All ceramic caps in a Big Muff ?

[khm9]

Hi,
I've been trying to get that authentic vintage Big Muff sound for some time now, was fairly disappointed when the green russian and the rams head didn't turn out how I imagined they would, still not sure if it were the components or the circuits itself I didn't like, but for example my rams head or green russian sounded nothing like an authentic ones from many youtube videos, character was there, but they didn't have that big muff oomph.

So I have this idea to build a big muff circuit mostly with ceramic caps (except electrolytics), to keep it as much vintage as possible.

All I want is a natural, wide, fat sounding big muff, still haven't built a pedal and said: "I'm happy", there's always something... might be a good time for a breadboard.

What do you think about this wild idea?
Which big muff parts have most impact on the sound?
   -do transistors play a huge part in how the big muff turns out?
How did your big muffs turn out compared to the original vintage ones?

Thank you all

[robthequiet]

I'm sure there's a lot of factors involved, but I would start with the tone stack. There are some guys on this forum that have tone stack wisdom worth checking out.  Another thing to look at is the input resistor and cap. Look at the values you have installed and try one size bigger and one size smaller, and see if that takes you closer to how you want it to sound. HTH.

[GibsonGM]

RobQuiet has some wisdom to share....increase/decrease the input and output caps, and change tonestack values.   You can use Duncan's Tone Stack Calculator (free: google it) to play around, if you like.

Ceramics are dookie.  Only use them where pF values are required (usually involves frequencies about what we can hear, so we don't hear dookie).    They will not add 'originality' or anything to your build...maybe nasty harmonics you COULD hear, and so on - dookie.   

Call me cynical, but I find that most Muffs sound a lot alike...mass produced, made with what they could get tons of for cheap money.  No way were any units "hand tuned" or anything.....you should (pretty easily) be able to match them with what we keep in our normal part bins.  Do better if you use 5089 low noise transistors!   Other than that, the gain stages are just that - gain stages. 

I find how WIDE OPEN you run them (and most other pedals) has a lot to do with it - how much that output pot is in the way...the balance of how you have the amp set vs. the pot level...how much you kick the amp AND add the Muff's sound at the same time.   

You are using a tube amp?

PS - videos don't represent what something REALLY sounds like...I can make a weak, thin Distortion + sound HUGE and overwhelming just by mic'ing it thru a PA...direct recording with cab sims and so on can make something seem AMAZING that is not, to your ear....

[Cozybuilder]

KHM9-
Check out Kit Rae's write ups on the Big Muff Pi.

http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_guts.html

[khm9]

Very useful info, thank you all!

RobQuiet has some wisdom to share....increase/decrease the input and output caps, and change tonestack values.   You can use Duncan's Tone Stack Calculator (free: google it) to play around, if you like.

Ceramics are dookie.  Only use them where pF values are required (usually involves frequencies about what we can hear, so we don't hear dookie).    They will not add 'originality' or anything to your build...maybe nasty harmonics you COULD hear, and so on - dookie.   

Call me cynical, but I find that most Muffs sound a lot alike...mass produced, made with what they could get tons of for cheap money.  No way were any units "hand tuned" or anything.....you should (pretty easily) be able to match them with what we keep in our normal part bins.  Do better if you use 5089 low noise transistors!   Other than that, the gain stages are just that - gain stages. 

I find how WIDE OPEN you run them (and most other pedals) has a lot to do with it - how much that output pot is in the way...the balance of how you have the amp set vs. the pot level...how much you kick the amp AND add the Muff's sound at the same time.   

You are using a tube amp?

PS - videos don't represent what something REALLY sounds like...I can make a weak, thin Distortion + sound HUGE and overwhelming just by mic'ing it thru a PA...direct recording with cab sims and so on can make something seem AMAZING that is not, to your ear....

And there goes my idea

Anyway, if components don't have impact on the tone itself why did my builds sound like dookie? I even hand picked resistors *sigh* looked for closest values accordingly to the schematic all in hope to get an authentic big muff sound.

I will attempt to build one more big muff (triangle) and if that one doesn't turn out good I'll leave muff circuits alone for some time.

I have a 15w all tube amp (laney cub 12r)
When I tried to use the big muff I built with a compressor (dynacomp) noise was unbearable, and it wasn't that regular buzz it was like a bad bad power supply noise I ran both pedals with a 9v battery. Is there a way I can avoid this in my future big muff build(s)?

For what it's worth I find that the green russian 'sticks' out a bit among other muffs, it has much more bass and has more sustain than the others.

Thing that is still a bit unclear to me are the transistors, should I hunt the vintage ones or those cheap ones from tayda are good enough?

P.S. This summer I saw D. Gilmour live, once he played sorrow I wanted a green russian and when he did comfortably numb I wanted a rams head! My big muffs sounded nothing like his. I know it's not a good comparisson since he can trun his amp very loud, its a stage and well he is D.G. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but still makes me wonder if I did something wrong during my builts.

[Gus]

Built it with disk ceramics. You might like it because of the microphonics and other things

[karbomusic]

Have you reviewed the kitrae site? I went over it pretty thoroughly before I built mine so that I knew which sound I wanted and what to expect when I built it.

http://www.bigmuffpage.com/

[robthequiet]

I had a RH BMP in my younger years, which I remember as bright and really creamy. Was too young to appreciate at the time, of course. However, if your ears are good enough to hear some nuances of tone in DG's stage rig, you definitely have the ears to tune the circuit to your taste.

[EBK]

You might find that you don't actually like the mid scoop of the big muff's frequency response.  The big muff is a very divisive circuit for this very reason -- people either love it or hate it, and it usually comes down to that mid scoop.  Good news is, it is easy enough to change that characteristic if you can let go of the vintage-must-equal-better thinking.

[GibsonGM]

You still CAN build it, any way you want! That is why we DIY     Just pointing out that ceramic caps are KNOWN for being 'noisy' and sounding grainy...they can produce 'bad harmonics' that aren't pleasing.  But you may not notice this, or it may add to the sound in a good way (accidentally)...

but there's not much point in LOOKING for that, is what i meant...a much larger effect will be had by working with in/out caps, tone stacks, coupling cap values, diodes...

Playing around with all this is the point, so have at it! 

[davidallancole]

When I built my Big Muff, I had an original around to compare to.  I did not build it "vintage spec" but used the same cap/resistor values as indicated on the schematic.  I can't remember what transistors I used, but they would have been modern production and not searched out vintage trannies.  Mine came out sounding ballsy and significantly better than the vintage Big Muff.  Why, because I am an awesome pedal builder?  Not likely, I expect enough capacitors and resistors drifted in the vintage Big Muff to cause it to sound worse than it could have. 

Same thing with the Fuzz Face I built.  I used modern transistors biased appropriately.  It sounded way better than a vintage Fuzz Face pedal with germaniums I had access to and way better than the Joe Bonamassa Fuzz Face I compared it to as well.  Why?  I like a more modern distortion type of fuzz than the old spatty style.  Vintage pedals aren't for me but luckily I know some guys that do collect old pedals.

My suggestion would be to grab a breadboard and change parts till it sounds the way you expect, if possible.  This not only gets you closer to what you want but allows you to learn what components are important for the sound of the pedal.  You can try all ceramics, change input values, play with the tone stack and change other R/C combinations through out the circuit to see how it helps change the sound as well.

Kitrae's site is where I did my learning when building my muff.