allegedsongsmith's Music Gear Setup

I'm not as well versed in Big Muff lore as I could be I suppose but the general consensus seems to be that older Muffs (either the EHX or Sovtek ones) are superior to the newer ones, or at least they are more desirable.

With that in mind I was longing for some of that sweet thick fuzz that I lost when I sold my 90's era Big Muff (like a FOOL) in favor of something that has since itself gone the way of the dodo.

At any rate, after learning that to replace the exact Big Muff I once had with a vintage one of the same era would now cost upwards of 3 times what I originally paid for it, I started looking at some boutique options and that's when stumbled upon Wren and Cuff.

I noticed that they make FOUR different Big Muff clones each based on a particular incarnation of the iconic pedal. These guys are hard core.

I selected the TFR and I never turned back. It's awesome! It's got the right amount of gain/saturation/sustain while still maintaining some semblance of note clarity all the while delivering on its promise of muff goodness. I tend to keep the distortion knob at about 4 o'clock and the Tone knob around noon. I find that if I back off the distortion (like noon or below) I lose some "umph" in the overall tone, but to me, Muff pedals aren't supposed to be especially subtle. Besides, I'll say again that the note clarity to amount of gain ration is pretty impressive and what I mean is that even with a rich saturated fuzz dialed in, I can still hear the notes if I play a chord rather than just a wall of buzz, which to me, is a big plus. My understanding is that they consider this to be a medium gain pedal, so if a wall of buzz is your thing, they might have that in one of their other pedals! It's well built and Wren and Cuff have an exemplary warranty policy.

I had this insatiable urge for a chorus pedal recently and since I also have an insatiable urge for vintage pedals I started looking at Boss CE-2's. However, since I ALSO have a limited amount of money to spend on a pedal that will be used only occasionally, the CE-2 was ruled out early on in my search.

Still, since I (as a member of the effect pedal universal subconscious) tend to see the CE-2 as the gold standard for analog chorus, so I wasn't done quite yet. After some digging I learned that the early FX65's (and to a greater extend the FX60's) were not only based on the Boss CE-2 but also used the same circuit. Cool. A vintage FX65 goes for about a 3rd of what a CE-2 of the same era goes for. Bingo.

I had owned some DOD pedals in my youth but had grown to think of them as low quality (possibly due to the latter day association with Digitech), what I forgot was that in fact the older ones are built like tanks and (as is the case with the FX65) often use the same guts as the pricer corresponding Boss pedals.

The footswitch was and always will be my main gripe with DOD pedals, it's just too subtle of a feel; to go from literally stomping on my other pedals with Boss-style switches or the "button" style switches that both make the DOD switch feel like I'm stamping on flower petals, is kind of jarring. Also, the switch keeps such a low profile that it's just hard to hit it accurately without also stepping on the knobs of the pedal below it on the board.

It's great as far as sound goes, the simplicity of the controls is nice, you get some really good tonal options with the "delay time" control which can add that icey almost flanger-ish timbre to the sound. It's maybe not as "warm" as some other analog choruses, but only maybe. It does alright by me.