Kit’s Secret Guitar, Gear, and Music Page
Guitar stuff, gear stuff, soundclips, videos, Gilmour/Pink Floyd stuff, photos and other goodies.
Contact: nasnandos@kitrae.net
Copyright Kit Rae.
VISIT MY SWORDS, KNIVES and FANTASY ART WEBSITE www.kitrae.net
VINTAGE BIG MUFF CLONES AND MUFF INSPIRED PEDALS
There have been many Big Muff clones made throughout the years and many pedals that were inspired by the Big Muff four stage circuit. Some are basically exact copies of a particular Muff version and others feature unique modifications and improvements. Here are a few reviews of my favorites.
B.Y.O.C. Large Beaver
Want to know how to create custom pedal graphics? Look here
BYOC Large Beaver - One of the most inexpensive vintage Big Muff clones. Comes as a kit from BYOC (Build Your Own Clone) Effects with all parts that you assemble yourself, or it can be bought pre-built. Includes parts to build both the Ram's Head and Traingle versions. The Triangle Beaver has slightly more sustain and sounds smoother than the Ram's Head, and the Ram's Head has a slightly darker tone and has slightly more bottom end and dirt. I like the Triangle spec version best, but in some settings the two pedals sound almost identical. The Beaver includes a three position knob that lets you use the stock Muff setting, or two different mid boost settings, which is a very useful feature that the original Muffs did not have. A fourth position lets you or completely bypass the tone circuit, the same feature found on some the the late 1970s Big Muffs and the Tone Wicker Muff.
The BYOC comes in an unfinished enclosure. Above are photos of each version that I have customized with Pink Floyd graphics. I highly recommend this pedal for anyone who wants the vintage Muff sound without paying the price for a vintage pedal. I paid about $130 for mine, pre-assembled.
Large Beaver Triangle sound clip - David Gilmour on an Island solo
Large Beaver Triangle sound clip - EQ position 1 - Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb solo. Fender Strat with Boss CE-2 chorus and TC Nova delay into a Twin Reverb.
Here are clips comparing the Beaver to some other similar Muff clones. Strat with Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup into a clean Fender Twin Reverb. Pedal settings shown below.
Comparison Demo 1 - Stomp CWM, BYOC Large Beaver Ram's Head specs, AA Green Russian
Comparison Demo 2 - Stomp CWM, BYOC Large Beaver Ram;s Head specs, AA Green Russian
Pete Cornish G-2
Pete Cornish P-2 - A modified version of the Big Muff silicon based transistor circuit with a germanium component tone stage added, and a very good buffer, made by Pete Cornish. A very rare, very expensive, but very good distortion pedal, but built for hard use on the road. It has a very warm, Marshall-like distortion tone. Not chunky and fat like a Big Muff, but more tame and sweet sounding, with great harmonics. Here is what Pete told me about the circuit.
"The G-2 was originally created for Lou Reed in the early 90s. Although similar to the generic muff type circuit, I spent some time developing a lower gain circuit and with a new tone circuit. 99% of all distortion effects are some kind of amplifier, with clipping diodes either in shunt mode or as a feedback element. My G-2 is of the latter type using germanium components in addition to the silicon parts used for their consistency." - Pete Cornish in 2010
I find this an excellent pedal for most 1970s rock tones that I like, such as Led Zeppelin, and great for the On an Island era David Gilmour tones. It is very quiet even with the gain maxed. Similar to a Tube Driver at full gain, but overall a more usable pedal.
G-2 Sound Clip - Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb solo. Fender Strat with Boss CE-2 chorus and TC Nova delay into a Twin Reverb.
Pete Cornish P-2
Pete Cornish P-2 - A modified clone of the Ram's Head Big Muff with a very good buffer, made by Pete Cornish. Very rare and very expensive, but built for hard use on the road. Includes a fifth transistor and other Pete Cornish mods. The P-2 tone has more in common with a 1990s Sovtek Big Muff than a Ram's Head to my ears, but since this pedal is very similar to the sound of a BYOC Large Beaver Ram's Head Spec, I thought I would examine and compare the two.
Noise - Noise level is practically identical at Gilmour settings. The P-2 is a bit noisier but not by much. Crank the sustain to max and the BYOC is definitely the quietest. That is because the buffer in the P-2 adds some gain to an already noisy Muff circuit, which is just noisy by nature. No buffer in the BYOC = less noise.
Sound - These pedals do not sound identical, but in the David Gilmour tone range they are pretty damn close. Here are the differences.
a. The BYOC has a four position EQ knob - two mids settings and a tone circuit bypass setting. BYOC wins in the versatility area by a long shot over the P-2.
b. The P-2 has a slight bit more mids and a slight bit less bottom end than the BYOC.
c. In the extreme tone ranges (1 or 10 tone knob positions) the P-2 has more usable sounds than the BYOC does in EQ position 1.
d. Both clean up about the same at low guitar volumes.
e. When you go brighter on the P-2 tone and max the sustain it is more nasaly sounding than the BYOC, which I like. The BYOC is a bit fatter sounding, like a typical Ram's Head.
f. Clarity of notes and cut through in a band mix is very close, but the P-2 is slightly better in this area than the BYOC Ram's Head. Compared to my BYOC triangle spec it is about the same.
g. The P2 seems very clean and uniform in its tone. The BYOC seems to be a bit more organic.
Buffer - The P-2 has a class A buffer preamp that helps clean up and brighten anything else that comes after it in the signal chain. It also means you have to adjust all your gear settings if you don't want everything sounding brighter, but that's not a big deal if it stays on your pedal board. No buffer in the BYOC.
True Bypass - BYOC is, P-2 is not.
Both have a cast aluminum box. Foot switches are about the same. I like the jacks better on the P-2, but I think both will hold up for a very long time. Pots and knobs are not any better on one or the other. The P-2 circuit is not accessible without going through some hoops to get it open and voiding your warranty, and it is covered in red goop. But Pete will fix it if it breaks. BYOC is user accessible with schematics online, and easy to fix. I don't see any big difference in circuit board component quality. Both have standard DC jacks. You have to take the back off the BYOC to change the battery. P-2 has a cool little pop out door on the side.
The P-2 takes up about 4x the space on a pedal board as the BYOC and costs 4 to 8 times as much as the BYOC.
Here are clips comparing the P-2 to some other popular Muff clones. Strat with Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup into a clean Fender Twin Reverb. Pedal settings shown below.
See this page for more P-2 sound clips.
Skreddy Pink Flesh
Skreddy Pedals Pink Flesh - A modified Big Muff circuit by Marc Skreddy of Skreddy Pedals that is based on the Triangle Big Muff, but tuned to give you something like David Gilmour's boosted Big Muff tone from The Wall era, with an input capacitor to give a more saturated sound like the "Ram's Head Big Muff. Very similar to the Skreddy Mayo and Moyonnaiese. Marc's Muffs have a unique sound you cannot get with a standard Big Muff. They work as stand alone units, where most Muff sound better when combined with a booster, compression, or EQ. The sound is thick and creamy, like a Muff with some overdrive and compression added, different voicing on the scooped mids. Less bottom end, so they don't have that BIG sound you get froma Muff by itself, but they work in a band mix well. There is more gain than a typical Muff, but also more noise. The mids stand out more, and there is also a Flat/Juicy switch that allows for the Pink Flesh to go from "flat" to "mid hump" as opposed to scooped mids for the Mayo. Made with vintage 2N5033 transistors and one BC109c transistor. Sadly, this pedal is no longer made due to the scarcity of the out of production transistors. You can find them on ebay occasionally, but at rediculously inflated prices.
Pink Flesh sound clip 1 - David Gilmour on an Island solo
Skreddy Pig Mine
Skreddy Pedals Pig Mine - Another modified Big Muff circuit by Marc Skreddy of Skreddy Pedals that was designed to fill the void left in his line when he discontinued the Pink Flesh. Marc says he tuned this one to have the sound of the solos in Dogs, from Pink Floyd's Animals album. It is made from all modern parts but Marc has made it sound amazingly close to the sound of his Mayo, Mayonnaise, and Pink Flesh. I don't know if it is any closer to David Gilmour's tone on Animals than a vintage Muff is - and they don't sound that close either - simply due to the fact that Animals was recrded with a Colorsound PowerBoost and a vintage Fuzz Face. It is likely Gilmour was not using the Big Muff in the studio at the time, but he did use a Ram's Head Muff on during the Animals tour. Still, its a great sounding pedal, very similar to the Pink Flesh described above.
Great for Pink Floyd's Wall era tones, but also a very versatile pedal, with more gain than a typical Muff, but less noise at high gain that his earlier Muffs. Features a Lean/Fat switch for added mids similar to the Skreddy Pink Flesh. The cost was about $195 at the time I got mine in 2008.
Pig Mine sound clip 2 - Same as above but with fat switch on.
Pig Mine sound clip 4 - Raw Pig Mine tone at 50% sustain with Fender Strat and Twin reverb amp
Pig Mine sound clip 8 - Punk style chord jamming. Telecaster into a Fender Twin Reverb
Stomp Under Foot CWM
Stomp Under Foot CWM "Civil War" Big Muff clone - As this is the only clone of the CW version I have seen out there it hard to say it's the best, but I don't know how you could get much closer to the real thing. If you need a smaller and more road worthy CW Muff than your Sovtek, or if you don't have a CW yet, this is definitely the one to get. Matt's prices are probably the best out there for a Muff clone too. Right in line with the cost of a pre-assembled BYOC Large Beaver. Where the BYOC is THE Muff clone for the Animals/Wall/Final Cut tones, this is your Pulse Muff clone. When I ordered this pedal Matt at Stomp Under Foot Website asked if I wanted his modded version or just the straight clone version. I wanted his standard unit, which had the mod. It's a tone section mod, with a resistor/capacitor combo for a better sweep of low to high - gives more range to the tone knob. This won't affect the tone in the Gilmour range, which is what I wanted to demo.
So how does it compare to the real Sovtek Civil War Big Muff? Pretty darn close! I have three slightly different CW Muffs. I picked the most Gilmourish sounding one to compare the Stomp version against in the clips below. In the noise area, the CWM is slightly quieter than the Sovteks. Mine are not particularly noisy though. The C.W.M. has that typical 1990s Sovtek dark Muff tone, with the big bottom end, and the brighter mids than a vintage USA Muff, but it also has the nice "smoothness" to the tone. This is what what makes the Civil War Muff unique and much more Gilmourish than a green or black Sovteks. The C.W.M. is not a dead on match to my favorite CW, but Sovteks are not dead on matches from unit to unit anyway. Most fall within about 95% of each other, as does the C.W.M. The C.W.M. is slightly less fat in the bottom end than my Sovteks, but not by much. That's close enough for me to highly recommend this.
The enclosure is a standard Boss size. DC jack and internal battery connector. Metal flake paint job. Graphics are simple - triangle, rams horns, and Russian symbol - referencing the various vintage Big Muff favorites. Matt uses these same graphics on all his Muffs. A look under the hood revealed a nice clean board, decent top notch wiring job, and true bypass switch. Matt used 2N5089 transistors. Probably as close to the Russian transistors used in the original Civil War Muff as you can get. The cost was $130 when I got mine in 2008.
Here are the clips. Strat with Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup into a clean Fender Twin Reverb.
SUF CWM sound clip - Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb solo. Fender Strat with Boss CE-2 chorus and TC Nova delay into a Twin Reverb.
Civil War Big Muff vs. C.W.M. Clip 1 - In the Flesh and strumming chords. Big Muff first then CWM
Civil War Big Muff vs. C.W.M. Clip 2 - Picking notes in chords. Big Muff first then CWM
Civil War Big Muff vs. C.W.M. Clip 3 - Solo noodling. Big Muff first then CWM
Here are clips comparing the CWM to some other similar Muff clones. Strat with Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup into a clean Fender Twin Reverb. Pedal settings shown below.
Comparison Demo 1 - Stomp CWM, BYOC Large Beaver Ram's Head specs, AA Green Russian
Comparison Demo 2 - Stomp CWM, BYOC Large Beaver Ram;s Head specs, AA Green Russian
Stomp Under Foot VRH
Stomp Under Foot VRH "Violet Ram's Head " Big Muff clone - This is the Stomp Under Foot clone of the "violet" spec V2 Ram's Head Big Muff from around 1975. I don't know if there ever was a real production version with these specs or not - all evidence I have found points against it, so it was likely just a tracing of one particular V2 circuit - but nevertheless it is a popular schematic for Muff DIYers. It makes for a V2 with more clarity and a bit less bottom end than a typical V2.
I compared it to two vintage V2 Ram's Head Muffs, two V1 Triangle Muffs, and a BYOC Large Beaver V2 clone. I set my favorite V2 to my favorite tone setting - tone at 10:30 (o'clock) and sustain at 3:00, then matched the tone and sustain of the other pedals so they sounded as close to that as possible.
The VRH holds its own pretty well. I thought it would sound closer to a V1 than a V2 with the violet's cap values, but it's more in the V2 territory. It is voiced a bit different than a typical V2, as the violet version should. Less bassy bottom end, but still a nice thick V2 sound and lots of clarity. It holds it's own against my V2s. Compared to a Beaver, it is also less bassy. I don't know if I would call the VRH a better pedal than the Beaver since the tones are different, but it definitely hits a sweet sound I can't get with the Beaver. The Beaver also does tones you can't get with the VRH simply due to the fact that it has an added two position mids selector.
The VRH had very usable sounds across the spectrum of the tone pot sweep. Even the full on treble end sounded pretty good. Matt at SUF gives these a tone section mod, with a resistor/capacitor combo for a better sweep of low to high - gives more range to the tone knob. The cleanup at low guitar volumes and crunch at max sustain is like a typical V2 Muff. No crazy screaming sustain with this one, just the normal amount for a V2 Muff. Noise level was about the same as a V2 and the Beaver. Muffs can be noisy when you stack them with other pedals. Sounds great playing leads and nice vintage Muff character. Rhythm and chords sounded super clean, more clean than my vintage Muffs. I play a lot of Floyd and this is perfect for that. It was right at home with my Boss CS2 compressor, CE2 chorus, and TC Nova delay. It sounded good playing some drier Smashing Pumpkins stuff too. Not the op-amp sounding crunched fuzz of Siamese dream, but more like the Pumkins live tones.
It did not beat any of my vintage Muffs for tone, but it holds it's ground, and rivals my BYOC. If you have never owned a vintage Muff though, this is amongst the best clones I have played. The enclosure and circuit board work look top notch. 2N5089 transistors, true bypass, 9v or standard AC jack.
SUF VRH sound clip 2 - Tone pot sweep, playing solo leads.
SUF VRH sound clip 3 - Tone pot sweep, playing arpeggios, chords, and a bit of Cherub Rock.
Blackout Effectors Musket V2
The Blackout Effectors Musket covers the Sovtek Russian Big Muff territory very well, but this is a very versatile pedal, with much more gain and tone control than a Sovtek. It also does light overdrive tones very well, which most Big Muffs do not. It has the standard volume, tone, and sustain knobs of a typical Big Muff, but there are three additional controls. One is a PRE knob that adds a boost of gain, sort of like what a compressor or Tube Driver does, but more clarity. This is a very nice feature to have in one pedal with the Muff. There is a mids knob, which is great for those of you that dislike the Muff tone scoop. The last control is a focus, which is supposed to be a note attack/bass limiter control. I have not gotten that control to do much in the range I use, but I suspect once I play around with more mids and the pre knob, I will see its use. Turn the fuzz knob way down and turn up the mids and pre and this easily gets into light boost Tube Driver range. It's NOT the Tube Driver sound, but a pretty good boost tone. It does some great fuzz overdrive sounds too with the fuzz low and the pre cranked.
Sound quality is excellent. About the same amount of noise as a BYOC Beaver muff clone, and slightly less than a Sovtek Muff at the same sustain setting. It nails the 1990s Sovtek Muff tones pretty well, even into the smoother Civil War Muff range. It cannot quite get close to vintage USA Muff tones as the BYOC Beaver, partly due it's heavier bottom end that is more like a Sovtek. It cleans up at low volumes pretty good. It can do modern White Stripes Muff tones with no problem, and gets into the over the top Smashing Pumpkins range, though I was actually less impressed with the Musket for Pumpkins tones.
Keep in mind, this does have SIX knobs, so if you don't like to tweak and prefer to just set the controls to what you want and go, the huge tone range this has may be useless to you. On the other hand, if you have had a hard time finding a Muff you like, I would be very surprised if you could not dial in the tone you were looking for with this.
The enclosure is the typical Boss pedal size. Power is external only, NO BATTERY. I prefer batteries for this circuit, but oh well. Took a quick look under the hood and found a typical four transistor (all 2N5089 tranys) Muff circuit, with some extra stuff for the added pot controls, and another transistor stage for the pre-boost. I paid $165 for mine used, but I think they sell for a bit higher than that. Still, not bad for what you get.
Here are the clips. Strat with Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup into a clean Fender Twin Reverb.
Musket Sound Clip 2 - Pre set to 75%, Mids 100%, Gain 50%, then boosting mids to 100%
Musket Sound Clip 3 - Slightly dirty, low gain
Here are clips comparing the Musket to some other popular Muff clones. Strat with Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup into a clean Fender Twin Reverb. Pedal settings shown below.