Green Russian Muff

[goldenmonkeycolor]

Let me preface this by saying... I know a lot of you dont believe component compositions matter.  But I am a believer.  In fuzz pedals specifically I believe that using all panasonic ecq (for example) metallized film caps will sound different than using all ceramic or mylar.  Ive tried it on quite a few fuzzes- measuring tolerances too.  Now on other circuits... like a boost or chorus... no, i dont think there's a difference besides noise maybe.

Anyways! 

I played a magical green russian muff that I repaired for a friend and it was magical.  I'm trying to clone it.  But I am not sure what type of capacitors are in the circuit.  Are those mylar film or ceramic or what?  I thought they were monolithic ceramics at first, but kitrae's page says it uses film caps and the green and red ones are ceramic.  I guess that implies the yellow ones are film...

my green russian that I am trying to clone used ALL yellow caps.  Those flat yellow caps.

What do you guys think?  Also- I'm not as concerned but what about those resistors with the values just labelled on them (not color banded)?  ive only seen military grade metal films resistors that are just labelled and look kinda like that. 

[goldenmonkeycolor]

oh and here's a link to the picture

http://www.kitrae.net/music/IMG_4535.jpg

[digi2t]

Look similar to ceramic monoliths.

[FuzzFanatic71]

I believe the Big Muff magic comes more from the right component values than just using "mojo" components. The Big Muffs were so inconsistent from one to the other because EHX and later Sovtek used whatever parts they had just laying around.
I recently built two Muff clones a Rams Head and a Bubble Font from kits just using standard modern components and they both sound great. Don't know how they would sound A/B'd against the real Rams Head or Bubble Font. But I like how they both sound.

[Elijah-Baley]

I know a lot of you dont believe component compositions matter.  But I am a believer.

I believe the Big Muff magic comes more from the right component values than just using "mojo" components.

All of us are different.

Anyway, what FuzzFanatic says about the Big Muff I have heard more than one time. That is a simple circuit with many critical components.

[FuzzFanatic71]

Hey I have no problems using mojo components, but really only transistors, resistors and NOS diodes as long as they are reading the right values for the project. Using old caps and even NOS caps can be a recipe for disaster in my opinion. I won't touch them with a 10 ft barge pole. That said, I have used Russian NOS paper in oil tone caps in a couple of my guitars with good results. But only because they are easy to swap out if things go wrong.