Muff question for bass players

[matmosphere]

I think the last time I played a green Russian muff was when they were still the ones being sold, but as I understand it they are the preferred muff of bass players.

I have a bassist friend who used to use a green Russian muff he was borrowing from a friend and really liked it so I want to build him one. Any one have any thoughts on if it is worth doing any mods for a bassist as opposed to a guitarist? I am inclined not to, because he was happy with the stock one, but I could put some caps on a switch or something if it makes a big difference. Any one experienced in the ways of Bass Big Muff?

[Zerro]

Big Muff can be surely modified for bassist at section of Tone controll. And maybe at signal capacitors too. But the Tone controll will be good enough for fiddle around. Raise values at capacitors in Tone circuit. Maybe this schema of FuzzWar will show:

[Betty Wont]

I play bass and my go-to fuzz is my build of the blackout musket fuzz. The 3 extra controls are super useful and it can still be dialed in stock green russian.

[Bio77]

I like to add blend control on my bass dirt.  GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used.  I'm on the search for a better design, though.  It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.

[Betty Wont]

I like to add blend control on my bass dirt.  GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used.  I'm on the search for a better design, though.  It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.

I do too. Though I have yet to find a blend utility that does what I want with a muff due to that unity dry signal.

[matmosphere]

I play bass and my go-to fuzz is my build of the blackout musket fuzz. The 3 extra controls are super useful and it can still be dialed in stock green russian.

Interesting, I played one on guitar once and didn't love it, but never tried it on bass. Thanks for the heads up, I'll take a look.

I like to add blend control on my bass dirt.  GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used.  I'm on the search for a better design, though.  It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.

I think if it was for me I'd be all about that, but for this guy... he plays pretty hardcore stuff, I don't think he would use it

[Betty Wont]

I play bass and my go-to fuzz is my build of the blackout musket fuzz. The 3 extra controls are super useful and it can still be dialed in stock green russian.

Interesting, I played one on guitar once and didn't love it, but never tried it on bass. Thanks for the heads up, I'll take a look.

I like to add blend control on my bass dirt.  GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used.  I'm on the search for a better design, though.  It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.

I think if it was for me I'd be all about that, but for this guy... he plays pretty hardcore stuff, I don't think he would use it

If he plays heavy stuff then I double recommend the Musket. The extra gain stage and focus control are what makes it such a beast for me.

[jimilee]

I use the green Russian with no mods, sounds fantastic for that early 70s Black Sabbath sound.


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[harryklippton]

I use the green Russian with no mods, sounds fantastic for that early 70s Black Sabbath sound.


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Same here. Built one for my wife to use on bass ten years ago for the band we were in at the time. We tuned 2 steps down and played loud

[jimilee]

I use the green Russian with no mods, sounds fantastic for that early 70s Black Sabbath sound.


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Same here. Built one for my wife to use on bass ten years ago for the band we were in at the time. We tuned 2 steps down and played loud

Wow, that sounds pretty heavy.


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[lars]

A very useful mod could be to have some switches for the clipping frequency response. On this website:  https://www.electrosmash.com/big-muff-pi-analysis, the capacitors in question are C6 and C7 per their schematic. Stock values for the green russian are .047uf. Many Big Muffs use 1uf in those positions. It might be worth trying a three-way switch to have 1uf, .047uf, and .022uf. Then you can mix and match the different clipping frequency options and go from heavy to tight fuzz madness.
Everything else I would keep stock to the green russian specs.

[thesameage]

I just built a green russian based muff on a mudbunny board for bass that sounds great.

A few things:
-- I put the diodes on switches for silicon/none/LED. Second stage was more of a dramatic difference for me, so if you have to do one, that would be it.
-- Basically replaced the 100n coupling caps with 220n caps and the 100n clipping caps with 47n caps. This gives it a much deeper and bigger sound and the clipping is more of a deep fuzz and not as much of a top end fizz.
-- I'll have to look at what I did for mids, but just replaced some caps to get more mids.
-- I tried a blend but didn't love it. Couldn't believe it, but I listened hard and it just didn't sound as good.
-- I used lower gain 2-400hfe transistors for the first three and a more modern higher gain for the last one. Another thing you'll read a lot about. People say it doesn't make a difference, but I could hear it. Higher hfe transistors were just too blasting for me. The lower HFEs sounded mellower and rounder to my ears.

[thesameage]

Just looked at my notes and here are some things that worked for my last mudbunny build for bass after socketing a lot of components. Here's what really worked for me, and I did a ton of research. Some are Green Russian values already, but these are all the areas that I kept reading about and listened hard to component switches. Glad to share this a I had to compile it and put it together. But the muff I have is great. Really love it. Very versatile.

Tone:
R18: 22k
R19: 20k

Flatter mids
C13: 10n
C14: 10n

Coupling Caps:
C3: 220n
C4: 220n
C7: 220n
C15: 220n
C16: 220n

Tone caps:
C2 470p
C5 470p
C8: 470p

Clipping caps:
C6: 47n
C9: 47n

All pots B100K

Like I said, I didn't like the blend. If you have a good sounding circuit I don't think it's necessary, esp since you can always turn the fuzz way down and the vol up to get a quasi OD/boost sound, which is very useable for bass when you don't want full on fuzz. I played mine with a blend at first and just didn't think it necessary.

The Hoof mids knob is very good too, if you want to go that route. However, I think that building in flat mids is the way to go to have less fiddling. Kind of a set it and forget it thing.

Also, if you put the diodes on switches. Having all LED's gives you something closer to a Hoof/Fuzz sound. Open gives you more of an OD/BIG sound, silicon gives you a more traditional sound. Mix and match too.

[thesameage]

One thing to add... the creamy dreamer switch on my Wren and Cuff green russian is great. I need to figure out how to do that. I can't seem to track down exactly how to implement the mod. If anyone knows, please post!

[Zerro]

Modifications of Big Muff including Creamy Dreamer:
http://www.bigmuffpage.com/Big_Muff_Pi_versions_schematics_part3.html