quintuplets with different coloured glasses, and one parting their hair to the left while another parts it to the right. Yes, there are small differences, but nothing that supercedes what they share in common.
> 
> ...


I do agree the sound clips need to be done over but I have not had the time and have been fortunate that some people have made clips and sent them to me to use.
Also, you are right about the inconsistencies in all the Muffs. I have traced hundreds of original big Muffs and have yet to find two alike. This goes for Foxey lady pedals, Triangles, Ram's Heads, Marveltones, etc.
This is what I did with the Muffs I make and I will use the Triangle as my example. I took all the layouts and drew up schematics then I compared all the schematics and narrowed it down to the 20 that seemed to have the most differences. After that I went through and got it down to 10. I then made the 10 and compared them all side-by-side and, to me, the one I offer seemed to be the best sounding one.
I also did this with the Ram's Head. Every once in a while I do get a couple of new layouts and am planning on doing another comparison of all the newer layouts.
Another thing is that I have found changing one or two of the right parts can change the sound of the Muff. 
The best thing to do for those that want to really understand the circuit is to breadboard it and just swap out different parts and see what you get.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I don't think you interpreted them that way, but I do want to assure you that my comments were not meant as any criticism of you. It is in the nature of the design that you can try all you want, and remain as faithful to the schematics of different issues as is humanly possible, but unless one spends ridiculous amounts of time assuring that the transistors all have the same hfe (something Jeorge Tripps addressed by using transistor array chips instead of discrete trannies for the Swollen Pickle), that the diodes all have the same forward voltage, the tone-circuit caps are all close to spec (and not 20% off in a different direction), etc., etc., it is going to be hard to produce BMPs that have a sound consistently different from each other in the exact same ways every time. 

The soundclips themselves are as good as one could hope to have without going overboard (lesser quality than what Pro Guitar Shop uses to hawk their stuff? I don't think so), and certainly not a pinch less in quality than many I've heard advertising products of considerably less justifiable sticker price than your own. Bob Weil at Visual Sound put together some nice pedal shootouts on youtube, where blind testing showed some surprising musician/listener preferences. I had lunch with Bob last fall, and noted that while I thought he had done a nice job, and took an honest risk in doing so, one of the methodological issues with the tests is that all pedals were dialed so as to achieve the same tone. Would pedal A perhaps have a broader range of adjustment, or palette of tones than pedal B? Perhaps, but we'll never know from the setup. What we do know is that different pedals of the same category, varying in price by a 3:1 or even 4:1 range are able to achieve the same sound if tweaked right, and any other possible differences were never broached. Bob acknowledged this was a shortcoming. 

Following up on that, if I can make a suggestion with respect to the soundclips: have someone work the tone control while another person plays, so that the same style of playing, picking and degree of distortion are heard with different EQ-ing. That's not perfect, but it will provide a better sense of the range of tones.

Finally, the only substantive difference between a BMP and the Solasound Supa Tonebender is the absence of the diode pair and 100nf cap between base and collector in the second transistor stage. Why someone has not made a pedal that uses a toggle to give the user a choice of Tonebender or BMP mode is beyond me. It's a $1.50 part that gives you two different pedals. :smilie_flagge17:


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

GuitarsCanada: If so, you should go for the IC Big Muff!


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## Guest (May 12, 2010)

GuitarsCanada said:


> To me, the early Billy Corgan stuff IS the big muff sound that I dig


There's very little corroborated evidence that muffs were used on Siamese Dream-era SP studio stuff. Live they were both using JMP-1's. It does a thick fuzz exceptionally well with lots of EQ control. Corrigan himself has thrown out a ton of mis-information about the studio setups. And the Creamy Dreamer stuff was one kid taking Corrigan's kind words too far.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

I remember reading more than one article or interview with Corgan where he talks about using a Big Muff. Not sure why it would get pushed if it was never used. But in the world of media and sales I assume anything is possible.



> 'My first mental recognition of the 'power' of the Big Muff came one night when i just happened to drop by a Catherine band practice. Catherine was Kerry's band in the 90's, and we used to share the same rehearsal space (they were the only band we trusted not to steal our shit and vice-versa). So i walked in and i just heard this tremendous ROAR and i thought to myself 'how are they making that sound?'. Each of the 3 guitarists had Big Muffs and the sounds was very Sabbath-like, just throwing this tremendous low drone buzz into the room. I knew that the band Mudhoney used Big Muffs but honestly they weren't using them like Catherine did. So i owe a debt of gratitude to Catherine for showing me the purple fuzz light. We used to try to use the pedals live but it was impossible for there wasn't enough clarity. We did use other Electro-Harmonix pedals live, like the Electric Mistress. We only had one of these in the beginning and James and I used to take turns over who would use it on a given night. Since we were mostly playing clubs we were looking for anything to take your head off and separate the sound of the guitar from the incessant din. The Big Muff pictured is 'the' one from Siamese Dream, the fuzz that launched a 1,000 other dreams i suppose. Almost all the heavy tracks were recorded thru this, solos included. Many songs would have as many as 8 fuzz guitars going at once. It was very difficult to record the tracks with this sound, but once it went right it was BLAMMO, a huge, huge sound. The settings you see in the picture are the exact settings for if you look close enough you can still see the pencil marks on the volume and tone. I had all sorts of theories of how to best use this pedal, including the idea that it only sounded its 'best' when used with a battery (as opposed to a power supply). I'm not much for going backwards but it is tempting to crack out all the old gear sometime and give it one more go. Maybe somewhere in amongst the 44 songs of Teargaden by Kaleidyscope I can find one such moment to do so. The sound of the combo of the Bat Strat, the Big Muff, and the Soul head with Mars cabinet is still unmistakable.
> One quick funny story: I used to shop at this music store in San Francisco, and in the early 90's they were selling these pedals back then for about 40 bucks because nobody wanted them. About a year after Siamese came out, '94 i guess, I went to the same store to see if they still had any. The guy behind the counter knew me from before, and told me, 'yeah, i got a couple.' I said 'ok, how much?' '200 bucks' he said casually (which at that time was A LOT for a vintage pedal. '200 bucks!!!! Why are they so much?? Are they rare or unusual?' He said, 'no, but ever since you talked about using them we've sold about 75 vintage muffs. Sorry man, they're all looking for your sound!'. What he didn't know was they were really looking for the Catherine sound.
> B.C.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Interesting, and funny. Thanks for that. Great read.:food-smiley-004:


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## okcomputer (Jun 19, 2006)

Never played a vintage one, but I had the USA reissue for a couple of years. I loved playing around with it, but it just isn't practical for anything that I ever play.

I sold it, and I haven't really missed it.


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## AlcolmX (Oct 12, 2009)

This thread inspired me to locate and dig out this old beast:










It's definitely seen better days, but this is essentially how I received it (as a gift no less... along with an Italian wah pedal that I seem to have misplaced... sigh). I didn't use it much because it was such a pain to access the battery, what with the screws, and it being warped and dented and not really fitting together properly. However, I'm gonna give 'er a shot with the PP2 which will hopefully alleviate all the headaches of the past.


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## mattpas (Oct 10, 2009)

GuitarsCanada said:


> To me, the early Billy Corgan stuff IS the big muff sound that I dig


I don't know if you have seen this but here ya go:

ain't no sleep when you're living the dream: Effect Pedals Used on Early SP Recordings


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## Guest (May 12, 2010)

mattpas said:


> I don't know if you have seen this but here ya go:
> 
> ain't no sleep when you're living the dream: Effect Pedals Used on Early SP Recordings


And here's some more quoted Corrigan: "I didn't use distortion"-Billy Corgan - GeekChat! - no muffs on tour.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

iaresee said:


> And here's some more quoted Corrigan: "I didn't use distortion"-Billy Corgan - GeekChat! - no muffs on tour.


Yes, he mentions that in the aritcle I posted. Claims they could not use them in a live setting for tonal purposes. But again, I remember back in the SP hey dey reading all kinds of articles in mags with him talking about the Big Muff, probably still have a bunch of those mags sitting around here.


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## AlcolmX (Oct 12, 2009)

Well I plugged in my old Big Muff, and not only does it look rough, but it sounds rough too. It's extremely noisy (I suspect that's part of the package) and it cuts out randomly (it needs a bit of a kick in order to coax it into working). I'm wondering if anybody's had the SolidGoldFX mod done to their Big Muff Pi. Was it worth it? Was there a huge improvement in sound? What mods did you have done? etc.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Here is a guy that I think is dreaming a bit Vintage Electro-Harmonix Inc BIG MUFF PI Fuzz Pedal - eBay (item 230468805867 end time May-30-10 14:49:51 PDT)


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## mattpas (Oct 10, 2009)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Here is a guy that I think is dreaming a bit Vintage Electro-Harmonix Inc BIG MUFF PI Fuzz Pedal - eBay (item 230468805867 end time May-30-10 14:49:51 PDT)


I have seen original Triangles in excellent to mint condition go for that much but one thing bothers me about this one. I have never seen an old capacitor that color green before and it looks like a replacement part.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Thats an awaful lot of money for an effects pedal. No matter what it is. But I looked through the completed items and your right, some people have paid a lot of money for those predals. Not sure about the anomoly you picked up on for this one, I am not too familiar with them other than owning a late 70's model for a bit.


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## Peter (Mar 25, 2008)

For the knowledgeable muff-lovers in this thread:

How much (in your opinions) do the new Big Muff Pi's sound like the vintage ones?


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Peter said:


> For the knowledgeable muff-lovers in this thread:
> 
> How much (in your opinions) do the new Big Muff Pi's sound like the vintage ones?


Not very much. New ones are more scooped, defined, and edgier/harsher. Older ones (and new versions of older ones) are still scooped, it's the nature of the tonestack (some moreso than others depending on version/components), but to my ear not so much...and the fuzz is woolier, rounder, softer.


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