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Average Price: $93
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Description
The Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi is more than just a guitar pedal, it's a piece of music history. This classic fuzz effects pedal has been the secret weapon of legends like Jimi Hendrix and Santana, as well as contemporary artists from Jack White to Muse. Its rich, creamy distortion and violin-like sustain have been shaping the sound of rock music for the better part of 30 years.
Just like the original '70s Big Muff Pi, this reissue features three intuitive controls—Volume, Tone, and Sustain—that let you dial in a wide range of distortion styles. Crank the Volume for a boost to cut through the mix, increase the Sustain for endless sustain and harmonics, and sweep the Tone from a warm, bassy purr to a sharp, trebly bite. With just a few tweaks, you can achieve the signature Big Muff Pi sound or forge your own.
Despite its roots in rock's golden age, the Big Muff Pi is not just a relic. It's a workhorse pedal built for today's players. Its compact, rugged enclosure can withstand the rigors of the road, and it can be powered with a 9V battery or any standard 9V DC power adapter.
Key Features:
- Volume, Tone, and Sustain controls for a wide range of distortion styles
- Rich, creamy distortion and violin-like sustain
- Compact, rugged enclosure suitable for touring
- Can be powered with a 9V battery or any standard 9V DC power adapter
- Used by legendary and contemporary artists alike
- Made in the USA
Owner's manual
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi User ManualProduct specs
| Pedal Type | Fuzz |
| Analog/Digital | Analog |
| Inputs | 1 x 1/4" |
| Outputs | 1 x 1/4" |
| Bypass Switching | True Bypass |
| EQ | Tone Control |
| Controls | Sustain, Volume |
| Power Source | 9V DC power supply (sold separately) |
| Batteries | 1 x 9V |
| Height | 2.95" |
| Width | 5.5" |
| Depth | 6.875" |
| Weight | 1.55 lbs. |
FAQs
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What kind of sound can I expect from the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi?
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The Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi delivers a classic fuzz tone characterized by its rich, creamy sustain and harmonic distortion, making it ideal for rock, alternative, and grunge music.
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Does the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi work well with both guitar and bass?
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Yes, the Big Muff Pi is versatile and works well with both electric guitars and bass guitars, providing a thick, powerful fuzz sound for both instruments.
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What type of power supply does the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi require?
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The Big Muff Pi requires a 9V DC power supply, which is sold separately, and can also be powered by a 9V battery.
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Is the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi suitable for beginners?
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Yes, the Big Muff Pi is beginner-friendly due to its simple control layout with sustain, tone, and volume knobs, allowing easy adjustment of your fuzz sound.
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Does the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi have true bypass switching?
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Yes, the Big Muff Pi features true bypass switching, ensuring your signal remains unaffected when the pedal is turned off.
Equipboard's Expert Review
Equipboard tested this
The Fuzz Legend Lives OnIconic tone, simple yet effective
In our tests, we found that the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi lives up to its legendary status. This classic fuzz pedal has been a staple in countless pedalboards for decades, and it's easy to see why.
Upon unboxing, we were immediately struck by its iconic design and sturdy construction. The large enclosure may not be ideal for cramped pedalboards, but it certainly feels built to last. The simple three-knob layout is intuitive and inviting, allowing us to dial in our desired tone quickly.
We were impressed by the Big Muff's versatility across different genres. From searing lead tones to thick, woolly rhythm sounds, this pedal delivers the goods. The sustain is phenomenal, and the distortion control offers a wide range of fuzz textures. We particularly enjoyed how well it paired with both clean and dirty amp channels.
However, it's not without its quirks. In our experience, the Big Muff can sometimes sound a bit too bassy or muddy, especially in a band mix. We found ourselves wishing for more midrange presence to help cut through. Additionally, we noticed some noise issues when using certain power supplies, so it's worth experimenting to find the right setup.
For us, the Big Muff Pi remains a must-have for any guitarist seeking that classic "wall of sound" fuzz tone. It's perfect for players who prioritize raw, powerful sound over intricate tweakability. However, those with limited pedalboard space or those seeking a more modern, precise fuzz might want to look elsewhere. Nonetheless, at its price point, it's hard to beat the Big Muff's combination of iconic tone and rugged reliability.
Videos
ProGuitarShopDemos
Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi USA
Reviews
PROS
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Iconic, unmistakable fuzz sound used by famous artists
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Offers incredible sustain for solos
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Versatile tone, from smooth distortion to intense fuzz
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Can cut through the mix well, even in dense arrangements
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Works well with various instruments, including synths
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Durable and reliable, even with regular use
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Provides a thick, creamy tone ideal for certain music genres
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Relatively affordable for its category and capabilities
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Easy to mod for those looking for a custom sound
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Some models come with a built-in buffer, enhancing compatibility with wah pedals
CONS
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Large size can take up significant pedalboard space
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Can be noisy, especially with "dirty" power supplies
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Some find it too bass-heavy, affecting clarity on lower strings
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The lack of mid-range control can make it hard to cut through in live settings
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Tone can be overly specific, not as versatile as other pedals
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Enclosure's square corners and bulky design can be cumbersome
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Circuit design sensitive, may not pair well with all amps
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May require modifications for optimal performance with certain setups
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AC adapter not standard, making power supply challenging
Owner Insights
We analyzed real musician discussions from forums and Reddit to find what players love, question, and tweak about Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi.
Use cases and applications
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The Big Muff Pi is praised for its sustain and melodic lead tones but isn't ideal for fast rhythm in metal genres like Megadeth or Metallica.
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Overdrives can enhance the Big Muff's EQ control, helping to refine the pedal's fuzz-heavy output for different musical genres.
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For those interested in clear chord articulation, the Violet Ram’s Head variant is suggested for its aggressive and clearer sound profile.
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Comparisons
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For achieving thrash metal tones on a budget, consider the Joyo "Pocket Metal," designed for a sharp, tight sound akin to "Rust in Peace."
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The Boss DS-2 is noted for having excessive fuzz for metal, whereas the DS-1 combined with an EQ provides better results.
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The OpAmp Nano Muff offers a more modern, scooped, and saturated sound compared to the standard Nano, which could appeal to those seeking a contemporary Muff tone.
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The Ram's Head is frequently recommended for achieving a Gilmour-like tone, while the Russian variant is noted for its uniquely bass-heavy, smooth sound.
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Features and functionality
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The Big Muff tends to get "flumpy" with speed picking, requiring careful manipulation of its sound settings.
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The Nano version tends to sound boxier with less top-end than the USA big box, making it less vibrant for some users.
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The Sovtek Deluxe Big Muff Pi includes a midrange footswitch, critical for enhancing mids that can be lacking in typical Muff pedals.
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The Way Huge Swollen Pickle Fuzz MkII, inspired by the Green Russian Muff, offers five external knobs and two hidden mini knobs for precise tonal control.
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Build quality
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The original Big Muff Pi's circuit occupies a small space in its large enclosure, allowing for a much more compact design in the Nano version.
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Setup and maintenance
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Older big-box Muffs require a 3.5mm adapter for power, but newer models come with a standard Boss power jack, simplifying integration into modern pedalboards.
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4.5 out of 5
Based on 119 Reviews and 852 Ratings
922
115
Nothing quite like it!
This is one of my favorite pedals and for good reason, this is the thickest mix cutting pedal I have heard. As someone who grew up listening to Smashing Pumpkins I always strived for that sound and when I found the Big Muff I couldn't go back. I use this in my recordings usually for when I need a thick wall of noise or a screaming guitar lead/solo. This thing is HARD to control but I love it for that, it has a niche but it fills it the best way possible I feel. Worth the money go get it!
194
145
classic, built like a tank
is that sound, everyone knows, the big muff, that ol´ mid scooped fuzz sound.
practically impossibe to break, a good pedal, does it well on so many genres, huge fuzz.
but being honest, the size dont make sense anymore, the circuit board is a half of the size of the box, not so practical for pedalboards and gigging (plus it is hard to have it cutting in the mix due to the lack of mids).
that was my first pedal but im getting rid of it because i dont like the lack of mids for live sound and the impossibility to generate it with the tone or sustain knob. plus it can get very fizzy if you crank some knobs. and i need more sonic destruction.
i love the pedal, probably muff styled fuzz´s are my favorite pedal ever, but they need mods to make it work.
Preferred Settings + Usage:
pretty low sustain and dark tone (about 10). for getting that doomy cracked up shoegaze sound. always neck pickup
903
Same for me on the 'sustain' setting, I keep mine dialed in pretty low as well. I wanted a "real fuzz" sound so I dumped the tone down pretty low, turned the 'volume' up, and run it through an Orange OR15 with a fair amount of gain dialed in. The sound is pretty much what I was looking for, and surprisingly it still plays really reactive and fast on the higher strings, but gives me that nice fuzzy, smooth sound on the lower strings. Especially with the neck pickup of a guitar engaged. Classic pedal, sustain for days.
147
Classic and fantastic
The basic NYC big muff its great because its original sounds can still sound incredible on todays music. I would recommend that every musician (and person if you ask me twice) try one out as it can be used on almost anything. Especially if you want to try new sounds in your productions, drums bus distortion is a must. There are thousands of muffs but the og is still one of the greatest
Preferred Settings + Usage:
Tone low its the stoner express
Artist usage
Add artist
Used for the "simulated train whistle" in the outro of "Dreaming Number Eleven", as stated by Satriani in the April 1989 Musician interview "The Devil And Joe Satriani" by Ted Drozdowski. In Strange Beautiful Music: A Musical Memoir (2014), Satriani recounts that it was his first effect pedal.
Musician, April 1989, “The Devil and Joe Satriani” by Ted Drozdowski
MUSICIAN: So the band first played about a year before the live songs on your new EP were recorded in June '88 at the California Theater in San Diego. Where did the title Dreaming #11 come from?
SATRIANI: It was actually the title of a song on my first EP. It was just one of those funny little phrases, like Surfing with the Alien, that pop into my head. I applied the title to a song on that EP that was a strange collection of sounds. It had an Allen wrench on the pick-ups for a kickdrum, slowed-down scratch for a snare, a sped-up tapping on the strings for a closed high-hat sound. I had all these percussion sounds generated just from a guitar plugged directly into the board. And on top of it I had bass, but it was actually a guitar, not even detuned, just playing popping bass. Then I had a rhythm guitar that sounded like an outgrowth of James Brown, but in retrospect it sounds more like what Prince got into with 'Kiss' and 'Sign o' the Times' and 'Alphabet Street' – that sort of dry guitar set-up. And I had this R&B guitar melody over it. The song ended in a simulated train whistle that I did with a Big Muff and a weird technique of pulling strings over other strings and then off the neck. That song was a collection of non sequiturs, and I thought 'The Crush of Love' and the three live songs on the new record didn't really have anything to do with each other. So Dreaming #11 applied.
Strange Beautiful Music: A Musical Memoir (2014)
Chapter 1, pg. 8
My first effects pedal was an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pie [sic] fuzz box that I bought through the mail after seeing an advertisement in Circus magazine, and it was the biggest, fattest fuzz ever created. This was the first of many pedals to come.
It was very confusing when I first played with these pedals because I had no idea how to use them, or how to make myself sound like Hendrix! There was no YouTube back then to instantly instruct you how to set things up, or on what sounds you could get out of a new piece of gear—you were pretty much on your own. After starting with the Big Muff, the next thing I got was a Maestro Phaser unit with the three buttons on it, and then the MXR, another phaser unit, and then a wah-wah pedal showed up eventually. I really didn’t have a whole bunch of pedal back then.
Chapter 5, pg. 50
On different moments on that record, I definitely needed distortion, and I think I had my original Big Muff Pi by Electro-Harmonix, which was still working at the time, and DS-1 and OD-1 pedals.
In this photo, you can see a few of Chris's many pedals. Though he's mainly used a Black Russian Big Muff Pi since the early 2000s, a regular Big Muff Pi can be seen here on his Drones-era board.
In this Facebook photo, we can see that Tom owns Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi in his studio.
Jamie Cook used the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal during the recording of their first album. The use is evidenced by a user-uploaded photo.
In the Premier Guitar article "Dot Hacker: Psychic Friends Network," Josh Klinghoffer is noted for using the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal.
According to rig diagram by Guitar Geek, he used two Big Muffs : one old, and one new.
In this Instagram reel https://www.instagram.com/reel/B3NMY0tDMvQ/ you can see Frank playing Bulletproof Heart with the caption reading "yknow it’s funny, triggers be damned... it’s been 9 years and counting and still whenever i click on an old Big Muff i just have to play this song 🤷♀️"
In this YouTube filmed on September 21, 2011 at the Culture Room in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The Big Muff can be seen next to the two Line 6 pedals.
Used live for the "The Anarchist" solo, as listed in this October 8, 2012 Premier Guitar interview.
Effects
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (for “The Anarchist” solo), MXR Flanger, MXR analog delay, Boss Flanger, Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, Boss Compressor Three Fractal Audio Axe-Fx IIs, TC Electronic 1210 Spatial Expander + Stereo Chorus/Flanger, two Apple 2.6 GHz MacBook Pros running Apple MainStage UAD plug-ins and Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5, two Universal Audio Apollo QUAD audio interfaces, Jim Dunlop Cry Baby Rack Module wah
Used on The Blue Album and Pinkerton, according to the following sources. The version is not specified in either.
Guitar World, March 1997, "Schoolhouse Rock" (as transcribed on Weezerpedia)
GW: Pinkerton, however, is gimmick-free.
Rivers: Yeah, we trimmed that part of ourselves—it was the natural thing to do. So I think we're also going to trim some of our audience, which is unfortunate. We were never one of the top bands like Green Day or Offspring anyway; we were always a notch below. Maybe now even two notches below. Yeah it's a bummer, but I don't really feel like I have a choice in the matter. I've got to do what I've got to do, and right now that means not making the gimmicky video and not using language that's quirky. It means speaking more directly. Maybe the audience will be smaller, but at least they'll be liking us for the right reasons.
GW: What guitars and amps did you use in making the record?
Rivers: I think I used Gibson Les Pauls. I don't remember whose they were, where they came from, what kind of specifications they had—but I know they were Gibsons. For amps I used Marshalls. I also used a Big Muff quite a bit. It was about as standard a setup as you could have.
Chris Shaw, Gearslutz, "Weezer Say It Aint So Chorus Vocal Sound", Comment #34
Ummm, Some corrections re: the Blue Album:
- Vocals were done with a U67 at Electric Lady and a U87 at Rics house (surf wax, and some bgvs)
- There were NO REVERBS OR DELAYS at all on the record (The sole exception being a long delay used to extend one of the feedback parts on Only in Dreams). Ocasionally I used a stereo delay from the Lexicon 300 to delay the room mics slightly to get a little more slap. The band used to come into the control room at the start of the day and turn off all of the delay / reverb based outboard gear.
- When we did the recall for the Say it In't So single the assistant on the session called me while he was recalling the mix because he thought we were missing a few pages of notes. The only piece outboard was an 1176 on the ld vocal. That's all I used. Everything else was just the SSL E.
- All BGVs were doubled or tripled - no obvious artificial chorus was used at all. The only effect I might have used would be an Eventide 910 set to 15ms on the left and 7.5 ms on the right. (harmonize ratio set to 1.00 (that thing always drifted slightly anyway). This was only used to widen the lead vocal in a very, very, very subtle way.
- The album was tracked on Electric Lady's Focurite Forte console in Studio A with the remote pres (the pres were in the live room and ran at line level to the console)(I posted some pics around here of it.). Some overdubs were done on the SSL G in studio C (I distinctly remember cutting the gtrs for in the Garage up there. I believe we used a Tele through a Big Muff using E. Lady's Fender Twin for that tone. We also cut the clean rhythm for Say it Ain't So up there on Ric's Jaguar using E. Lady's Fender Twin
- The bass break for In the Garage was my Electro Harmonix Graphic Fuzz (original, circa 1980) across the insert on the SSL.
Album Usage
The Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi has been featured on the following albums:
party's over
Aziya (2024)
Weezer 30 (Anniversary Super Deluxe)
Weezer (2024)
STONE (Deluxe)
Baroness (2023)
Devoured
Kanadia (2021)
Samsara
Venom Prison & Venom Prison (2019)
Two Parts Together
Big Ups (2018)
Simulation Theory (Super Deluxe)
Muse (2018)
Horse Jumper of Love
Horse Jumper of Love (2017)
Chroma
Mt. Eddy (2017)
Drones
Muse (2015)
Subsume
Cloudkicker (2013)
Howl
Beware of Darkness (2012)
Kairos
Sepultura (2011)
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys (2006)
Here Comes The Fuzz
Mark Ronson (2003)
Strange Beautiful Music
Joe Satriani (2002)
The Fragile
Nine Inch Nails (1999)
Boggy Depot
Jerry Cantrell (1998)
Pinkerton - Deluxe Edition
Weezer (1996)
Pinkerton
Weezer (1996)
Black Love
The Afghan Whigs (1996)
Korn
Korn (1994)
Pork Soda
Primus (1993)
Nevermind
Nirvana (1991)
Dreaming #11
Joe Satriani (1988)
Kill 'Em All (Remastered)
Metallica (1983)
Garlands
Cocteau Twins (1982)
Rock Until You Drop
Raven (1981)
The North
R. Stevie Moore (1978)
Kiss: Ace Frehley
Ace Frehley (1978)
Montrose
Montrose (1973)
Tago Mago (40th Anniversary Edition)
Can & Can (1971)
Genre Usage
Based on how artists on Equipboard use this gear, it is most commonly found in the following genres.
Used With
Based on how musicians on Equipboard use Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi, it is most commonly used with the following gear.
Community setups
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