🔗 How To Design Guitar Pedals Course: Interested in creating, building and experimenting with your own pedal circuits? Check out my course for newbies here: www.guitarpedalcourse.com/courses/complete-beginner-s-guide-how-to-design-your-own-guitar-pedal-circuits My pedal courses are all ABSOLUTELY RISK FREE - 100% money back guarantee within 30 days of your purchase. If you don’t love the courses, I’ll refund you, no questions asked.
It's awesome that I can now understand the circuit at a glance and how to breadboard and experiment with it, all thanks to your course! Me from a month ago couldn't do this.
I have the JHS Muffuletta and the EHX OpAmp Big Muff, and the OpAmp one has to be my favorite flavor, with an honorable mention to Josh's JHS mode on the Muffuletta. But man, if you end up coming out with your own take on the OpAmp Big Muff, I'll be all over it.
@BobbyDoesMusic Josh is imho, a fraud, and certainly a sudo intellectual and a grifter. He just copies circuits, randomly swops parts, and calls it a mod. Most of his mods sound worse, especially the RAT. What Josh is great at is marketing, influencing and manipulation but he's part of a very nefarious religious group who are a cult, also he's been had a few times for stealing circuits with zero mods and putting them out as his own, the vertex guy also has ran that scam too but he's more knowledgeable and less grifty than Josh. Just Google, why people don't like JHS pedals, entire forums, and real-world guitar communities are 100% against Josh. His whole scammy history will come up on a simple search. There's a reason why he doesn't do high gain and why his best-selling pedal is used by the praise and worship community (mostly his nefarious dodgy church and other cultists they recommend it to).
Hendrix at rainbow bridge. Foxy lady. Nasty! I own a bunch of your pedals. The thing you excel at is what you mentioned at the very end, you get clarity out of your pedals like no other builder I know of. You build it, we'll buy it. Suggestion on the Velvet fuzz, do a mini version if possible with more treble. I own five Velvet fuzz pedals btw. Magical with a maple neck strat through anything vintage Marshall ish. Keep up the killer work dude!
I love when you added in the LEDs. And the OpAmp to transistor change is the most interesting circuit tweak I’ve seen in a video. It would be cool if you posted the schematics you went through for people (me) to stare at for minutiae (actual values, etc)
@@stoneysdead689 ?? I don't know what you've been watching but ime they can get (genuinely) excited about pretty much any gear they play. They do seem to aboslutely hate making short video's though 😄 Anyway, I love em and I never saw any cork-sniffery there but ymmv of course.
Out of all the Fuzzes out there throughout the decades, and I love them all, the one I want, and the most elusive, is the Tone Bender that Mick Ronson used with Bowie; it has this clarity to it that most fuzzes don't have. I would love to see you do an episode explaining and building that circuit. Thanks for all you do Brian!!!
I've been on a pedal history and circuit analysis frenzy lately. Getting into the bread board and circuit building and modding to understand what I like. I've learned sooo much from you as well as Josh from JHS. Thx so much Brian, for doing what you do ❤ 🤘🏻
Damn i already have 50ish Muffs. Always love the technical and design stuff you show us. Got more into breadboarding lately thanks to you and Josh. Its really helping me learning more about the what and why in circuit design.
I just want to say I’m so happy I found your channel because I’ve been wanting to learn more about the guts of my pedals and want to modify or build my own so I can’t wait to go through your videos! Awesome video by the way! And love that op amp sound
I love Big Muff type of circuits. Wren & Cuff, JHS’s Crimson are great takes on classics. However, my favorite over the past year & a half has been Hizumitas by EQD. If you’re making your version of a Big Muff, I’m in! I was fortunate to get one of your Germanium Tumnus last December. Also, I’m super impressed by your Black ‘65. Keep up the great work!
That was awesome. The breadboard sounded dull but then the LED clipping brought that amazing kind of tone bender bite that would have sounded really ugly on a brighter tone stack. I really like thew end result. It fixes what I don't like about the Big Muff (boxy, boomy, too scooped and always just sounds like the 90s), and and brings a useable presence to the sound while still having that warm growl.
Love the twist you put on that circuit, more like amp drive with a bit of fuzz character. Muffs generally feel to me like playing through a compressor; only fuzz I use anymore is a Dusky Augustus, very tractable and harmonically rich.
I'm saving this video. Now I want to play around with the circuit and see what comes! I really appreciate the effort EHX put into this pedal more now that I see how big the changes in tone could have been. It just sounds great as is!
I really enjoyed this video! It made me think how it would be possible to change the tone stack of the big muff to accomodate different amps types. I liked that you explained your approach in making the circuit better. Thanks Brian 🫶
I really like this channel .... easy to follow along and comprehend what your talking about . I still have my vintage muff fuzz from the late '70's. It's been disassembled and treated barbarically by the much younger versions of myself ... regrettably . I also had my vintage Big Muff from also late '70's, but desecrated that one into my late 20's. I've become somewhat finicky about the type of distortion / crunch / fuzz sound I like. I have my 1965 Ampeg B18-x head only into a V-4 cab I bought in '79, that is the holy grail when cranked. The way subtle differences in every aspect of the signal chain affect the output sound is overwhelming to say the least. Many thanks for having such a great channel in addition to a great company . 🙂🎸🎸🎸
Def Siamese dream is a top fuzz album for me… I have an dig the pumpkins muff but I really like the mods you did… (wanna mod mine? 😂) cheers Brian. Excellent sound and fun video as always.
This is great! I liked the LEDs flickering, just because. This video is an awesome addition to your guitar pedal course, in which I am testing out the Big Muff tone stack. So, good timing 😎 I’m gonna wire ‘em up and try ‘em out! highfive.
My favorite fuzz is the Pete Cornish P-1. It’s fuzzy but very liquid. I love it because it’s almost like having a sustainer in my guitar as notes just go on forever. Really enjoyed this video. And if you design a new fuzz, I’m all in!!!
Great video, I always learn so much! One of my favorite fuzzes is EQD's Park Fuzz Sound, a Mkiii tone bender with a bunch of extra gain. However i might be able to see how a Wampler op-amp style fuzz could be my new fave after hearing the fuzz in this video.
The original BigMuff I bought in 75 is like swimming with sharks! Rams head converts an amp into a wild beast! First time I hooked it into my twin with a Firebird was crazy fun and people loved it!
The Fulltone catalyst is a fuzz I never hear anyone mention. Ever. It is sublime in my opinion. I'd love to see you do your take on that circuit like you've done with others like the Belle od.
@ that’s tough. You can get the Moon set to the smoothest fuzz you ever heard. Warlow can’t do that. Warlow gets savage as hell for heavy stuff, moon can’t quite do that but it gets close. Moon then I guess.
@@PhilthyDeluxe Thanks for the reply and advice. By the way, do you think it's redundant having both on a pedalboard. If not, how would you use/stack them?
@@sgall161 I suppose the moon on that super smooth sustain setting into the warlow could work… would need an amp with a lot of headroom and a noise gate!
I own two EHX Lizard Queens, and the new Lizard King. I really love them. I’ve been curious about your fuzz’s. Also, Thanks for the germanium Tumnus series. I got them both. They are great.
A really interesting thing to note with the op amp muffs is how drastically differently they behave when stacking with other drives, compared to other muffs. In my experience, at least with how I set my muffs and drives, they seem to “blow out” and the gain character changes very noticeably; compared to most muffs where it will generally just add some mids or rasp or what have you, the op amp just totally implodes. I’m not sure what exactly causes this, but presumably it’s the added gain clipping the op amps themselves way more than they’re intended to. Really cool, weird circuit.
Ever since being able to afford quality pedals it’s has always been Wampler first choice for me. Love the clarity and that Brian does not make a Clone of a pedal. I love your designs and like someone else’s had commented already, the clarity and clean up out of your pedals is extraordinary. I do only have 1 drive pedal that is not a Wampler and that is the EQD Special Cranker and stacks so well with the Wamplers after the Special Cranker. Anyways, thank you so much for your love for circuits, pedals and great tone!! 🙌🔥🌟 Ps: owner of Wampler Pantheon Deluxe, Electric Love Aquatone, Dual Fusion, Paisley Drive Deluxe. Thank you Brian and Wampler Co for your pedals !
I also own the Op-Amp reissue. Fallout Cloud and Pharoah have been my favorites so far. The Fig Fumb is good too, but a bit noisy. I'd LOVE to check out Wampler's take of the Muff!!!
Great video! Really enjoyed the way you broke it down for someone who loves fuzz. My favorites at the moment that I use. EHX Rams Head nano Silicon Dunlop Hendrix fuzz face EQD germanium Dream Crusher Dunlop Siete Santos Billy Gibbons Octavio (really fun pedal)
I have a Fuzz Face type of fuzz (fuzz frenzy) and I have PTB (passive treble and bass circuit) installed on two of my guitars. I love the sounds I'm able to get using bass cut on my guitars: if you keep the guitar volume high and cut a bit of bass, you get kind of an overdrive/fuzz mix type of sound - it really calms down the fuzz and you can choose by which amount. On the other hand if you lower the guitar volume, fuzz cleans up but sometimes has more bass than it should and then you can cut that excess amount of bass and get a really nice clean or dirty clean. So, my mod would definitely be adding a passive bass cut.
Great demo Brian! The tweaks you made did indeed add more presence. I am wondering if you could add more control by incorporating a three band eq similar to what you included on the Mofetta and the.Germanium Tumnis Deluxe pedals. I have both of these and they are fantastic! Thanks Brian for sharing you design process for making such great pedals! When is your version of the FUZZ coming out? Sign me up for one! Cheers!
I'm an EHX fanboy. But that circuit you built was so meaty. It genuinely sounded like a '60s/'70s tone. Not quite the holy grail of "Spirit in the Sky", but definitely a step up from what's on the market.
The mods made an already amazing pedal sound even more amazing. The midrange definition is so much stronger. Mr. Wampler, I beg of you to make a bass pedal that keeps the clean, dry signal but adds a fuzzy suboctave. The Muff is my absolute favorite drive on bass, but the setup to do how I want is complicated and I'd love to have it with one stomp.
Those mods sound fantastic. My current fave op-amp Muff is the Keeley Moon, but it can be hard to tame (actually the Triumph does a lot to make it more manageable). Hoping we'll see a Wampler Muff soon (sometimes that happens after these circuit deep=dive vids 😉). Thanks, Brian!
The King Tone Fuzz is my current obsession, but my old BM Civil War reissue started me on this path of extremely tweakable fuzz pedals. 40 years ago, my 2 standbys were a standard Big Muff and a 1976 Maestro MFZ-1 (both I still have). Heres what I've learned in my experience: the newer fuzzes play well with low wattage amps and still sound good with a stack... but those old fuzzes (Maestro, Dallas Arbitor, PEP Box) sound like a mouse fart down low but turn into mythical giants at 100 watts cranked.
It has another inverting stage at the end though, so the signal is back in phase. Replacing that first stage with non-inverting will make the pedal flip the phase. That transistor stage is a good idea since they're all inverting unless they're voltage followers.
Good call! I had condensed my circuit explanation and unfortunately left out a few things. It’s an often bad idea to use an inverting stage as the input without an input buffer, so often I’ll just convert that to non inverting. Which then creates an out of phase form input to output, though that’s most often irrelevant, you’ll experience the same thing with a transistor (like a range master) or mosfet/jfet boost if they are single stages as well. But I would stick a buffer on the end anyway due to the tonestack and volume creating higher impedance output anyway so I’d likely just invert the last Stage anyway most likely.
LED version for the win - and make them visible on top of the pedal! That version sounded best of all. Second best - original transistor version right at the beginning.
The key to getting the most out of certain fuzz pedals is to understand that the knobs are not independent of each other. The volume, tone, and drive knobs all influence each other. Just keep twiddling the knobs and you'll find the sound somewhere.
My favorite fuzz is the STONEFLY EFFECTS - Two Headed Werewolf Fuzz. Marc Eric makes suck fuzz pedals and it's a shame more players don't know about him. I'm not sure if he's still in the business but if you ever get a chance to test one of his pedals give it a try. The tones are unreal. The two-headed werewolf is one silicon and the other half germanium, and you can use either independently or blend them.
The Big Muff is my favourite distortion effect I think. And yes: it started when I heard THAT fuzz tone on the Siamese Dream album! Weirdly, this EXH reissue doesn't sound quite the same...there's a "looseness" to the fuzz, whereas the album sound (which is filtered through stuff like overdubs and other studio wizardry, admittedly) is..."stickier". It's hard to describe unless you're there in the room, hearing them side-by-side. I have a version of the IC Muff made by Fredric Effects, which gets a lot closer to "that" sound though. There's definitely loads of room for tweaking and modding with this circuit. I can't wait to hear what you come up with!
My plans for the OpAmp Muff is to put in a three way switch where its two way switch was. So it has its old 'tone' and 'off' but also has a different tone circuit (maybe a RAT one, more research needed) that fits in the battery hole 🕳️ and uses the same potentiometer as the original tone. Have other projects to get done first so delighted to hear if this has already been done somewhere and/or this is a daft ignorant idea 🖤⚡
Thanks Brian, thought the LED version sounded great and could be further developed into a really unique sounding pedal 👌 food for thought: maybe leave out the little transition clips when comparing sounds side by side. When dealing with something as abstract as sound or timbre, it's hard to keep in mind exactly what something sounded like. What happened now was that the viewer kind of compares the tone of the Muffs with the twangy guitar sound in the transition clips, because those are played back to back instead of the different fuzz sounds. Please consider! 🤓
They both sound good. I prefer the open sound of the circuit on the board, as it maintained more pitch information in the Fuzz. Hendrix - Third Stone from the Sun. That's the sound I associate with awesome Fuzz
I have an original style Big Muff and a green Russian big muff, but the fuzz that stays on my board is an El Ray Lucha Fuzz. I think it’s pretty obscure, but both the sound and paint job are great (it has a Mexican wrestler on it). Fuzzes are always a struggle. They only get that smooth, full sound that I like if they are first in the signal chain with no other drives on / added. p.s. loving my Wampler Triumph.
liked the version with the LEDs. Also... worth checking out the devi ever hyperion. It's the muff killer... completely different circuit. Ripe for modding.
My favorite fuzz really depends on the application. - For maximum distortion, the EQD Hizumitas is my favorite fuzz, it’s over the top crazy, and has some fun overtones that feel random. - For classic fuzz, you can’t go wrong with a Germanium Fuzz Face. The “in between” tones from wooly distortion to glassy cleans, just by adjusting the guitar volume and fantastic. - And then there’s the Big Muff. It sounds thick, massive, and while it sounds like it needs more presence (just like you mentioned in the video), it sounds great the louder you play! - Honorable Mention needs to go to the Lovetone Big Cheese. This fuzz sounds super thick and has a greater presence than most fuzzes, but the “feel” is the worst of the pedals I listed above. It’s almost as if your signal is running through a modeler (IMHO of course). It feels like 5ere is a bit of a delay on your signal, but the sound is a great alternative to other fuzzes!
Wow those LED clippers bring some life back to the modded circuit! I wonder if its because of the "knee" of the LED's fV vs 3 diodes in series with a different "knee" or whatever you call it as the current increases.
The transistor mod sounds a little more like the non-IC muff on the attack. The tone control mod alone sounded like the circuit got less clear and distinct on the attack BUT the LED mod seemed to shift the transient response back to sounding clear again. I like the sound and this video is excellent for showing those of us curious about breadboarding - how tweak circuits. Definitely saving this video for later. Thanks! How does the big muff compare/ contrast with the Fuzzstration?
@@TheQShow I was referring to the idea of heaping some praise on competing builders. Josh does that regularly, but I see it less common with other builders…
![Get More From Your EHX Big Muff Fuzz-Distortion Pedal [Massive Wall Of Noise & More!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oz6YIk-qNKQ/mqdefault.jpg)
🔗 How To Design Guitar Pedals Course: Interested in creating, building and experimenting with your own pedal circuits? Check out my course for newbies here:
www.guitarpedalcourse.com/courses/complete-beginner-s-guide-how-to-design-your-own-guitar-pedal-circuits
My pedal courses are all ABSOLUTELY RISK FREE - 100% money back guarantee within 30 days of your purchase. If you don’t love the courses, I’ll refund you, no questions asked.
It's awesome that I can now understand the circuit at a glance and how to breadboard and experiment with it, all thanks to your course! Me from a month ago couldn't do this.
That’s wonderful! Glad you enjoyed it ☺️
I wish I had a class in high school with Mr. Wampler teaching basic electronic circuitry instead of woodshop.
Wampler wearing a That Pedal Show shirt.
CLASSY.
Your version of Muff here is killer
I have the JHS Muffuletta and the EHX OpAmp Big Muff, and the OpAmp one has to be my favorite flavor, with an honorable mention to Josh's JHS mode on the Muffuletta.
But man, if you end up coming out with your own take on the OpAmp Big Muff, I'll be all over it.
I think this video is a pretty big hint that we should start saving money for the upcoming OpAmp fuzz :)
Josh has no idea what he's doing.
@@CC-fi3ppwhat makes you say that?
@BobbyDoesMusic Josh is imho, a fraud, and certainly a sudo intellectual and a grifter. He just copies circuits, randomly swops parts, and calls it a mod. Most of his mods sound worse, especially the RAT. What Josh is great at is marketing, influencing and manipulation but he's part of a very nefarious religious group who are a cult, also he's been had a few times for stealing circuits with zero mods and putting them out as his own, the vertex guy also has ran that scam too but he's more knowledgeable and less grifty than Josh. Just Google, why people don't like JHS pedals, entire forums, and real-world guitar communities are 100% against Josh. His whole scammy history will come up on a simple search. There's a reason why he doesn't do high gain and why his best-selling pedal is used by the praise and worship community (mostly his nefarious dodgy church and other cultists they recommend it to).
Hendrix at rainbow bridge. Foxy lady. Nasty! I own a bunch of your pedals. The thing you excel at is what you mentioned at the very end, you get clarity out of your pedals like no other builder I know of. You build it, we'll buy it. Suggestion on the Velvet fuzz, do a mini version if possible with more treble. I own five Velvet fuzz pedals btw. Magical with a maple neck strat through anything vintage Marshall ish. Keep up the killer work dude!
I love when you added in the LEDs. And the OpAmp to transistor change is the most interesting circuit tweak I’ve seen in a video. It would be cool if you posted the schematics you went through for people (me) to stare at for minutiae (actual values, etc)
The LEDs seemed to cut down on some frequencies that weren't helping the tone, per my ears.
Nice job as always Brian! Dig the shoutout t shirt for Dan and Mick!! Quite appropriate lol!!✌🏽❤️
That Pedal Show should be called "The Cork Sniffer's Hour"
@@stoneysdead689 🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪
@@stoneysdead689 ?? I don't know what you've been watching but ime they can get (genuinely) excited about pretty much any gear they play. They do seem to aboslutely hate making short video's though 😄 Anyway, I love em and I never saw any cork-sniffery there but ymmv of course.
The last circuit with the led was the my favorite out of the bunch. It just had something in the tone I liked better. Thanks!
Out of all the Fuzzes out there throughout the decades, and I love them all, the one I want, and the most elusive, is the Tone Bender that Mick Ronson used with Bowie; it has this clarity to it that most fuzzes don't have. I would love to see you do an episode explaining and building that circuit. Thanks for all you do Brian!!!
You sir are a genius gentleman scholar.
Tip of the hat to you.👍
Agree. You surely have a good ear
YEESSSS!!!!!!
love to see that circuit dissected
The clarity of a chainsaw 😊
I have a clone of the MK1 TB and it is indeed a wild wild ride, I think I understand what you mean by clarity too, it sure stands out in the mix
Worth repeating: really appreciate you doing these.
The LED change was actually noticeable! I didn't expect that!
I have a feeling a new wampler fuzz is coming! I saw the pedalboard post! 👍🏻
I've been on a pedal history and circuit analysis frenzy lately. Getting into the bread board and circuit building and modding to understand what I like. I've learned sooo much from you as well as Josh from JHS. Thx so much Brian, for doing what you do ❤ 🤘🏻
Damn i already have 50ish Muffs.
Always love the technical and design stuff you show us.
Got more into breadboarding lately thanks to you and Josh. Its really helping me learning more about the what and why in circuit design.
This is a top shelf review, incredible work
I just want to say I’m so happy I found your channel because I’ve been wanting to learn more about the guts of my pedals and want to modify or build my own so I can’t wait to go through your videos! Awesome video by the way! And love that op amp sound
Thanks! If you’re looking for a course that details this sort of thing check the link in the video description
I love Big Muff type of circuits. Wren & Cuff, JHS’s Crimson are great takes on classics. However, my favorite over the past year & a half has been Hizumitas by EQD. If you’re making your version of a Big Muff, I’m in! I was fortunate to get one of your Germanium Tumnus last December. Also, I’m super impressed by your Black ‘65. Keep up the great work!
Ooh, I loved the increase in mid range, really sweet
That was awesome. The breadboard sounded dull but then the LED clipping brought that amazing kind of tone bender bite that would have sounded really ugly on a brighter tone stack. I really like thew end result. It fixes what I don't like about the Big Muff (boxy, boomy, too scooped and always just sounds like the 90s), and and brings a useable presence to the sound while still having that warm growl.
Love the twist you put on that circuit, more like amp drive with a bit of fuzz character. Muffs generally feel to me like playing through a compressor; only fuzz I use anymore is a Dusky Augustus, very tractable and harmonically rich.
I'm saving this video. Now I want to play around with the circuit and see what comes! I really appreciate the effort EHX put into this pedal more now that I see how big the changes in tone could have been. It just sounds great as is!
terrific stuff as always!
OH that is killer! I need another fuzz. The Tone Wicker is cool but the opamp is KILLER! Cool shirt too!
"Thats the beauty of analog electronics" -oh yes indeed beautiful!
I really enjoyed this video!
It made me think how it would be possible to change the tone stack of the big muff to accomodate different amps types. I liked that you explained your approach in making the circuit better. Thanks Brian 🫶
St. Vincent has some really sick fuzz tones on some of her songs. I think she's my favorite fuzz person.
I really like this channel .... easy to follow along and comprehend what your talking about . I still have my vintage muff fuzz from the late '70's. It's been disassembled and treated barbarically by the much younger versions of myself ... regrettably .
I also had my vintage Big Muff from also late '70's, but desecrated that one into my late 20's. I've become somewhat finicky about the type of distortion / crunch / fuzz sound I like. I have my 1965 Ampeg B18-x head only into a V-4 cab I bought in '79, that is the holy grail when cranked. The way subtle differences in every aspect of the signal chain affect the output sound is overwhelming to say the least. Many thanks for having such a great channel in addition to a great company . 🙂🎸🎸🎸
Absolutely perfect timing Brian, just yesterday I ordered the parts to start tinkering with this same circuit
Op amp is my favorite and I love what you’re doing with it
Def Siamese dream is a top fuzz album for me… I have an dig the pumpkins muff but I really like the mods you did… (wanna mod mine? 😂) cheers Brian. Excellent sound and fun video as always.
Thank you for your service, you're an American hero
This is great! I liked the LEDs flickering, just because. This video is an awesome addition to your guitar pedal course, in which I am testing out the Big Muff tone stack. So, good timing 😎 I’m gonna wire ‘em up and try ‘em out! highfive.
Wow🔥Your Breadboard version sounds Killer🤘So full sounding!
When you added that transitor phase. Wow. What a difference.
I love love your job and Thx for sharing your trix.
My favorite muff is the violet ram head
I think the mods sounded great along with some really tasty playing.
My favorite fuzz is the Pete Cornish P-1. It’s fuzzy but very liquid. I love it because it’s almost like having a sustainer in my guitar as notes just go on forever.
Really enjoyed this video. And if you design a new fuzz, I’m all in!!!
Great video, I always learn so much! One of my favorite fuzzes is EQD's Park Fuzz Sound, a Mkiii tone bender with a bunch of extra gain. However i might be able to see how a Wampler op-amp style fuzz could be my new fave after hearing the fuzz in this video.
I've been waiting for a different newer version of the OP muff to come out. Pls make it happen.
The original BigMuff I bought in 75 is like swimming with sharks! Rams head converts an amp into a wild beast! First time I hooked it into my twin with a Firebird was crazy fun and people loved it!
The Fulltone catalyst is a fuzz I never hear anyone mention. Ever. It is sublime in my opinion. I'd love to see you do your take on that circuit like you've done with others like the Belle od.
I liked them all really 😅 and I can't wait to see you perfect this and eventually apply that to the Grunge!🤗
wow your version sounds extraordinary, please make it into a production pedal!
Thanks for reminding me about pot tolerances, I like the big muff, I have a recently produced nano version of it, cool to learn about the circuit too!
18:12 a woolly mammoth covered in butter entered the room. The best sounding fuzz of the video right there
You definitely should put your version on the market.
The Keeley Moon and Jptr FX Warlow. Just can’t help but smile when I plug into either.
Which do you prefer, if you had to choose? I have the Moon and the Warlow on in the post. Just curious.
@ that’s tough. You can get the Moon set to the smoothest fuzz you ever heard. Warlow can’t do that. Warlow gets savage as hell for heavy stuff, moon can’t quite do that but it gets close. Moon then I guess.
@@PhilthyDeluxe Thanks for the reply and advice. By the way, do you think it's redundant having both on a pedalboard. If not, how would you use/stack them?
@@sgall161 I suppose the moon on that super smooth sustain setting into the warlow could work… would need an amp with a lot of headroom and a noise gate!
@@PhilthyDeluxe Thanks for the advice. Appreciate it.
The LEDs would make a great theme as the eyes for some fuzz demon.
I own two EHX Lizard Queens, and the new Lizard King. I really love them. I’ve been curious about your fuzz’s. Also, Thanks for the germanium Tumnus series. I got them both. They are great.
A really interesting thing to note with the op amp muffs is how drastically differently they behave when stacking with other drives, compared to other muffs. In my experience, at least with how I set my muffs and drives, they seem to “blow out” and the gain character changes very noticeably; compared to most muffs where it will generally just add some mids or rasp or what have you, the op amp just totally implodes. I’m not sure what exactly causes this, but presumably it’s the added gain clipping the op amps themselves way more than they’re intended to. Really cool, weird circuit.
The warlow by jptr FX is an awesome take on the opamp muff, i love that pedal.
Ever since being able to afford quality pedals it’s has always been Wampler first choice for me. Love the clarity and that Brian does not make a Clone of a pedal. I love your designs and like someone else’s had commented already, the clarity and clean up out of your pedals is extraordinary. I do only have 1 drive pedal that is not a Wampler and that is the EQD Special Cranker and stacks so well with the Wamplers after the Special Cranker. Anyways, thank you so much for your love for circuits, pedals and great tone!! 🙌🔥🌟
Ps: owner of Wampler Pantheon Deluxe, Electric Love Aquatone, Dual Fusion, Paisley Drive Deluxe. Thank you Brian and Wampler Co for your pedals !
I also own the Op-Amp reissue. Fallout Cloud and Pharoah have been my favorites so far. The Fig Fumb is good too, but a bit noisy. I'd LOVE to check out Wampler's take of the Muff!!!
Great demo. Love the T-shirt.❤
Great video! Really enjoyed the way you broke it down for someone who loves fuzz. My favorites at the moment that I use.
EHX Rams Head nano
Silicon Dunlop Hendrix fuzz face
EQD germanium Dream Crusher
Dunlop Siete Santos Billy Gibbons Octavio (really fun pedal)
Brain is pretty genius. Always enjoying him
My favorite fuzz was built by a small builder out of England. You might have heard of him. Richard Oliver, the British King of Fuzz.
We are now priming the pump for the BKOF. Cool stuff great job everyone!
I have a Fuzz Face type of fuzz (fuzz frenzy) and I have PTB (passive treble and bass circuit) installed on two of my guitars. I love the sounds I'm able to get using bass cut on my guitars: if you keep the guitar volume high and cut a bit of bass, you get kind of an overdrive/fuzz mix type of sound - it really calms down the fuzz and you can choose by which amount. On the other hand if you lower the guitar volume, fuzz cleans up but sometimes has more bass than it should and then you can cut that excess amount of bass and get a really nice clean or dirty clean. So, my mod would definitely be adding a passive bass cut.
Great demo Brian! The tweaks you made did indeed add more presence. I am wondering if you could add more control by incorporating a three band eq similar to what you included on the Mofetta and the.Germanium Tumnis Deluxe pedals. I have both of these and they are fantastic! Thanks Brian for sharing you design process for making such great pedals! When is your version of the FUZZ coming out? Sign me up for one! Cheers!
Really hope this is in indicator of what's to come with the British KoF!
I'm an EHX fanboy. But that circuit you built was so meaty. It genuinely sounded like a '60s/'70s tone. Not quite the holy grail of "Spirit in the Sky", but definitely a step up from what's on the market.
I love the Stone Deaf Fig Fumb. It's a Muff type sound with a parametric eq that lets you boost the mids
My favorite style, Muff. Ram's Head with a Mid Control. Add a 3-way switch for, led, and another choice. Voila!
The mods made an already amazing pedal sound even more amazing. The midrange definition is so much stronger.
Mr. Wampler, I beg of you to make a bass pedal that keeps the clean, dry signal but adds a fuzzy suboctave.
The Muff is my absolute favorite drive on bass, but the setup to do how I want is complicated and I'd love to have it with one stomp.
Have you tried the EHX Deluxe Bass Big Muff Pi?
Those mods sound fantastic. My current fave op-amp Muff is the Keeley Moon, but it can be hard to tame (actually the Triumph does a lot to make it more manageable). Hoping we'll see a Wampler Muff soon (sometimes that happens after these circuit deep=dive vids 😉). Thanks, Brian!
You can measure them to find one spec’d how you like
Glad to see a new video
The King Tone Fuzz is my current obsession, but my old BM Civil War reissue started me on this path of extremely tweakable fuzz pedals. 40 years ago, my 2 standbys were a standard Big Muff and a 1976 Maestro MFZ-1 (both I still have). Heres what I've learned in my experience: the newer fuzzes play well with low wattage amps and still sound good with a stack... but those old fuzzes (Maestro, Dallas Arbitor, PEP Box) sound like a mouse fart down low but turn into mythical giants at 100 watts cranked.
Spirit in the Sky.
I love the op amp big muff. My favorite version is the Wren and Cuff. I boost it with a klon type pedal to make it work in a band mix better.
Dude yes! Sounds killer!!!
The Eartherquaker Devices Hoof brings MIDS back into the original schematics of those Big Muff pedals that tend to be very scoopy in the middle
Back in the 80s when I started playing guitar and building my pedals the fuzz was the term we used for all distortion pedals…
Thanks Brian. Does the Fuzztration use IC chips? If no, do you have plans for an op amp style fuzz in the future?
Definitely different! Love the extra midrange, but it needs more presence without the fizz, as you said. Would make another great $99 pedal!!
It has another inverting stage at the end though, so the signal is back in phase.
Replacing that first stage with non-inverting will make the pedal flip the phase.
That transistor stage is a good idea since they're all inverting unless they're voltage followers.
Good call! I had condensed my circuit explanation and unfortunately left out a few things. It’s an often bad idea to use an inverting stage as the input without an input buffer, so often I’ll just convert that to non inverting. Which then creates an out of phase form input to output, though that’s most often irrelevant, you’ll experience the same thing with a transistor (like a range master) or mosfet/jfet boost if they are single stages as well. But I would stick a buffer on the end anyway due to the tonestack and volume creating higher impedance output anyway so I’d likely just invert the last Stage anyway most likely.
Love the video!!
What a coincidence, just last night I was researching op amp big muffs!
LED version for the win - and make them visible on top of the pedal! That version sounded best of all. Second best - original transistor version right at the beginning.
The key to getting the most out of certain fuzz pedals is to understand that the knobs are not independent of each other. The volume, tone, and drive knobs all influence each other. Just keep twiddling the knobs and you'll find the sound somewhere.
My favorite fuzz is the STONEFLY EFFECTS - Two Headed Werewolf Fuzz. Marc Eric makes suck fuzz pedals and it's a shame more players don't know about him. I'm not sure if he's still in the business but if you ever get a chance to test one of his pedals give it a try. The tones are unreal. The two-headed werewolf is one silicon and the other half germanium, and you can use either independently or blend them.
The Big Muff is my favourite distortion effect I think. And yes: it started when I heard THAT fuzz tone on the Siamese Dream album! Weirdly, this EXH reissue doesn't sound quite the same...there's a "looseness" to the fuzz, whereas the album sound (which is filtered through stuff like overdubs and other studio wizardry, admittedly) is..."stickier". It's hard to describe unless you're there in the room, hearing them side-by-side. I have a version of the IC Muff made by Fredric Effects, which gets a lot closer to "that" sound though. There's definitely loads of room for tweaking and modding with this circuit. I can't wait to hear what you come up with!
My plans for the OpAmp Muff is to put in a three way switch where its two way switch was.
So it has its old 'tone' and 'off' but also has a different tone circuit (maybe a RAT one, more research needed) that fits in the battery hole 🕳️ and uses the same potentiometer as the original tone.
Have other projects to get done first so delighted to hear if this has already been done somewhere and/or this is a daft ignorant idea 🖤⚡
I dig the LEDs.
Thanks Brian, thought the LED version sounded great and could be further developed into a really unique sounding pedal 👌 food for thought: maybe leave out the little transition clips when comparing sounds side by side. When dealing with something as abstract as sound or timbre, it's hard to keep in mind exactly what something sounded like. What happened now was that the viewer kind of compares the tone of the Muffs with the twangy guitar sound in the transition clips, because those are played back to back instead of the different fuzz sounds. Please consider! 🤓
They both sound good. I prefer the open sound of the circuit on the board, as it maintained more pitch information in the Fuzz. Hendrix - Third Stone from the Sun. That's the sound I associate with awesome Fuzz
I have an original style Big Muff and a green Russian big muff, but the fuzz that stays on my board is an El Ray Lucha Fuzz. I think it’s pretty obscure, but both the sound and paint job are great (it has a Mexican wrestler on it). Fuzzes are always a struggle. They only get that smooth, full sound that I like if they are first in the signal chain with no other drives on / added. p.s. loving my Wampler Triumph.
Very educational, thank you.
liked the version with the LEDs. Also... worth checking out the devi ever hyperion. It's the muff killer... completely different circuit. Ripe for modding.
My favorite fuzz really depends on the application.
- For maximum distortion, the EQD Hizumitas is my favorite fuzz, it’s over the top crazy, and has some fun overtones that feel random.
- For classic fuzz, you can’t go wrong with a Germanium Fuzz Face. The “in between” tones from wooly distortion to glassy cleans, just by adjusting the guitar volume and fantastic.
- And then there’s the Big Muff. It sounds thick, massive, and while it sounds like it needs more presence (just like you mentioned in the video), it sounds great the louder you play!
- Honorable Mention needs to go to the Lovetone Big Cheese. This fuzz sounds super thick and has a greater presence than most fuzzes, but the “feel” is the worst of the pedals I listed above. It’s almost as if your signal is running through a modeler (IMHO of course). It feels like 5ere is a bit of a delay on your signal, but the sound is a great alternative to other fuzzes!
Thanks for posting
The Fulltone Queen Bee is my favourite Fuzz pedal!!
Wow those LED clippers bring some life back to the modded circuit! I wonder if its because of the "knee" of the LED's fV vs 3 diodes in series with a different "knee" or whatever you call it as the current increases.
The transistor mod sounds a little more like the non-IC muff on the attack. The tone control mod alone sounded like the circuit got less clear and distinct on the attack BUT the LED mod seemed to shift the transient response back to sounding clear again. I like the sound and this video is excellent for showing those of us curious about breadboarding - how tweak circuits. Definitely saving this video for later. Thanks!
How does the big muff compare/ contrast with the Fuzzstration?
I love my mk1 Tone Bender clone. Your muff sounds great though. I'd buy it
The world needs the Wampler Muff
Nice! Brian is channeling his inner Josh here, and I really appreciated it, learned things, which is always good!
who do you think taught Josh?
Love both but you have it backwards, Wampler has been at it, and educating people on circuitry before JHS was a company
Josh learned from ppl like Brian.
@@TheQShow I was referring to the idea of heaping some praise on competing builders. Josh does that regularly, but I see it less common with other builders…
Transistor feels smoother, but ironically, the opamp SOUNDS smoother to me.