Big Muff Pi for metal?

[DanielWong]

Do you think a Big Muff could handle metal tones very well? I mean like percussive palm mute chugs and harmonics and all that stuff...

What \'s another decent metal distortion circuit?

[mattpocket]

Dr Boogey?

[GibsonGM]

There's a more-scooped mid mod for the BMP tone stack, search the forum...try maybe "BMP mids" or bmp mods.  I put it on a switch, and it kind of gets the early R Rhodes sound from "I Don't Know".  Since it actually IS a fuzz, you have to keep that in mind and not expect  metal distortion from it - but for many things, it has a great sound (think the Pumpkins, Siamese Dream...).  Wooly.  The mid scoop makes it not project so well live, however.   I use a Dist+ for my hardest material - easy to build and very nasty! Early 80's metal, esp. when used with a post equalizer with mid scoop...

[DanielWong]

link me to the DR Boogey

what pedal is the dist+ based after

[mattpocket]

There's a more-scooped mid mod for the BMP tone stack, search the forum...try maybe "BMP mids" or bmp mods.  I put it on a switch, and it kind of gets the early R Rhodes sound from "I Don't Know".  Since it actually IS a fuzz, you have to keep that in mind and not expect  metal distortion from it - but for many things, it has a great sound (think the Pumpkins, Siamese Dream...).  Wooly.  The mid scoop makes it not project so well live, however.   I use a Dist+ for my hardest material - easy to build and very nasty! Early 80's metal, esp. when used with a post equalizer with mid scoop...

I will second two things there...

A big mid scoop means that you dont always cut through in a live situation...

The dist+ is great for metal, not just 80's, but also modern really pristene metal tones, but you should add a tone control to it (I didnt, as I didnt have room in the box, but I plan to build another), it can get a bit harsh leading to sometimes sounding thin, you'll also need to spend a while fiddling with EQing after the pedal to get the chug of the palm-mutes right. I usually have my amp set as bass-9o'clock, mids-10oclock, treble-1o'clock, and then set the eq with a slight overall boost, all the treble and mid frequencies in the middle of the road and then have the left three sliders (for bass response for the chugs) stepping upwards a notch each. Kind of so it looks like this:

    -
          -
                 -
                         -        -       -       -

I also use a compressor with mine (a marshall ed-1) someone is selling one of these on the forum, take a look in the sale/trade section, its going for a bargain price too... I have this set to improve sustain, I dont think you'll have problems if you are using a les paul, but I have a PRS SE and its incredibly light, meaning it doesnt sustain as much as I'd like... the ED-1 also has a little warm overdrive to add to the signal...

I can go into more detail on settings for you, if you decide this is the route to go down... Although I am pretty happy with mine, it wont stop me building a Dr Boogey, and I also came up with some mods for a harmonic perculator the other day which makes it ace for mid scooped metal, but I am not done working on it. The fact that it uses a specific low gain, leakage specific Ge tranny doesnt help matters either as results can vary greatly, and I am still sorting out some bias issues...

Hope that helps, although these kind of "which is best for..." threads normally confuse me more! haha

edit: the dist+ is a clone of the MXR Distortion+ and the Dr Boogey file can be found by searching the forum (check the search button at the top of the page - I think gaussmarkov (sp?) did the file IIRC) The Dr Boogey is based around the Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier amp - doesnt get much more chug chug than that!

Matt

[col]

The modern re-issue is crap for chugging away on which is why I sold mine. If you've not built one yet I'd recomment the foxy lady/triangle knob muff and even the op-amp version which all chug well and you can get some very metal sounding noises out of them. For stoner metal I don't think they can be beaten as you have that almost never ending sustain to carry the cords over. The versions I'm talking about have no electrolytic caps in the schematic.

[Seljer]

if you're doing that stoner metal type stuff in the style of Kyuss/Electric Wizard/early Black Sabbath/etc.... a Big Muff will be perfect

but its got way too much thickness in the low end to be good for the palm mutes/chugga chugga stuff (I've never tried modifying it but I doubt it'd become perfect with smaller coupling capacitors between stages and other changes to tame it down a bit)


if you're doing something thrashier, then look for something else, I got some pretty good Metallica type sounds with my ProCo Rat clone an my amp's eq

[Meanderthal]

I doubt it'd become perfect with smaller coupling capacitors between stages

Oh ye of little faith...

The excessive mud and compression is the problem with palm mutes on the mighty muff. Lowering the cap values to taste will eliminate the mud, but the sustain will still be there... which may or may not be a problem depending on your technique. Ya gotta be serious about the palm mute, none of that 'lightly brushing by' stuff, none of that 'ouch, my strat bridge is hurting me ' stuff...

But, no matter what, if the Muff works, it will roar! And, for leads, it's pretty hard to beat.

[mattpocket]

What is the metal muff? Is it just a modified big muff?

I've often heard of using  BMP for metal, but I cant see where anyone gets that from, all the recordings and sound samples I've heard are pure grunge/stoner rock... That fuzzy stuff...

I'd like to hear a sound sample from one of you guys that uses this pedal for metal, and to hear about the modifications for the chugging problem!

Matt

[ambulancevoice]

metal muff is a muff with more treble and less bass (to me anyway)
and with a built in boost
maybe its something to try
and ive always wondered why there is no schematic around for it (or not that i know of)

[ambulancevoice]

if you're doing that stoner metal type stuff in the style of Kyuss/Electric Wizard/early Black Sabbath/etc.... a Big Muff will be perfect

this is good news for me!

[Meanderthal]

 Yes, I've heard that too about the Metal Muff. It's relatively new, and(although I'm not sure) may even be SMD components, so I guess it just hasn't been officially reverse engineered and published by anyone yet.

But, that did bring to mind Yun's mods, which may indeed be the answer!

[SeanCostello]

It seems like most of the classic metal amp/pedal setups have more treble boost / lows cut than your standard Big Muff. A few typical metal guitar setups (old school, 1970's through 1980's):

- Marshall Super Lead, bright channel. This has a 470 K resistor in parallel with a 470 pF capacitor, which passes the low frequencies through, but boosts high frequencies by about 6 dB at some turnover point (720 Hz or so). In addition, the volume control of the bright channel has a bypass cap to cut out the low end, and the cathode bypass cap of the bright channel results in rolloff below 700 Hz. Running a full-bandwidth boost/distortion into this channel (like a Distortion+) would still result in a fairly bright signal, with the lows cut at various stages before it reaches the power amp. I think Randy Rhodes did something like this.
- Marshall Super Lead / Super Bass, "normal" channel, boosted by Dallas Rangemaster. The amp itself is fairly bassy, but the input is boosted by a treble booster. Judas Priest used such a setup.
- Marshall JCM-800. Similar to the Super Lead, but with an extra gain stage in front of the bright channel. The extra gain stage passes through another 470K||470pF combination, to further boost the highs.

I haven't looked at any of the Dual Rectifier / Soldano type preamps, but my guess is that they cascade more stages, in combination with more high-pass filtering (or high shelving filters).

So, a few ways of adapting a Big Muff for metal:

- Change the coupling caps to much smaller values. My late-70's Big Muff uses 1uF, while my Russian Muffs use .1uF. Try something a lot smaller. My guess is that you want to have 1 or 2 stages that have a cutoff frequency of 720 Hz.
- Keep the larger coupling caps (I think .1uF sounds a lot better than anything larger), but add a parallel resistor/capacitor combo between stages (between the 2nd and 3rd, between the 1st and 2nd, or both). You may have to adjust the gain of the stages to get the clipping you want.
- Change the notch frequency of the tone control. I think that the Swollen Pickle tone stack was supposed to have a more "modern" sound, so try searching the forum archives for this.

Sean Costello

[tcobretti]

Somebody posted gut shots of the Metal Muff a while back; it is far too complicated to be worth the time to draw it out.

[ambulancevoice]

yeah i thought so

[ambulancevoice]

Yes, I've heard that too about the Metal Muff. It's relatively new, and(although I'm not sure) may even be SMD components, so I guess it just hasn't been officially reverse engineered and published by anyone yet.

But, that did bring to mind Yun's mods, which may indeed be the answer!

the big metal muff probably is not smd
but the nano metal muff and the rest of the nano series is probably smd

[mattpocket]

I'm not feeling the muff for metal... not at all...

It might be ok for 80s metal, that hairspray and tight pants type stuff, but for modern metal, I dont think it cuts the mustard...

Matt

[Meanderthal]

 You're right Matt, it's definitely not a 'modern' sound. Although, I would put the era back a few years... more of a 70s sound. Hair bands(doggone it my hair's long too!) bring to mind more of a processed controlled DS-1 thing... The Muff is too barbaric(and I mean that in a good way), too much character for that.

Still, it was metal enough for Cliff Burton(yeah, I know, guitar please...)

[Seljer]

I doubt it'd become perfect with smaller coupling capacitors between stages

Oh ye of little faith...

I like my Big Muff too much as it is to go change it   

the big metal muff probably is not smd
but the nano metal muff and the rest of the nano series is probably smd

I remember gut shots being posted somewhere and it being smd....but I can't find them right now and it may have been the nano/micro version 
though even the regular metal muff is in that regular die-cast boxes, not the classic EHX folded metal ones, so I suspect it may be made by the same place thats doing all their other new stuff (which all seems to be surface mount)

[tcobretti]

Yeah, the big Metal Muff is definitely SMD.