Muffin Fuzz low volume/gain issue

[jhalton]

I recently finished a Muffin Fuzz, the 75 variant, with the tone bypass switch. I am getting some nice tones, but a first noticed the bypassed setting was way louder than when the tone option was engaged. At first I thought it was an issue with the bypassed setting (I put in a forum post on that), but I realized the issue is in the tone setting (I believe this is the 'standard' muff sound). The overall volume is low. When volume is maxed (and sustain low or maxed), it is louder than unity, but not by much. I expected a lot more volume, like other gain pedals I have built. I feel something is off? Let me know if you have any ideas...

 

[BuddytheReow]

You're soldering looks ok for the most part. I would reflow all joints just to make sure nothing is cold. Also, have you confirmed each and every component value (resistor and capacitor)?

 

[jhalton]

Thanks for the response. I checked all values, and no issues. I have re-flowed most joints, but may try again. If nothing happens, I will just make it work. Still like the sound of it, but may need a boost in front, or something....

 

[gtfields13]

Just to be clear
1. with tone circuit engaged the volume is lower than expected.
2. with tone circuit bypassed volume is louder (but how loud)?
3. what diodes are you using (I assume Si, based upon appearance)?

I have built a couple other Muffs (Muffinator Fuzz and plain old Muffin Fuzz, neither with Tone Bypass) using the Stomp '75 components of the Muffin Fuzz, and for sure the volume goes well above bypass. I checked (it's good to have home office = studio!) and I hit unity gain around 10 o'clock on the volume knob, largely independent of gain (Ge transistors, so they are clipping pretty readily).

 

[jhalton]

Yes, tone circuit engaged seems to have much lower volume than expected, the bypassed circuit volume is what i would expect. I used 1N4148's, as suggested for that build.

 

[stibnite]

I just built one of these with the SUF'75 components and was having this problem as well.

After chasing my tail a bit, I realized that C11 and C12 are swapped vs every other build option. In the SUF'75 BOM C11 is 100nF and C12 is 10nF. All other variants list C11 as 10nF and C12 as 100nF. Swapping these two capacitors fixed the problem for me. The pedal is much louder now with the tone stack engaged and pretty similiar in volume to the tone stack bypassed. Unity is around 10 or 11 now. I don't think I was even hitting unity with the tone stack engaged before. It also sounds significantly better.

I am curious to know if the build doc has a typo or if that's just how the SUF'75 is.