URGENT BIG MUFF HELP!

Is it worth spending an extra 15 quid to get a bmtw as opposed to a regular big muff pi?

Is it worth spending an extra 15 quid to get a bmtw as opposed to a regular big muff pi?

It depends how much you care about having midrange in your distortion.... disabling the tone circuit adds all the mids back in though you sacrifice any tweakability of lows and highs. It will help the muff cut the mix live, but it then sounds less muff-like.

The stock big muff has a notoriously scooped frequency response designed into its tone control. You think of the smashing pumpkins Siamese dream era as the ultimate big-muff sound with those classic IC based muffs they supposedly used, only live they didn't. That 'huge' big muff distortion got lost on stage and so (to the ebst of my knowledge) they found other ways to make their wall of guitar noise on tour. The tone wicker is supposed to be the solution. In the end a muff is a like it or lump it design that is really very situational. In a certain room with certain musicians and gear it will work its magic, but the next night you change one ingredient in the recipe and its not the same. Some of it is the sheer amount of clipping and compression applied to the signal and adding your midrange back in won't mitigate the extremes that the big muff takes your guitar to even at 1 on the gain dial. It all depends how you plan to use your big muff. I have owned several from various eras as well as some cool clones by skreddy and stomp underfoot. I can enver make it work for ME.

The best solution is to find the Muff you love. I team mine with a Tube screamer live to add the extra push muffs require, and will continue to do so. When shopping for one, take your personal fave distortion pedal and a patch cable in with you and ask to try the muffs out. You will get a fair idea of your sound by matching in this way. Good Luck!

The best solution is to find the Muff you love. I team mine with a Tube screamer live to add the extra push muffs require,

that will certainly tailor the midrange substantially, however you are talking about a lot of extra gain, clipping and negative feedback as well... I am not telling you not to do it, but its gotta play hell with your signal to noise ratio, plus unless you have a fancy true bypass looper of some kind it must be a pain in the cajones to switch both on. I happen to own 2 colorsound overdrivers/power boosters like Gilmour used to slap after his muff live and I can attest that if you want to go the 2 pedal route to help out your muff that the colorsound circuit is a really great way to do it. Its very low noise until you hit ridiculous gain levels and its on-board TB tonestack mates with the big muff exceptionally well. It didn't make me into a big muff man, but I got some really fun animals tones with assorted muffs (best results with a skreddy mayo), a colorsound, TC electronics delay, and a dual showman. Not me, but totally cool and all done with very readily available stuff. For me a silicon fuzz face was a lot more enjoyable in that chain in place of the big muff and even moreso with a marshall plexi in place of the showman.