Types of Big Muff

YourGuitarist

YourGuitarist

Member
Sorry if this is a rehashed topic... But I've been thinking about building a fuzz and wondered: what are the Big Muff flavors?

I know there's the standard BJTs with diode feedback and the BM tonestack as well as opamp versions and ones that remove the mid scoop. What else?

In your opinion what makes a muff a muff?
 
delving a little deeper, I've heard that the caps in series with the feedback diodes reduce soft clipping for lower frequencies allowing them to clip the BJTs. Has anyone played around with those values specifically? How did they change the sound?
 
rwl said:
Most versatile muff is the Muffin Factory...
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Aentons said:
I'm curious why you say this?
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Okay, I can see where, semantically, my statement ruffles some feathers.

Sure, in terms of raw controls, the factory looks like it's more customizable. I've never used one. That level of tweakability, for me personally, is too much.

Versatility to me is a balance—it's user experience.

My muffhead, knob-gazer friends can spend eons with something like the factory and I'm sure they'd love it. And I'd be looking at my phone while they whiled away the afternoon jam session chasing the tone dragon.

What I love is when one of those same tweakifiers can get the sound they want, and wow to me about how they love it, in a only few minutes' time with only three knobs and three toggles, and then (figuratively) beg me to build them one.

(I'm sure they'd want me to build them a factory, too…)
 
Well, I stand by my opinion, but with text minus tone being the way it is, might've come off brusque and dismissive. Not my intention.

Taste is taste, and I've got no disdain for those who like the tinkering—I was an avid modular synth user a while back. My joke is aimed at my former band and jam mates who definitely would get lost in their board, but who hasn't.

If the cards are all on the table:, I wasn't a big fan of the muff at all when I tried a friend's back when. Even when I heard a stock G2 it was just way too dark. Built a few muffs for friends who really wanted one particular flavor (violet , triangle, or op-amp). Did a Bean modified Darkside and took a shine to the brighter tone shape.

But it wasn't until I bought a Kewpie board and built it that I was floored by anything in the lineage. Almost every setting was usable, and the flavor differences each toggle gave it just wowed me even more. And it was rewarding to see the same wonderment in the faces of my friends, too.
 
YourGuitarist said:
delving a little deeper, I've heard that the caps in series with the feedback diodes reduce soft clipping for lower frequencies allowing them to clip the BJTs. Has anyone played around with those values specifically? How did they change the sound?
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Depends on the size of the cap used.

Russian Muffs use a 47n for the clipping diodes, so the diodes are clipping mainly mids & highs leaving the lows unscathed which gives the perception of better bass response — hence the popularity of Russian Muffs with bass-players.

Most Muffs have 100n caps for the clipping diodes, but it's not just about the clipping caps, it's the overall circuit design. There are some Muffs with HUGE caps throughout, yet counterintuitively they're not great for bass because the overall balance of the circuit is geared to clipping the full range of signal — and by clipping lows the added harmonic information just clogs things up for bass.


There's at least one member on the forum that has gone below 47n for the clipping-diode caps, so yes, those values have been played around with — and by many people on disparate forums.

I suggest breadboarding various popular Muffs and then start your own wild experimentations.
 
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