Custom Big Muff / Electra Distortion

[Ralfg]

Just finished off and handed off a build to a friend.  He wanted a pedal that sounded like Dinosaur Jr, specifically the tone from the song Kracked.  Kinda a tough order but sounded like a fun challenge.  So I did some research and yeah as expected J Mascis is a muff guy.  From what I read he had some V1 Triangle Muff that he loved (later it was stolen) during the recording of that album.  No additional info.  Also read he has a custom muff that he added a switch to bypass the volume for solos.  I kind of felt that would way too loud, so instead I opted to add a boost at the end.  But I thought it would be kind of fun to add a modified Electra Distortion instead of a clean boost. 

I spent a lot of time bread boarding the pedal and then comparing it to the recording to trying to dial it in.  I felt like the recording had a bit more note clarity than your standard muff, so I started with a V1 schematic I grabbed off Kit Rae's site.  Then tweaked some of the caps to let a bit more highs through, I also used the Pharaoh tone stack.  Honestly I think now that I could have used a fixed resistor, but what's one more knob.  I am pretty proud to say I think I nailed it.

The Electra distortion at the end adds a whole bunch of versatility.  Gives you a nice overdrive and then you could crank on the fuzz to really smash it.  Or vise versa.  Watching the dude play it for the first time was the most fun.  I was even more surprised at the note clarity we got out of it.  Pretty happy with the results.  I hope he is too.

He asked to call it JC Mascis cause his initials are JC... I would have rather called it Dino Jr, but hey, its not my pedal.  I'll have to make another for myself. 

My girlfriend did the dinosaurs for the etch.  I think they rock, I guess not really dark like the Dinosaur Jr art, but hey...

This was also the first layout I designed in Eagle Cad and thanks to Jacob's JMK Eagle tutorial it was easy.  Thank you for that!  Yeah it could probably be more compact.  I totally had trouble with the Electra, it just wasn't working, but worked on my vero prototype.  Turned out instead of 2.2M I used 2.2K, and of course it was the last component I checked... sheese.  But got it working with minimal damage.  Never assume a part is correct if its not working.  Never!

Love this site and all the resources on it.  Here are some picture on my dirty project table. 


 

[alanp]

Don't be surprised if people ask for a toner transfer image and a BOM.

That is very impressive.

[bluescage]

Nice! I'm still trying to get something done with Eagle, and yes the tutorials from JMK are very helpful!

[storyboardist]

Great work, inside and out! I was totally lost in Eagle before I found JMK's tutorials. A great resource.

[raulduke]

Really nice clean build dude,

[Ralfg]

Thanks for all the kind words. I would gladly share this project. I need to work on getting it into a human readable form.

[bcalla]

Very nice!  That's a really clean etch - I thought it was a decal.

[mshuptar]

Sweeeeeeeeet! I would like to hear a demo of this if possible!

[flanagan0718]

Great project man! The graphics are cool. I love the controls layout. Overall A+ work!

[stringsthings]

That's a great looking pedal.  And I wouldn't mind etching one of these boards.

[mrclean77]

You're a better pedal-building friend than I am. 

Any etching tips? That is ridiculously clean.

[midwayfair]

hehe that graphic is great.

[Aleph Null]

Excellent, clean work. Love the graphic and the knobs.

I wouldn't worry too much about making the layout smaller; anything smaller than a 1590BB gets cramped with more than one foot switch.

[Boba7]

So cute!! I love it.
Amazing job and it's really nice to read the whole story!

[Leevibe]

Great build. I love the artwork!