What version of Big Muff are the new ones?

[Bio77]

My daughter's friend wants a Big Muff and I've agreed to make it.  He mentioned Smashing Pumpkins, which made me think creamy dreamer.  Then he mentioned the Wicker Big Muff, which I've never heard of.  I'm wondering if anybody knows which flavor of Muff circuit this is?

[somnif]

http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_history3.html#ToneWicker

Version 12 -

"CIRCUIT - It is built with normal through-hole style transistors, capacitors, and diodes. Resistors are small surface mount style. The circuit is a different design than the V10 Little Big Muff. The transistors are four BC550Cs. Early circuit boards are marked EC-D47, and later EC-D47 Rev. A. It runs off of either a 9V battery or an industry standard 9V AC adaptor. "

"THE SOUND - The tone range of the V12 Big Muff is quite broad. It can match the tones of the V10 Little Big Muff somewhat in standard mode, but with the Wicker switched on it becomes a much sharper and brighter sound, but not too harsh. The "buzzy-fizzy" sound that many Big Muff users complain about with the V9 NYC reissue and V10 Big Muffs can be smoothed out with the Tone Wicker. The "fuzz" tones it produces have much more range than the V9 and V10. Many Muff users (like me) use boosters or tube drivers to color or boost the gain and mids of their Big Muffs for added clarity, but this version does not require that. The boost is built in, and it cuts through a band mix very well. Compared to vintage USA Big Muffs, this sounds very different, but this is one of my favorites of the Muffs produced since 2000. Some units sound slightly different than others. "


Unfortunately, he doesn't post schematics for any currently in production pedals, so no easy road there. But there are pictures of the board up you could sneak a peak at.

edit: picture in question - http://www.kitrae.net/music/IMG_4266.jpg (EHX is even nice enough to label component values on the board, how handy)

Also, more info and description of stuff here: https://mirosol.kapsi.fi/2014/07/ehx-big-muff-pi-with-tone-wicker/ (there is a schematic link in the text)

[Scruffie]

Pumpkins is famously the Op Amp muff.

[thesmokingman]

Op amp muff with the tone lift switch will check all the boxes

[Aentons]

Yep, I have a TW version and the tone bypass is killer. There is a large volume boost and more noise but it's totally worth it. The wicker switch bypasses some caps that are normally present and it has been described as "raspy" which I can agree with.

[matmosphere]

Pumpkins is famously the Op Amp muff.

if you're looking for that sound the opamp one is the way to go. 

[Yahoo67]

I would also try a frantone cream puff , that one goes fatter than the op amp bigmuff. Pedal PCB got a project of that one.

[Bio77]

Looks like I came to the right place    Thanks guys!

[alanp]

Skreddy Mayo circuit values also has a good reputation for that sound.

[lars]

He mentioned Smashing Pumpkins, which made me think creamy dreamer.

A Big Muff is not the "Smashing Pumpkins sound". The whole creamy dreamer thing was a complete fiasco, but it's nice to know it is still alive and well as "the way to get the pumpkins sound, brah!". Billy Corgan will never be able to break free from that one:
http://kitrae.net/music/Music_Muff%20Inspired%20Pedals%20and%20Clones2.html#CreamyDreamer

[somnif]

He mentioned Smashing Pumpkins, which made me think creamy dreamer.

A Big Muff is not the "Smashing Pumpkins sound". The whole creamy dreamer thing was a complete fiasco, but it's nice to know it is still alive and well as "the way to get the pumpkins sound, brah!". Billy Corgan will never be able to break free from that one:
http://kitrae.net/music/Music_Muff%20Inspired%20Pedals%20and%20Clones2.html#CreamyDreamer

Huh, I thought it was "always known" that Corrigan had used an ICBM for that tone. Given I started in the pedal DIY scene around 2000, I'd have been right in the time zone for this, and I completely missed the hype (Granted, I was a high school freshman at the time, so I missed a lot as a rule). I clearly remember him telling a story about him getting the pedal dirt cheap, and after the album became popular, going back to the store to try and buy a spare and it's price had shot up astronomically.

[Muadzin]

He mentioned Smashing Pumpkins, which made me think creamy dreamer.

A Big Muff is not the "Smashing Pumpkins sound". The whole creamy dreamer thing was a complete fiasco, but it's nice to know it is still alive and well as "the way to get the pumpkins sound, brah!". Billy Corgan will never be able to break free from that one:
http://kitrae.net/music/Music_Muff%20Inspired%20Pedals%20and%20Clones2.html#CreamyDreamer

Yeah, well, once a certain idea manages to worm itself into the public's brain you will find that you can argue until you are blue in the face, like a virus it just will refuse to die. This goes for the Creamy Dreamer, to anti-vax, to flat earth and history in particular. To this day my grandmother is utterly convinced the Netherlands was betrayed in WW2 by pro-Nazi sympathizers during the German invasion. This idea was popular in the Netherlands during the war, because the Netherlands capitulated after only 5 days of combat and people preferred to pass the blame unto a small local Naziesque party, rather then accept that the Dutch had been woefully unprepared for modern war. It has been disproven by historians, pretty soon after the war that local Nazi sympathizers played no role whatsoever in the Dutch defeat. But try explaining that to my grandmother. I think I must have tried a dozen times. Now I just give up.

Ideas are like viruses and logic and facts are not vaccines to them. The only way to get an idea out of someone's brain is with a different idea.

[matmosphere]

Yeah, the Creamy Dreamer isn't what they used back then, but it was modded to sound like what they used, and they did use it later.  So it would probably work just fine for your daughters friend as well.

From what I have read it is still not definitively known if they did use an opamp muff. I think somewhere on that page Kit Rae says the knobs on the photos he's seen don't go with the knobs on the opamp muff, so there is still some confusion.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter exactly what they used.  You can definitely get very close with the opamp version, and from what it sounds like the Creamy Dreamer as well.

[Aentons]

Yeah, well, once a certain idea manages to worm itself into the public's brain you will find that you can argue until you are blue in the face

....and it's a vibrato, not a tremolo! I don't care how long it's been...

[flanagan0718]

I recently built a Hoof clone for one of my friends. This was my favorite sounding muff that I've built so far. I used the layout on the Perf board site. I linked it below for you. The "Shift" function on that opened up a world of sounds. It was a very cool and fun build.
-Mike-

http://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/2015/03/earthquaker-devices-hoof.html