3 muff's in 3 nights [3 bmp build reports]

[nightingale]

After stumbling onto the "Big Muff Versions Page" http://www.pisotones.com/BigMuffPi/psst/BMP_versions.htm
I decided I was going to finally build all of the versions of the BMP that I promised myself I would build.
I bought myself some budget Taiwanese enclosures from CE Distro, and went after it the Ronsound way. No frills, just function!
I tried to use as many old parts [20% tollerance] that  I could from a local surplus electronic supply to mimic the drift in all of the old muff circuits.






Night 1: Triangle knob PNP version [uzzfay]
I actually used Dan N's schematic from the uzzfay site. It is basically the same as all other triangle shcemmo's, but it uses 10k pots?
This one has less gain and less fuzz that most versions, but to my ears the fuzz gets into more of the raggedy vintage fuzztone sound.
I like this one the most, but the output was not very impressive at high volumes w/ drum bass and another guitar player. I think the 10k pots are the suspect. I plan on swapping them out asap! This one seems to almost have some usefull OD tones at the lower fuzz settings. Almost a cranked tube amp sound.


Night 2: Stock USA version [tonepad]
This one is the wildest of them all. Tons of fuzz and volume, and you can get that overloaded/collapsing sound at the more extreme fuzz settings. These tone stack values seem to have more mids, and a bigger sweep spot. This circuit really shine in a loud band setting because the mids are still present, and the volume it is capable of is amazing!

Night 3: Green Russian [tonepad]
I never thought I was a fan of the green Russian muff, they always seemed too mid scooped and synthy for me? I am not crazy about the sound of this version at low volume settings. In hight volume situations this circuit really "came to life" for me. I appreciated the sound of some of the "brighter" fuzz settings that it is capeable of? This one also has some nice sounding tones at the lowest fuzz settings. The green Russian muff seemed to go well with all of the spring reverb that i use. 


I realize that these are all simply opinions, but I thought it might help out someone who was not sure which BMP version to build. I am sure it is overwhelming with over 6-7 BMP schematics floating around?

fuzz on,
ry

[AL]

Thanks for that   

AL

[Solidhex]

Yo

  Cool post. Just dug this up after doing some more mods to a friends NYC big muff. I've got a pcb ready, think I'm going to do a triangle version. I build the BYOC triangle version for a friend a while back and was sad to hand it over ha. I turned the NYC into the GGG tuned version ....( I have a original late series muff and was curious to hear a tighter version). Definitely an improvement. I remember a green russian muff having a very usefull tonestack so I swapped out the .0039 for a .0047. Seemed to make things more crunchy and less kazoo like in the later sweep of the knob.

--Brad

[Exactopposite]

Solidhex

Have you done any other DIY big muff projects? I also have an original  late edition model (3rd edition with tone bypass switch). I'm curious to know how some of these sound compared to it.

[ambulancevoice]

the triangle is supposed to use 100k pots, not 10k, his schematic is wrong