uhhh yeah, another muff a comin' ( video samples please check it out )

[Wild E]

Breadboarded this puppy Sunday on my brand new giant breadboard. Sure looked pretty. After a little jiggling I got it to work. Had to play at low volume and I began to think I had to learn to tweek this. No playing yesterday. Today I was able to crank it up a bit. Man oh freakin man!!! What a sound!!! Bass? Yeah it's there, I turned up the highs on my amp. Sustain? You can hold a note long enough to forget which song you were playing.

Substitutions:

1N914 diodes
500 K Vol pot (All I had with leads)
Q1-Q4    Motorola 2N2222 

It's great as it is and I don't want to experiment with the clipping but I will because I can. 
Thanks guys, this will be one of my sounds.

[Wild E]

I left out not too fuzzy!

[mattpas]

here is a layout i did, and yes i'm a total sucker for balance/symmetry, http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/foxfire/biggermuff/BIGGERMUFF+LAYOUT.png.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1 i haven't built it yet so if you decide to use it you may want to double check it for yourself. with that said i wouldn't post it if i wasn't pretty dang sure it wasn't good... 

Thanks.
Have you tried this out yet?
According to the schematic the cap after the 39k resistor after Q3 should be .05uf
Also, what is the extra cap in the bottom right corner?

[joegagan]

Also, what is the extra cap in the bottom right corner?

my guess is that it is a tone cap to tame the highs for particular amp or guitars that need the highs killed a little.

wild, e, thanks for the report, sounds great!

[DiamondDog]

everything sits on the breadboard just like it did in the video. there is a slight gaff, a .05 instead of a .1 between q2 and q3 ( zac, verify please)

Sorry, Joe. I've come in late on this thread and I'm confused by this comment. Are you saying your build has the ,05 or that the schem should have the ,05?

Cheers, it's right up there on my next fx to build.

[joegagan]

i have to double check the next time i am at zac's shop.

[Zzagar]

After Q2 you follow into the gain stage of Q3. The cap between Q2 & Q3 should be a .05uf.  The cap after Q3 as well as after the 39k resistor should also be .05uf.  In the original schematic Joe posted we had set both of these capacitors values at .1uf, then upon making our duplicate breadboard we realized the values of these capacitors.  Hope this clears up any confusion.  Z

[foxfire]

here is a layout i did, and yes i'm a total sucker for balance/symmetry, http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/foxfire/biggermuff/BIGGERMUFF+LAYOUT.png.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1 i haven't built it yet so if you decide to use it you may want to double check it for yourself. with that said i wouldn't post it if i wasn't pretty dang sure it wasn't good... 

Thanks.
Have you tried this out yet?
According to the schematic the cap after the 39k resistor after Q3 should be .05uf
Also, what is the extra cap in the bottom right corner?

no i haven't had the time to built it yet. i just looked it over again and i'm gonna say that i'm 99.9% sure it's good to go. i miss read Joe's follow up statement and thought that he was implying that it should have been a 0.1µF cap...in light of the preceding follow up posts i changed my layout. and yes the unmarked cap is there to bleed some highs to ground. i left it unmarked cause i'm not sure i'm gonna use it and or what value i would use, yet...

[BeakerRoos]

I built something a lot like Joe's schematic, but with the typical BMP midscoop tone and some mismatched diodes.  I live nearby Zac and Joe and demo-ed it for them -- they didn't throw it out of the shop so that was encouraging.  May as well have left the gain control off mine too though, it's all the way up or it's weak.  I will breadboard another one with a different tone control or without one at all once I solve what's on there now.

Zack has a great shop, and everything in it sounds like a million bucks.  By coincidence, I saw Joe play at a local club a few months before meeting him and wondered who the lefty was with the gritty telecaster.   Took me awhile at the shop to figure out it was the same guy.  Small town

Anyhow, three cheers for fuzz

[Zzagar]

Breaker / Billy-
Thank you for the kind words! Its always a pleasure to get to experiment with circuits together!! Now if only i could get Mr. Gagan back in the shop  we would have a trio of Mad Scientists!!

[BeakerRoos]

I'll bring a breadboard and some Dr. Pepper and an enormous bag of catladyman's spdt's

[Wild E]

Funny that this thread comes back up just before I was about to revive it...
This may have been done before but if not I suggest you try  this. Go tohttp://www.runoffgroove.com/index.html and cook up a Fetzer Valve. Place the Fetzer Valve (minus the 1 meg resistor) between the output cap and the volume pot. This adds a nice bite and some cool breakup, sort of distortion-like but you get to keep the sustain.  :icon_twisted:I would imagine it will work with any Muff or variant.

[joegagan]

don't let doug hammond catch you adding more parts to the muff!

wild e, funny you mention this. zac has a new modded muff that includes an additional gainstage (biplolar trans) after everything. it sounds great, and adds the ability to get more range in the overdrive and less fuzzy sounds. more on this variant later.

[foxfire]

so i finally got around to building this guy last week and it sounds really good. i haven't had a chance to really have at it yet but i may swap the 470pF's on Q2 and 3 for some 220pF's to get some more nasty out of it. i was wondering about the voltages on Q4, if i remember correctly i'm getting something like C- 2.6, B-2.1, and E-1.something or other. i put the last gain stage on my breadboard and everything checked out so i guess all is good. i just was just surprised to not see the collector up around 4v...     

[keto]

I also built this up, and just fired it up.  Put 5089's in it, and it does sound slightly mis-biased.  Also, I do not have the singing sustain I was expecting on single notes (nor as much overall sustain as I'm used to with a BM).  Which resistor(s) would I mess around with to work on fixing that?

EQ is good though, easily controllable off guitar tone control.  Might be a little bright for some.

[Wild E]

don't let doug hammond catch you adding more parts to the muff!

Ironic that I did that. This ckt. has been sitting on my breadboard waiting for me to come up with the smallest possible layout then I add 6 more components!
I'm not sure if I'll leave the Fetzer there, but if I do it'll be switchable.
Thanks again for bringing me into The Fuzz Realm.

[DougH]

don't let doug hammond catch you adding more parts to the muff!

LOL!!  

Thanks Joe, for bringing me to the brink of almost building a Muff again.  

(I ended up building the Anderton comparator fuzz aka "optimum fuzz adapter" instead...   Now my fuzz itch is scratched again, for a while...)

[Scruffie]

Digging up an oldie here... but did anyone try this kinda experiment with an Op-Amp Big Muff?  I have a Bassist Friend and wanted to build him a christmas present and having no idea what bassists like pedal wise, I thought that might be a good laugh.

Oh and by the way, verified vero, it's big because I made it quickly for someone unexperienced so wanted there to be plenty of spare space to make it clear and not worry myself over jumpers might still fit in a 1590B though -

[newfish]

Digging up an oldie here... but did anyone try this kinda experiment with an Op-Amp Big Muff?  I have a Bassist Friend and wanted to build him a christmas present and having no idea what bassists like pedal wise, I thought that might be a good laugh.

Oh and by the way, verified vero, it's big because I made it quickly for someone unexperienced so wanted there to be plenty of spare space to make it clear and not worry myself over jumpers might still fit in a 1590B though -

Bassists, I'd give 'em a blend control to dial in some extra definition.
1 BMP stage is a buffer, so half the work is done.

Here's my 0.02 on Muffs...

Stock re-issue modded to have 220pF feedback caps after each stage, instead of the stock 470pF.
Input Cap reduced to 0.2uF.
Add a DPDT switch to bypass the tone stack (which I don't mind...)
Fuzz Face set to 'medium rare' before it for extra kick... 

Cheers.

[GodSaveMetal]

Has somebody make a clone of the METAL MUFF?? can anybody an idea for these???