Muffmaster fifth build first perf

[rove]

Hey, I am kind of new around here and thought I would post a success story as my only other post is looking for help on my tubescreamer variant.
Was planning to build a B Blender, but came up short on op amps, so in looking around for something to build with what I had on hand I came across the muffmaster from AMZ.  This was my first perfboard project, my other builds (2x distortion+, Ross Comp, TS) were all pcb, and, with the exception of the TS all worked right away (well once I remembered to put the ICs in--every time).
Thought I did not have the 1uf output cap, looked everywhere, gave up, then found one right in front of me on my desk.  Need to organize.
Parts List:
c1 .01uF
c2 1uF
R1 100k
R2 330k
R3 10k
R4 1k
R5 100kA pot
Q1 5088
I boxed it up in my pre drilled TS enclosure (taiwanese BB from smallbear), overkill, but just wanted to see if it works.  It worked first try, I tried it with my gibson l6s through a Hiwatt custom 100/marshall412 cab.  First thing I noticed, though was a dramatic loss of bass.  I decided to mess with the input cap and installed a couple of sockets so I could easily swap out input caps in parallel with the stock .01uF.  I tried a .01uF (little difference), a .022 uF (getting there), and a .047, which finally seemed to be maintaining the bass frequencies while still giving me a nice crunchy boost over the last 1/3rd turn of the volume pot.  Thinking of trying out different values for the volume pot, but not sure what to try (I need to get a breadboard so I can have all this sorted out).
Well I then cut the leads too short on my only .047 cap, so I ended up putting in a .22uF cap and it sounds about the same, certainly no bass loss.
I socketed the transistor so I could try something other than a 5088, but that is all I have for now.
For now the MM resides in my TS enclosure with lots of extra holes in it, but I am thinking of putting it in a BB alongside the Orange squeezer I am building (waiting for diodes)--OS first.  Going to play around with different pedal orders on this as I have only tried it by itself so far.
I used the schematic from the AMZ site cross referenced with Torchy's layout.  the circuit fits on a small board (I used half of half of a radio shack general purpose pc board) and could easily be put into small enclosure, B or even smaller.  It was also, for me, the perfect first build on perf board due to its simplicity, for some reason perf projects seem daunting at this stage.  gotta get some stripboard.
Hope someone finds this info useful, I hope to post pics once I get the thing properly boxed up.
great forum.

[Meanderthal]

 Don't be afraid to perf... it's much easier than etching and drilling a PCB! Plus, you can use it to follow a pcb or vero layout! No more complicated either. It just LOOKS hard.
Glad to hear your builds are all working out...

[markm]

Don't be afraid to perf... it's much easier than etching and drilling a PCB!

Only if you aren't equipped to do PCBs.
From what I have read on these pages, and from my experience, there is far less de-bugging with a PCB than a perf build.
Aside from this, congratulations to rove on a successful build!

[rove]

Hey thanks,  I have been playing with this a bit more in conjuction with my other pedals and decided that I liked it best last after my distortion +.  So then I needed a way to put it in a box.  As it turns out the box I had was drilled for: in, out, two LEDs, two footswitches, and three knobs, so, looking at the two in one layout from GGG, I moved my distortion + into the same box and am able to power them both off the same 9 volt, use them independently or in series (D+ first), which is mostly what I was setting out for in my TS build.
tried a couple of different pots with the muffmaster and settled on a 250k linear pot, seems to give me more usable boost.  I also tried running the muffmaster off of +18 volts, but the circuit sounded louder to me with +9 so I stuck with that.
now that I have gotten my feet wet, i am sure I will be doing more perf board projects.