How much of a Big Muff's character is in the tone stack?
- Thread starter Bucksears
- Start date
Aleph Null
Well-known member
In my experience, the tone stack is about 80–90% of the muff sound. The gain stages and clipping are designed for reliable and complete saturation. The whole point of the design is to make them more consistent that Fuzz Faces, Tonebenders, and other such designs that are sensitive to transistor beta.
Nostradoomus
Well-known member
Compare the Elk Sustainar/EQD Hizumitas to the garden variety muff. The answer is yes.
Feral Feline
Well-known member
AND YET...
The clipping caps...
The amount of gain each stage gets from the collector and emitter resistors...
The coupling caps and inter-stage resistors...
Build a "generic" Muff, and then from the shop, get 3 Muffin Crumb Tone Control Stage PCBs, a 2P4T Rotary switch to change between them (with one switch position for TONE BYPASS)... from the OP, choose a Russian, Triangle and Violet Ram's Head tone stack.
Test them, see how different they are from each other.
Now full-build three Muffs: a Russian, Triangle and Violet Ram's Head — but all three sans tone-stacks.
Mix and match the Muffin Crumb Tone Control Stage setup between each of the full-builds — How much does the tone stack of the Violet Ram's Head mess with the core nature of the Russian's 47n clipping-caps? Does the Triangle's TONE smooth out the aggression of the Violent Violet Ram's Head? Does the Triangle ring out with a Russian accent if it has the Russian's TONE-stack?
I see it as a package deal.
Does the enchilada have pinto-beans or black-beans? Refried? How much cilantro, if any, is in the salsa? I don't want ANY rice in my enchilada, and minimal lettuce, but bring on the GUAC & SOUR-CREAM! How was the Guac made though — with lime or lemon and what spices?
Flour tortilla for me, SVP. I love corn but I don't want ANY in my salsa nor enchilada. Sometimes I'll go for carne asada, hardly ever ground-beef, sometimes chicken sometimes pulled-pork...
So which part of the enchilada contains the core character of the meal?
No, no, this is not the correct way to approach it — there is no one part to consider above any other.
You've got to have and enjoy the whole enchilada.
The clipping caps...
The amount of gain each stage gets from the collector and emitter resistors...
The coupling caps and inter-stage resistors...
Build a "generic" Muff, and then from the shop, get 3 Muffin Crumb Tone Control Stage PCBs, a 2P4T Rotary switch to change between them (with one switch position for TONE BYPASS)... from the OP, choose a Russian, Triangle and Violet Ram's Head tone stack.
Test them, see how different they are from each other.
Now full-build three Muffs: a Russian, Triangle and Violet Ram's Head — but all three sans tone-stacks.
Mix and match the Muffin Crumb Tone Control Stage setup between each of the full-builds — How much does the tone stack of the Violet Ram's Head mess with the core nature of the Russian's 47n clipping-caps? Does the Triangle's TONE smooth out the aggression of the Violent Violet Ram's Head? Does the Triangle ring out with a Russian accent if it has the Russian's TONE-stack?
I see it as a package deal.
Does the enchilada have pinto-beans or black-beans? Refried? How much cilantro, if any, is in the salsa? I don't want ANY rice in my enchilada, and minimal lettuce, but bring on the GUAC & SOUR-CREAM! How was the Guac made though — with lime or lemon and what spices?
Flour tortilla for me, SVP. I love corn but I don't want ANY in my salsa nor enchilada. Sometimes I'll go for carne asada, hardly ever ground-beef, sometimes chicken sometimes pulled-pork...
So which part of the enchilada contains the core character of the meal?
No, no, this is not the correct way to approach it — there is no one part to consider above any other.
You've got to have and enjoy the whole enchilada.
Crap. Now I'm hungry. Thanks.
I appreciate the responses and they make sense.
To kinda explain what I'm going for: the Violet Ram's Head is (currently, because things can change) my favorite Big Muff. I've got some other variants in the works, but the General Guitar Gadgets-tuned BMP is my go-to, and it is a slightly-modified VRH.
I'm looking at rebuilding it in a 125-B, but would like some kind of midrange adjustment. My first thought was to do one of the AMZ Presence controls, but that changes the tone stack entirely, which is the reason for my starting this thread.
My fallback is a toggle switch to change one of the caps in the tonestack (i.e. the Skreddy Flat/Scooped or Fat/Juicy toggle).
Feral Feline
Well-known member
Consider this, though, Bucksears — Aleph Null & Nostradoomus have probably built more Muffs than I've dreamt of building...
I'm really still just a noob, theorising while those guys develop circuits and lay out their own PCBs — Loads of practical experience... me, not so much.
I'd like to try that little experiment myself, build the 3 Muff types and swap Muffin Tone-Control Stages — sate my own curiosity, and gain some experience. I think that experiment would be more fun than breadboarding the circuits one at a time.
I must've been hungry when I wrote my previous post.
I'm really still just a noob, theorising while those guys develop circuits and lay out their own PCBs — Loads of practical experience... me, not so much.
I'd like to try that little experiment myself, build the 3 Muff types and swap Muffin Tone-Control Stages — sate my own curiosity, and gain some experience. I think that experiment would be more fun than breadboarding the circuits one at a time.
I must've been hungry when I wrote my previous post.
Aleph Null
Well-known member
I think your proposed experiment is the only properly scientific approach. Everything else is just anecdotal. Whoever does this should film the whole thing so we can all benefit from the experiments.
Also, I want Mexican food now, too.
Feral Feline
Well-known member
Locrian99
Well-known member
I prefer the toggle like you mentioned like the skreddy. I use an on off on ussually for 3 options. The problem with the eqd style to me is that id like to just have “stock” as an option and when ive messed with comparing I can’t really get an identical sound as stock, to my ears at least.Crap. Now I'm hungry. Thanks.
I appreciate the responses and they make sense.
To kinda explain what I'm going for: the Violet Ram's Head is (currently, because things can change) my favorite Big Muff. I've got some other variants in the works, but the General Guitar Gadgets-tuned BMP is my go-to, and it is a slightly-modified VRH.
I'm looking at rebuilding it in a 125-B, but would like some kind of midrange adjustment. My first thought was to do one of the AMZ Presence controls, but that changes the tone stack entirely, which is the reason for my starting this thread.
My fallback is a toggle switch to change one of the caps in the tonestack (i.e. the Skreddy Flat/Scooped or Fat/Juicy toggle).
Nostradoomus
Well-known member
Clipping diodes definitely have an effect @Feral Feline guess it just depends what you figure is character 
tegendemuur
Well-known member
So true. A limp or dragging foot equally adds character to a person, but no one goes out of their way to to get into an accident that leads to such a trait.Clipping diodes definitely have an effect @Feral Feline guess it just depends what you figure is character
Agreed. And I've made up my mind that I'm going to go this route.
I want a STOCK VRH, Red Army OD and/or Triangle Muff, but with some increases in mids on tap.
Feral Feline
Well-known member
No. Walk this way...
We'd be remiss if we didn't put the Muff Tone Stack Calculator link in the thread.
Very cool! I've played with that thing for hours at a time; don't miss that you can select type of pot and adjust the slider (tone-knob) back and forth — watching the curve change instantly — very cool, very cool.
For example, here's a stack I was working on for one of my Muff ideas; with tone at noon, EQ-SW ON-OFF-ON set up for mild-bump / flat / mild-scoop :
SWITCH UP
SWITCH CENTRED
SWITCH DOWN
