{"id":2543,"date":"2018-06-22T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T06:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/delaydude.de\/?p=2543"},"modified":"2018-06-07T09:41:59","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T07:41:59","slug":"legendary-overdrive-pedals-big-muff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delaydude.de\/en\/legendary-overdrive-pedals-big-muff\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary overdrive pedals (2) \u2013 Big Muff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Big<\/a>The Electro Harmonix<\/a> Big Muff is one of the most legendary overdrive pedals ever invented.
\nI guess, almost every guitarist used this pedal at least once in his career.
\nThe most famous are David Gilmour, Billy Corgan, Jack White, J. Mascis and John Frusciante.<\/p>\n

History<\/h3>\n

In the 1970s Mike Matthews and Robert Myer invented the Big Muff with the aim of creating a pedal with very much sustain.
\nBased on the circuit of the fuzz pedals which were pretty famous in those days, the wiring of the Big Muff has been supplemented by several cascaded gain stages and a tone control.
\nThe circuit resembles the circuit of an amplifier with several gain stages.
\nThe silicon transistors made the Big Muff more reliable than many other fuzz pedals.
\nBesides, it used diode clipping.
\nSpecifically filtering intended to eliminate the fuzz-typical sharpness, so the pedal produced the legendary warm and unique distortion\/fuzz tone.<\/p>\n

Versions<\/h3>\n

The Big Muff has been produced in a countless number of different versions.
\nThe most famous are the Triangle, the Rams Head and the Russian Big Muff.
\nBut even these versions varied a lot \u2013 if you are interested on this topic, I would like to recommend this<\/a> page.
\nOccasionally you get the feeling, that the reason for the alteration of the circuit was not to generate a certain variation of the sound but the availability of cheap and most prevalent components.
\nOne interesting example: the resistor of the tone stack in each version varies from 33K to 39K to 20K or 22K.
\nIn my honest opinion: they used the resistors that have been available.
\nThis causes in fact, that every Big Muff sounds a bit different.
\nIf you are willing to get one, it is worth it, to try out diverse Big Muffs and chose the one you like best.<\/p>\n

Modification<\/h3>\n

The Big Muff can be modified pretty easily.
\nTo me, the tone bypass mod is quite interesting. Recent models of the Big Muff offered a switch for this option by default.
\nBy removing the tone circuit, the volume increases and there will be a bit more treble in the sound.
\nRegarding the recent standard version of the Big Muff, this could be quite interesting because, by this, its sound gets more close to the sound of the Triangle.<\/p>\n

And of course, it is possible to experiment with the clipping diodes.
\nBy changing the diodes, you can variate the compression and the distortion.
\nRemoving the clipping diodes completely will lead to a louder and harsher sound.
\nAnd if you only remove the first pair of diodes you will get a Colorsound Supa Tonebender (which actually is based on the Big Muff wiring).<\/p>\n

Those who love to experiment with these different clipping options can also add different diodes which can be activated by a switcher.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[687,261,259,268,3],"tags":[307,785,1078,126,1080,1081,1082,1079],"class_list":["post-2543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electro-harmonix","category-history","category-overdrive-pedals","category-pedals","category-effektgeraete","tag-big-muff","tag-clipping-diode","tag-colorsound-supa-tonebender","tag-modification","tag-rams-head","tag-russian-big-muff","tag-tone-stack","tag-triangle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9GLlF-F1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":647,"url":"https:\/\/delaydude.de\/en\/effect-history-part-3-die-70er\/","url_meta":{"origin":2543,"position":0},"title":"Effect history (Part 3): die 70er – Revolution der Modulationseffekte","author":"Delay Dude","date":"Thursday July 13th, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In den 70ern wurden zahlreiche Effekte entwickelt. 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