So, my former roommate has commissioned me to make a Big Muff for him to give to his boss as a Christmas gift.
I know absolutely nothing about boss dudes musical tastes, instrument set up, or play style. (I've asked for details but knowing my former roommate I'll likely get an answer amounting to "well his guitar has 6 strings, does that help?")
So I'm left with the quandary of what flavor of BMP to shoot for. Which version is base-level generic?
Any opinions?
I would refuse the commission without more info, personally. Sounds like a headache waiting to happen. Plus, giving a pedal to my boss would be an ethics violation where I work. Beyond that, I have no actually useful advice except people seem to like Green Russian and Violet Rams Head BMPs.
Quote from: EBK on October 29, 2019, 10:26:21 PM
I would refuse the commission without more info, personally. Sounds like a headache waiting to happen. Plus, giving a pedal to my boss would be an ethics violation where I work. Beyond that, I have no actually useful advice except people seem to like Green Russian and Violet Rams Head BMPs.
Considering until last week he lived in his Bosses spare room, I'm not worried about ethics concerns over a pedal in the situation. But yeah I do want to know what sorta tone to aim for. Is he looking for Siamese Dream or Comfortably Numb? Glycerine or 10am Automatic? 70s groove or 90s grunge?
Then again, as the saying goes, a Muff's a Muff, so perhaps I shouldn't worry quite so much.
Probably just a triangle or NY Muff like the big silver ones.
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Make the graphics on the pedal say "I QUIT!"
Offer to gift wrap it so your former roommate doesn't have to. :P
I'd make a rams head with the preface of 'you get what you get' due to the lack of information.
So turns out boss dude borrowed a BMP from someone and fell in love with it, hence this thing starting. I asked my friend to take a picture of the borrowed pedal so I could get an idea of what he was working with.
This is what he sent me.
(http://i.imgur.com/wv2IXrB.png)
Love the guy but good lord is he difficult to deal with at times....
;D
I love a good mystery. I suppose that might be a good enough pic for a BMP expert to narrow it down. At least it is progress. Made in NYC USA, does it say there?
A V9 NYC, perhaps? A V10?
Looks like the NYC v9 to me ... the frantone muff
Quote from: EBK on October 30, 2019, 12:48:20 AM
;D
I love a good mystery. I suppose that might be a good enough pic for a BMP expert to narrow it down. At least it is progress. Made in NYC USA, does it say there?
A V9 NYC, perhaps? A V10?
Given the hex nut I'm guessing one of the V9 family, though I suppose it could also be a V6 just to complicate matters. At least it narrows things down a bit!
I'd say do a violet rams head or a green Russian, but yeah. That's probably a current one.
Boss man doesn't seem very demanding, "Big Muff" is enough, so he now has what he wants. Maybe you should build some other fuzz now - it will be a nice surprise and your friend might appreciate that.
Quote from: somnif on October 29, 2019, 10:52:14 PMIs he looking for Siamese Dream or Comfortably Numb? Glycerine or 10am Automatic? 70s groove or 90s grunge?
So ICBM, or (likely) a very early Rams Head, or a Triangle (of which there are loads) ;)
Quote from: somnif on October 29, 2019, 10:52:14 PMThen again, as the saying goes, a Muff's a Muff, so perhaps I shouldn't worry quite so much.
The most versitile muff I've ever come across is the 71 Triangle that's on my spreadsheet (you can build it on most DIY boards). You can get a lot of range out of that.
FWIW they're a piece of piss to trace so if you can get some high quality pics of the internals from several angles, it wouldn't be hard to clone the specific one he likes.
For guitar you can't go wrong with the Violet Ram, if the dude plays bass you can't go wrong with a Green Russian. Whichever version you pick, be sure to include a Skreddy style mids switch on them. Those make the instant difference between disappearing into a mix and bam! There you are again! Mids switches should be mandatory on Muffs IMHO.
Quote from: juansolo on October 30, 2019, 08:52:56 AM
The most versitile muff I've ever come across is the 71 Triangle
I haven't dug into more that 5-6 muffs, musically speaking, but I can certainly agree that my Triangle build has got a much higher number of great knob settings than any other I've come across.
Quote from: juansolo on October 30, 2019, 08:52:56 AM
a piece of piss
^I'd very much like to know what this saying means so that I might use it in America to embellish my diction. If it means that a task is easy to do, it would seem to be interchangeable with our "piece of cake," but without the risk of diabetes.
On second thought, it sounds like a good excuse to build that crazy board from pedalpcb that does it all
Quote from: dawson on October 30, 2019, 05:16:05 PM
Quote from: juansolo on October 30, 2019, 08:52:56 AM
a piece of piss
^I'd very much like to know what this saying means so that I might use it in America to embellish my diction. If it means that a task is easy to do, it would seem to be interchangeable with our "piece of cake," but without the risk of diabetes.
Those two are pretty interchangable.
Depends if you're taking the piss or not? ;D
Quote from: juansolo on October 30, 2019, 06:01:26 PM
Those two are pretty interchangable.
Quote from: nzCdog on October 30, 2019, 06:22:17 PM
Depends if you're taking the piss or not? ;D
Thanks for verifying! I'd hate to ruin an attempt to sound cultured because I'd misread your context.
Erm..sorry about all the piss in your Muff thread somniff-have you made any progress in your decision making? I'm curious what you're going to land on as THE one.
Quote from: dawson on October 31, 2019, 04:05:58 AM
Erm..sorry about all the piss in your Muff thread somniff-have you made any progress in your decision making? I'm curious what you're going to land on as THE one.
I'm still hoping my friend can give me a few more details about what music style/tone the pedal recipient is looking for before I finalize anything. I have a couple muff PCBs knocking around I could build on, only tricky bit would be squeezing in all the 1uF caps of the V9 if we go the direct clone route (unless I use MLCCs I suppose).
Surprisingly enough my local electronics store has 2n5133's on the shelf, so if I want to go with a Triangle/Rams Head design, those are easy enough to source (and cheaper than Smallbear)
Wow, you have a local parts store?
Quote from: Matmosphere on October 31, 2019, 05:46:21 AM
Wow, you have a local parts store?
Sort of? Its more an electrician's supply place, but they have like 60 years of random crap sequestered in their backroom shelving, and set up an online storefront for it. They'll go pull stock for you if you walk in though. Most of it is NTE/ECG stock, but they have a bizarre selection overall (most of which is wildly overpriced) https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com/
Sounds like he is saying that he doesn't care... I would have some fun and send him a 3knob Bazz Fuss and never let on that it's not a muff. Call it the Biff Mug as an inside joke
I think that this question is interesting in the sense that defining a 'generic' or 'standard' BMP is interesting. From a commission consideration, I don't think you should even bother without more information. If the ask is 'just give me a regular BMP' then I think you can be creative and go with some of the aforementioned suggestions without worrying about it. Most folks don't know that there are many, many variations of the circuit. But, if the ask is 'I played this one and I want that,' asking you to play detective to find the exact version with sparse information is fraught venture.
My guess is it's gonna be an NY muff, though. My vote for 'generic' could swing either violet ram's head or '71 triangle.
Ok, breadboarded the '71 Triangle and think I'm going to go with that, with a couple parts exceptions.
Picked up 4 fairchild 5133's and honestly they make it sound a bit... gassy. Bass response was kind of muddy and it had this almost gated quality that I wasn't terribly fond of. Grabbed a handful of tayda 5088's from my box just to test and it woke right up. Low end tightened up, fuzz smoothed out, and the response "feel" sharpened. Hell, honestly think I prefer this a bit to the stripboard Gilmore version I built oh so long ago.
Granted, placebo effect may be in full force, I'm playing on a bedroom floor with an overstuffed cheap breadboarded circuit, god only knows what a slight wiggle may have done here.