big muff pi noise reduction mod

[pinkjimiphoton]

so, i gotta bmp off evilbay... guy said it was "intermittent". he had the battery connector stuffed above the pcb so the + connection was occaisionally shorting to ground. i guess he used a wall wart. go figure.

so of course, i had to open it up to see what's what... it's a made in NYC one, one of the newer ones (the behringer knock off is in a better box than this is, as a matter of fact.

first thing i think of is play with the diodes. but i was kinda busy, so i tried paralleling diodes with some roach clips on wires, and made a kinda shocking discovery. someone probably already found this, but i haven't..

stock, it uses bat41 diodes. these were what i tried to parallel just for sh*tz and grins. it definitely made a difference in the clipping.

i tried it on all 4 of the diodes, and found a curious thing on d4.... if you parallel the bat41 at d4 with a 1n34a, for some reason it seems to work like a noise gate!

i don't know why or how, indeed, i have no clue, but someone please try it and see if it's repeatable. my bmp is now dead silent in operation, no "blow" or hiss... and tonally it seems to be the same. now, call me crazy (and it will stick) but to me, it seems it may be something worth trying... every bmp i've ever had has a good dollop of "the ocean" to it. this one was. now it's quiet, and it also lost the high end crackle breakup, the unmusical part. tone, volume, and sustain all seem to work the same.

so... if anyone is crazy enought to try it, please do and let me know!!

but... i have to ask you guys who know why these things work, why does this work? what the heck did i lummox across this time?

i gotta benefit tomorrow, but i can shoot video if no one believes it monday...

a 10c part may be just the ticket to making bmp's even better.

[Arcane Analog]

Just so happen to have one sitting here. She certainly is an ocean - they all are. I will give it shot and report back.

[pinkjimiphoton]

right on... let me know if it works for you, too!!!