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I've never owned a Big Muff. What am I missing out on?

fat cross between fuzz and distortion (more of a distortion i'd say) that get's lost in the mix but has pretty good sustain and interesting texture

Depends on the Muff. I own two Muff Variants, both by Skreddy. My first, a Mayo, has the "full mids" option; I got mine before he was offering a switch. It's god a big, warm sound that I'd call very "round." It's not very edgy, but it's not entirely soft either. Sounds great playing "Hummer" by SP.

I also have a Zero, which I got Marc to do the mid switch on. This sounds similar to the Mayo, but where the mayo is round, the Zero is all edge. With the full mids, it almost sounds like a heavily distorted 6L6 amp... somewhere between overdrive, distortion, and fuzz.

I don't have a lot of experience playing with them in low gain settings, because that's not really my bag.

Are you missing anything? Maybe. I love mine and will never part with them. That said, Skreddys are pretty hard/expensive to come by, so I'm currently not using them live. I replaced them on my live board with the FH Algal Bloom. The AB can cop a lot of Muff tones. It doesn't have the same weight that the Muffs have. It doesn't have less, it's just not the same.

There are a lot of boutique muffs out there right now that, in my opinion, blow the socks off of what EHX is offering. That said, the EHX muffs are pretty damn cheap, and really fucking easy to come by, so I'd say you should pick one up. If you like the basic sound, then you can get into modding it or swapping it for a boutique job. I'm really, really GAS-ing for a Stomp Under Foot Pumpkin Pi. It's based on the IC Big Muff, which is what Corgan used for his classic Pumpkins tones, and for that reason (based on the sound samples I've heard) it gets you a lot closer to "that" sound.

If you have a big, loud amp, get a muff
Even if its not your 'sound' per say, they are insanely fun to play through

You should find that Big Muff shootout thread.... it was entertaining........ I love mine and oculdn't picture a board w/o it, however I'm sorely disapointed in myself for selling the Musket fuzz even though it did net me one of those 74 IC based Muffs everyone likes so much..... I probably will buy another at some point.........

i thought we are talking EHX Big Muffs whatever, when you want to talk about Skreddy and Blackout eff., ignore my post!

I'm sure muff clones can do this, but other pedals that say they can get the Muff texture, can't get the same sustain. I have a video clip of me holding a note forever, it never turns to feedback, just a solid fuzzy note sustaining. It's awesome. With that said, a lot of pedals capture the texture of the big muff and are more present in the mix. The one thing I noticed when recording my guitarist's big muff is the leads stuck out like a sore thumb, but when she switched to rhythm it blended in the background and added depth rather than the main fuzz sound.

coulda bought a good russian big muff for $40. but i passed.

Muffs are so cheap you should just buy one. I remember buying my first big muff, and it's a fond memory. It's my favorite sound.

They get really nasty and biting and rude with high gain, and nice and warm and gritty with low gain. Can sound like a bunch of bees in a can, or like an amp that's about to explode. The knobs are really interactive, and there's a lot of variety of sound, but they all keep the same character. It's just such a good little box. Nice tight, thick, crunchy awesome. I've had a black russian one of the current run (I don't think they make them anymore) which was pure black sabbath in a box. And the current big muff with tone wicker, which was pretty nice. Has a switch to bypass the tonestack, which is neat. And also a switch to cut some clipping stages out which makes it a bit looser.

Nbabmf just souped up a Russian muff for me (I think he may soup one up for you if ya asked). Threw a switch for mids on it. It gets a little muddy with high gain, but low gain it turns into the beautiful fuzzy overdrive. He also threw a switch that swaps some diodes for some germanium ones, which turns it into awesome....it gets touch sensitive, which I didn't know muffs could do! In addition to swapping out a bunch of parts to give it more clarity.


tl;dr : muff= also cheap, so just buy one!

If you play bass, you probably won't need another fuzz pedal.

if you play guitar, they are everything you want heavy to be, and rip leads like a god (see gilmour, mascis)

honestly, they are the best pedal in my humble opinion. I have a russian, an NYC and a Fuzzrocious Grey Stache (has all the souped mods and a mids knob.)

I can't use the EHX ones live because with a fender amp they work very poorly, but with a marshall, if you have the mids set high, you can pull it off.

The grey stache is seriously sick.

and yeah, i'm going to be one of those guys who starts collecting them. Jmascis has like 45 or something.

My favorite pedal

If you don't have an amp with mid control you might want to look at the clones/variants that have flat/bumped mids or a dedicated knob.

i like the big muff cause it was the first pedal i got
it holds a special play in my heart
in pop culture aswel i like to think

Gunner Recall wrote:My favorite pedal

If you don't have an amp with mid control you might want to look at the clones/variants that have flat/bumped mids or a dedicated knob.

the mid scoop must be the reason I never really liked the Muff. At certain point sound engineers ALWAYS offered me a Big Muff for bass parts adn it never worked out. Not once. Kept to Marshall Guv'nor, had some mids allright, never got ölost in the mix - that is, not without scooping the bass tracks in the mix for 'the approved way of thinking and mixing metal'. Never really understood the mid scoop politics. Nor the big fuss about the Muff being anyway superior to other distortions.

But I heard an unscooped mode some time ago and loved it But I guess my needs for that kind of scooped-unscooped distortion/fuzz sounds are covered by what I've got alraedy...

For an interesting ton mod, check: http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/Bi ... neControl/

the thing that i like about Muffs is that they sustain forever. the thing that i can't stand about them is the tone, the scoopy midrange thing and the trebly-ness. when i need that kind of sound nowadays i use a 3xfx Fatman, which gets pretty Muffy with the gain cranked and has a tone control that allows me to reel the highs in; if i need to push it over the top i'll add some Distortion+, or some Algal Bloom if i want to get really freaky. i'm still open to the idea of a Muff that doesn't make my head hurt, but i haven't found it yet; they just may not be right for me.

I have a Bass Big Muff, pretty cool, but doesn't always work well in band situations.. But I have some parts laying around for some mods from the diy-forum Don't have much experience with other versions..