owlexifry
Well-known member
so far my big muff journey has been rewarding, so i thought i’d build another variant, but i also just wanted an excuse to do something cool with my minty green 100n caps on a vero build.
for the benefit of less noise, i probably should have done it in a 125B instead of 1590B, but it's hard to resist squeezing things into a 1590B
after breadboarding a few different variants including EQD hizumitas, and some V2 73 variants, i settled on the ‘#4’ version.
when i first finished building it, i was getting paranoid about noise issues since the wiring gets so close to input /output jacks. not that it was any louder idle noise than my other BM builds, but it was bugging me so i decided to replace the input / output leads with shielded wire. idk if it did anything but i feel like it’s a lot less likely to oscillate now.
- BC549C transistors
- probably around ~500-550hFe, i can't remember exactly what they were.
i was almost gonna build the hizumitas, but this one seemed to have more than enough low end/thickness for my taste, and i like bass heavy muffs, but the hizumitas was just way too much.
the kit rae schematic archive describes this version as having "perfect balance of lows, highs, medium gain distortion, and a mid range that was not overly scooped." - and i guess that's about right. idk. it sounds pretty mean and thick to me so im happy.
another problem I had, was that I'm an idiot and originally built it with all 100K log pots instead of linear.
i thought it wouldn't matter, and for the the gain and volume, it doesn't really, but the tone control behaviour was awful and only sounds good at like 2-3o'clock where the range is all warped cos log.
so i had to take that out and replace it with a linear.
as a result, the wiring has gotten a bit mangled and bent and isn't as nice as i would have liked.
the fun part of the build story, is that this pedal is actually getting used on my board.
- for context, metal producers like Will Putney have been known to use a Swollen Pickle mkII to boost a high gain amp, usually after an 808-based overdrive, and I explored this when I built a swollen pickle clone about 3 years ago (its a rough build).
so since then i've always sort of assumed if a swollen pickle can do it, then I'm sure there's big muff variants out there that can do it well too, and in my opinion this one does, and probably better than any other muff variant i've done so far.
so it's been getting action on my board with my band to make very specific riffs (slow chugging breakdowns) sound huge (with an ST-9 overdrive), cos that's basically what it does.
it also dooms really well. as every muff should.
demo: (LP in drop G)
for the benefit of less noise, i probably should have done it in a 125B instead of 1590B, but it's hard to resist squeezing things into a 1590B
after breadboarding a few different variants including EQD hizumitas, and some V2 73 variants, i settled on the ‘#4’ version.
when i first finished building it, i was getting paranoid about noise issues since the wiring gets so close to input /output jacks. not that it was any louder idle noise than my other BM builds, but it was bugging me so i decided to replace the input / output leads with shielded wire. idk if it did anything but i feel like it’s a lot less likely to oscillate now.
- BC549C transistors
- probably around ~500-550hFe, i can't remember exactly what they were.
i was almost gonna build the hizumitas, but this one seemed to have more than enough low end/thickness for my taste, and i like bass heavy muffs, but the hizumitas was just way too much.
the kit rae schematic archive describes this version as having "perfect balance of lows, highs, medium gain distortion, and a mid range that was not overly scooped." - and i guess that's about right. idk. it sounds pretty mean and thick to me so im happy.
another problem I had, was that I'm an idiot and originally built it with all 100K log pots instead of linear.
i thought it wouldn't matter, and for the the gain and volume, it doesn't really, but the tone control behaviour was awful and only sounds good at like 2-3o'clock where the range is all warped cos log.
so i had to take that out and replace it with a linear.
as a result, the wiring has gotten a bit mangled and bent and isn't as nice as i would have liked.
the fun part of the build story, is that this pedal is actually getting used on my board.
- for context, metal producers like Will Putney have been known to use a Swollen Pickle mkII to boost a high gain amp, usually after an 808-based overdrive, and I explored this when I built a swollen pickle clone about 3 years ago (its a rough build).
so since then i've always sort of assumed if a swollen pickle can do it, then I'm sure there's big muff variants out there that can do it well too, and in my opinion this one does, and probably better than any other muff variant i've done so far.
so it's been getting action on my board with my band to make very specific riffs (slow chugging breakdowns) sound huge (with an ST-9 overdrive), cos that's basically what it does.
it also dooms really well. as every muff should.
demo: (LP in drop G)