EH - Big Muff Pi ( Ram Head, Early Version )

All about modern commercial stompbox circuits from Electro Harmonix over MXR, Boss and Ibanez into the nineties.
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bato001
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Post by bato001 »

andregarcia57 wrote:
guitarmongot wrote:You should try 4xBC 239C (+600 hfe) I´ve used them for a more "modern" Big Muff sound:
also as mentioned before : if you put a compressor before Big Muff : it really comes to live:
more compressed,sustained fuzz.As fore Gilmour tone : he uses COMP-BM-OD-TUBE AMP:
A Big Muff has to be played LOUD to get that tone...IMHO.
/cheers M
yeah ok, I'll try again hfe transistors.

you got to listen to demo below?
Seems to be normal BM?
CHEERS

MP3 BIG MUFF RAM'S HEAD
http://www.4shared.com/mp3/FUPepnj9/bigmuff.html
I could not listen to your demo without opening an account with 4shared. I have absolutely no reason to desire an account with them. It would be to your advantage to post it to You Tube or other such service which does not require an account.
"Ever wondered how some of your favourite guitar players got their tone? Me too. Probably a good amp and lots of practice." Little Lord Electronics Homepage

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guitarmongot
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Post by guitarmongot »

Ditto : can´t listen to your clip : but maby you want to build a
Devi Ever H ....a Big Muff type fuzz with lots of sustain :D

check it out :

/cheers m

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andregarcia57
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Post by andregarcia57 »

bato001 wrote:
andregarcia57 wrote:
guitarmongot wrote:You should try 4xBC 239C (+600 hfe) I´ve used them for a more "modern" Big Muff sound:
also as mentioned before : if you put a compressor before Big Muff : it really comes to live:
more compressed,sustained fuzz.As fore Gilmour tone : he uses COMP-BM-OD-TUBE AMP:
A Big Muff has to be played LOUD to get that tone...IMHO.
/cheers M
yeah ok, I'll try again hfe transistors.

you got to listen to demo below?
Seems to be normal BM?
CHEERS

MP3 BIG MUFF RAM'S HEAD
http://www.4shared.com/mp3/FUPepnj9/bigmuff.html
I could not listen to your demo without opening an account with 4shared. I have absolutely no reason to desire an account with them. It would be to your advantage to post it to You Tube or other such service which does not require an account.


here sound!

https://rapidshare.com/files/165660468/bigmuff.mp3

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generalkustard
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Post by generalkustard »

Last week I built a '47' Ram's head pretty much according to the spec for the '47' on the Kitrae site and it sounds incredibly flappy.. in a good way, but a long way from the classic smooth Big Muff sound it should be and I'm wondering why this might be. The only deviation I can see is that I used 560pf caps in place of 470 pf caps but since the caps i used are lower than their rated value anyway i'm wondering what could be causing this. Leads sound great, sustain is forever but Chords are wandering between near-silent territory and the flappiest fuzz imaginable. Y dat? :hmmm:

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Post by Fred_Garvin »

Here I am again rebooting a old thread.

Some people have mentioned that their big muff sounds squishly, flappy and or farty, the easiest way to resolve this is to use really high gain transistors. I went back to my build a while back and changed the transistors to fairchild 2n5089 with gains around 850 hfe. It sounds outrageous but it turned my build into a monster. It is truly devastating. I'll post a sound clip soon. Oh, and best wishes to all in this new year.
Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute.

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Post by Fred_Garvin »

Now I'm replying to my post. Too much spiked egg nog.

I'm going to now sound like a broken record, we've heard this over and over and I'm shaking my fist too.

"Don't forget to test your parts before you use them".

You'll save yourself so much grief.

End of line.
Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute.

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m.alexander
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Post by m.alexander »

my original V2 75 with 2n5088 have HFE Q1 620 , Q2 950 , Q3 850 , Q4 650

sorry my poor english

Alexander

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Post by soulsonic »

Electric Warrior wrote: 07 Jun 2009, 20:58 here's mine:

Image

DSC01715.jpg

DSC01714.jpg

DSC01713.jpg

DSC01712.jpg

DSC01711.jpg
A friend of mine just gave me his to repair, and it is this version exactly, even same brand of caps.
I wonder where this one fits in the timeline? I haven't seen these values listed in the usual version schematics (though maybe I just missed it somewhere).
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Post by Electric Warrior »

soulsonic wrote: 14 Nov 2020, 18:31 A friend of mine just gave me his to repair, and it is this version exactly, even same brand of caps.
I wonder where this one fits in the timeline? I haven't seen these values listed in the usual version schematics (though maybe I just missed it somewhere).
Kitrae thinks the pots in these are usually dated 1974: http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_hi ... l#Version3

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Post by soulsonic »

Electric Warrior wrote: 15 Nov 2020, 09:40
soulsonic wrote: 14 Nov 2020, 18:31 A friend of mine just gave me his to repair, and it is this version exactly, even same brand of caps.
I wonder where this one fits in the timeline? I haven't seen these values listed in the usual version schematics (though maybe I just missed it somewhere).
Kitrae thinks the pots in these are usually dated 1974: http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_hi ... l#Version3
Yes, the pots in mine say 1974 as well. But all the large poly caps are 180nF. I don't see this value in any of the schematics listed on his site or anywhere, but some photos seem to show this in other examples from the era. So I'm thinking another schematic should be added that shows these different values. My example also has the 10uF coupling caps (which have all gone bad and are so leaky it threw off the bias of one of the stages and made the volume control crazy scratchy).
"Analog electronics in music is dead. Analog effects pedal design is a dead art." - Fran

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soulsonic
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Post by soulsonic »

Hey, is it normal for these to have annoying scratchy tone controls because of the DC path thru them? The tone control on mine scratches really bad, but I'm reading about 4vDC across it and I can see in the schematic that there is an obvious DC path to ground coming from the collector of Q2 and going thru the tone circuit because there's no coupling cap to block it.
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Post by soulsonic »

Well, I cleaned it, and it seems fine now.
Replaced all three 10uF electrolytics and it works great now. Sounds very good.
"Analog electronics in music is dead. Analog effects pedal design is a dead art." - Fran

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