The Big Muff: Original, Mini, or Nano

is ok.... if youre imto tht

Jim aside, what does everyone else think about the big muffs? I love opinions

that's obviously not true, Brandon

but to recap:

Terry - has a big muff, loves it but uses other dirtboxes too.... plays a GIANT 80s arena-rock marshall

Blake - doesn't hate the muff but likes other stuff better

Xaq - not a fan of the big muff

Evilbassist -a big muff neutral

Moogbadger - has a recent muff, has trouble getting the sound he wants from it

that seem right guys?

Brandon, you know I was totally drinking craft beer and cracking up as I busted your balls, right? I'm like half serious, no offense little dude. But for real, if you're not going to try a bunch of stuff in eprson go on fleabay and buy the cheapest 'little big muff' you can find that's not broken just to see if it works for you, that way if you find its not for you you're not out much money and you probably won't take a loss if you sell it or trade it later.

There kinda is a tell-have you seen our retarded boards? Only an insane person would have collected all that nonsense. We've clearly lost our marbles.

if it wasn't for playing musicalchairs with musical instruments and gear I think I woulda lost my mind completely over the last few years, its like an anchor when the world comes more and more unraveled every day despite your best efforts to wind it up again into a neat little yarn ball of relative normality

but like, everybody but me, Terry and Xaq is pretty young in this thread so you ight not dig what I'm talking about until you dig what i'm talking about if you know what I mean, and you don't

It is true. I have a green Russian Big Muff and I use it in most songs. I play Jazzmasters Strats and Teles, copies and vintage clunkers too, even an acoustic electric epiphone through a Marshall JCM800... the OLD 2203... a 100w stadium head and a 300w custom Cab of 3 Fender Speakers and an EV. Love the sound I get. My soundscape ranges from Goth to Grunge, Hard rock to industrial and back again to ballads and musical salads.

Here's what that statement IS NOT saying.

Through my big old valve amp that is built to scream, the big muff sounds great RUNNING WITH OTHER PEDALS. With a tube screamer it is mighty. With TWO tubescreamers... pick a better word and double it. With a compressor it is a beautiful thrummed note that does not know the meaning of "decay" or "Stop Sustaining". With a flanger and some delay it is a sad listful sound, with a phaser it screels through the swooping overtones of the phase....ignoring the notes you are trying to play like they no longer matter... surrendering to the waveform. Slapped alongside a marshall emulating pedal it tries to crumble in a comforting way and with a soul food (Klon Clone by people who didn't really try) It can bring you close to tonebender and rangemaster-esque tones. With a wah it wails or hums, depending on position in the signal chain. and slap an eq pedal before it and you can emulate chugging palm mute Djent work.

By itself it is a good pedal. but it is how it works with others that makes it unique and where it's versitility comes into play.

Through my solid state amp... Roland Jazz Chorus.... it misses the mark, drives everything a bit too aggressively and unpleasantly and has me tapping other pedals instead. Even through fender amps the tone is a bit thin and brash. And don't put it anywhere near a vox.... It is a workhorse and the vox is a show dog... you know what happens when you try and plug a horse into a dog... not recommended.

And with a bass this thing thuds like a champion.

It even adds some real guts to drum machine tracks and sets up perfectly for industrial voicings otherwise unattainable.

The Green russian is a bassier version, with more bottom end and a more stable midrange presence. Closest comparable for the best price is the EHX Bass Big Muff Nano.... not the normal Big Muff Nano. Or even grab an ENO BMF fuzz from ebay in china. That will give you a feel for a great sound match for minimal dollars.

There are plenty of boutiques about... all charging heaps for their approximation of a pretty simple circuit. It is still in production which says something for it... don't pay the big bucks when you can work magic with a basic version.

Hope this helps...

there needs to be a terms and conditions for making a profile clearly outlining jim and the risks of being on the same forum as him

you also need to mention the absolute amount of shit youre gonna get when you ask fro advice. you want a single pedal recommendation? jim has 20. you want a solid state amp? tubes, says jim.

i hope you know im kidding im drunk at 12:00 pm

workin' on it! its noon, its friday, TGIF mofos...

but seriously, I like tube amps, they sound good, even the bad ones.... solids tate amps? not su much and then only a few of them for limited applications.... though i wanna try the quilter pedalboard amp, the demo sounds amazing and it cranks a good 40 watts if you need it from n enclosure the size of an mxr pedal. And unlike a lot of their amps its affordable. I am not paying tube prices for a solid state amp, but the pedalboard amp is the price of a boutique pedal, i am so there. I might order ne today and report back.

thats why solid states are great (imo), some pedals cost more than them

but 95% of them sound like ass 75% of the timee (and 99% of them sound like ass for overdrive ALL OF THE TIME, 100%)

I just bought a quilter microblock 45 for 150 bucks to try it out... we'll find out next week. Givn the tone and wattage I think it wuld be msot fair to put it against my 50 watt EL34 heads. Maybe I'll write a review for the site.

tube screamers can fix THAT

nah... a tubescremer into a jazz chorus sounds like a tubescreamer into your dad's stereo receiver! but I want the mini quilter to make a convert of me! for 300 they do a 100 watt one with more tone shaping and an FX loop

Goddamn, that was about the most comprehensive answer on the BM and it's virtues & limitations I've seen. I'd argue that if you still need further input you're just looking for more answers that confirm your desired outcome. Asking questions is great but so is a bit of intellectual honesty.

Seriously awesome post-

yeah... from what ive tried, if you put a tube screamer in front of the new fender mustang amps or bssbreakers it sounds really good and fixes their gross ass gain

but the bass breaker has cool modern gain on its own

I find the boutique stuff to sound substantially better than the best muffs... everything thats good about the best examples with a lwoer noise floor and very carefully refined voicing or lots of controls to refine it for yourself. i still don't like the muff much, but my skreddy and stomp underfoot stomped allover all the muffs I owned prior.

GREAT psot by the way, really informative.

Yep. Maybe because I'm a mostly a Fender amp guy (and a Jazz Chorus), but mostly cuz I've found other pedals that just work much better for me & are way more versitile.

I'm still happy to sell it to anyone who's game tho!

OMG! I was looking through my aprts drawer and found a ziplock containing the unmoleted guts to my black russian muff, the first one I bought around '96! if anyone wants them? theya re for sale LOL -- ia ctually put an overdrive my friend built in the box and then gutted that and put in a treble n bass booster of my own devising based on the firsts tage of his overdrive circuit.....

100% Best of all I've managed to have about 85% of what I've bought of the years has gone up in value.

Yep. Maybe because I'm a mostly a Fender amp guy (and a Jazz Chorus)

those are both tough amp voicings for a big muff, it seems to be a marshall/hiwatt/orange pedal to my ear. voxes are too middy and blackface fenders aren't middy enough for a muff and if you have an old tweed who would wanna put ANYTHING in line 'cept maybe some slapback!

100% Best of all I've managed to have about 85% of what I've bought of the years has gone up in value.

I think all my stuff has appreciated pretty substantially, least in amps and effects.... to the point where I regularly used to liquidate my pedals for profit and get cheap shit to the point where I have 1 vintage effect left LOL! the vintage british amps you will ahve to pry from my cold dead hands though i said that about my superleads back in the day as well as all my early blackface fenders and tweed era gibsons, the supro? and they all went. But me and the '62 ac30 have nbeen together forever and I might just wanna be burried with it. Oddly, i play the fawn handwired reissue, 70s arbiter and 90s reissue a lot more altely though.... and of course th amtchless is like my favorite amp on teh planet, I never unplug that shit and put it away! With a minimal control set it is just so versatile with the master, half power, 2 totally different channels and the ability to change the rectifiers from a big GZ34 that's tight to dual 5V4s for medium comrpession before distortion all the way down to a pair of 5Y3s or a single on for some pretty heavy squish on clean tone and infinite sustain in poweramp overdrive. I was playing it yesterday with the 335 I just got and I felt like larry carlton or some shit.

Goddamn I wish I never sold my HI-WATT. That fucker was a BEAST.

You've actually got me thinking a lot about adding a little Vox to my palette. I had that AC30 we've talked about before but I never really gave it a chance because I wasn't really evaulating it on it's own merrits, just on if it would work with the band I was in at the time.

what hiwatt did you have?! I've enver owned one and I want one desperately!

thing with voxes is that they work best with minimal effects.... though the edge makes his work with the kitchen sink, most of us find we can't overdo it without compromising some of the sound.... the abriters are still adeal in vintage ac30s and ine is a beast. Loud, punchy and a bit amrshally. used it on some recordings you heard and you didn't say the riffs sounded bad ;-)