Muff Build - Mayo or Ram?

[jkokura]

Gonna build me a Muff. I figured out there are 19 parts to change the values of before I get a Ram's Head. I'm curious about the Ram's Head because purportedly it's the Muff Gilmour liked best. Makes me like the idea. But the Mayo is the clone the Mudbunny is actually replicating, and it's a modded Muff isn't it? So what's the difference between a Mayo and a Ram? Is it worth doing the Ram, or should I just stick with the Mayo?

I'm thinking a poll is in order...

Jacob

[CRBMoA]

Mayo is purportedly a gainiac. I haven't built it, but I have built two Ram's Head's.

My personal muff is Triangle spec'd, but I built an RH for a friend. I liked it, alot.

He played it for his buddy. Buddy said "Where can I get one?".

He was so impressed, he commissioned one from me, sight unseen. TTYTT, I never met him.

Best muff derivative I have EVER played is Madbean's Darkside.

[eniacmike]

I have built two mayos. they are EXTREMELY high gain. Socket the transistors and try some lower gain transistors to mellow the tone out. You can also flip q4 backwards and it tames the muff even more. The mids mod is worth it for any muff circuit though it sounds really ripping. My personal fave is civil war muffs.

[gtr2]

I've never even played a Muff in 10 years of playing.    I must exit the dark ages soon. 

[jkokura]

Hmm. Well I'm certain at this point that I would like to either build the Ram or the Mayo. I've looked at the adjustments that need to be made, and the five caps that need changing are the input and output caps (really big difference) and three 500pF caps need to be changed to 560pF caps. the 560pF caps are easy, because that's all I have so that change is happening. As for the input and output caps, the changes are quite large, so I might socket them.

There are 14 resistors that need changing. That's right, 14 small to large adjustments on resistors. Some I see accompany the 560pF caps, so those I'll probably change, but anyone have any recommendations there? Perhaps which ones I should socket and try some various values at?

I'm gonna try and find the BC550 trannies, but if you have any recommendations there too... I haven't read yet which transistors were used in the Ram's Head yet.

Jacob

[eniacmike]

I got my bc550's from mouser.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=bc550
I am pretty sure I bought the bc550b from fairchild $.20 each when you buy 25 at a time.


that sounds like a whole lot of socketing going on. It is a total pain in the ass to breadboard a big muff but you might want to try it if you are looking for the ultimate big muff.

Also I think caps n such sells big muff boards that madbean designed for $5 so you could build both up.

[CRBMoA]

Madbean and the owner of Caps and Such (Forrest Whitesides - AKA Culturejam) collaborated on the 'Gruntbox'. Lots of documentation for version options on BYOC.

I have found BC549s to be my favorite, 2N5088 are standard in my customer builds. It is hard to build a bad muff. I don't think I have ever built one that was not at least decent, and several have been stellar.

[CapnCrunch]

Best muff derivative I have EVER played is Madbean's Darkside.

Can you describe why this is?  It was the Darkside that first brought me to this forum.  After checking out what few clips and vids I could of the original, I lost interest.  I know that Youtube is not a great way to make decisions on tone, but the original Cornish pedal sounds like Shite in every vid or clip I've seen or heard.  I love Gilmour's tone, but I can't afford a couple of Hiwatts, WEM cabs with Fanes, Doppolas and the other $100,000 worth of assorted and sundry racks and effects that he uses.  I just kind of thought that the Cornish muff couldn't sound too bad given the other gear, but in a more "budget" rig must sound crappy.  Maybe I'm wrong.  I really could use a stellar distortion.

I don't want to hi-jack this thread, I was just wondering what makes a great muff, cuz I'd love to have one.

[CRBMoA]

Well, sure. But tone is subjective. We're kinda talking about 'what's your favorite chocolate'? Dark, semi-sweet, milk, white.......

To me, what makes the Darkside better is the affect of the buffer. I am not an EE, but I have been a gigging musician since video killed the radio stars, so I know what I like. The buffer adds a certain 'pop' to the signal, but not a boost that gets squashed as you run through the trannies. Overall, there is less 'harshness', which many have described as less 'brightness'. I rarely use or enjoy a treble boost, so the Darkside tone is my cup of tea.

I like something between milk and dark chocolate. I would say again, I have never built a muff that I didn't like.

I also played crappier guitars when I built the Darkside. So maybe the additional processing helped my tone at the time.

To be honest, tone is still in the hands. You can make any muff sound good with any rig and any guitar on any given day.

[CapnCrunch]

Well, sure. But tone is subjective. We're kinda talking about 'what's your favorite chocolate'? Dark, semi-sweet, milk, white.......


To be honest, tone is still in the hands. You can make any muff sound good with any rig and any guitar on any given day.

Thanks for the reply.  I agree.  One man' meat is another man' poison.  I guess I'll just have to take the jump.  I'll probably build both the Darkside and the Mudbunny eventually. 

Jacob, if you do socket the various components, and swap back and forth, it would be cool if you could review the differences.  I for one would be really interested in how you perceive the differences.

It would be interesting and informative if Madbean had a place to post comparative clips of the various OD's, Muff variants, fuzz variants, etc.  It would be cool to be able hear some of the differences.  I know it wouldn't be perfect because they would not be recorded with the same mic, guitar, amp, player etc. but it still could be quite informative.

[jkokura]

Jacob, if you do socket the various components, and swap back and forth, it would be cool if you could review the differences.  I for one would be really interested in how you perceive the differences.

For sure, I will be testing both values for anything I socket, that's the only reason I'd socket anything! But socketing all of them like one person said... Yikes! I don't know about that. Perhaps some of them, but not all of them. I'm trying to analyze the schem to see which parts I should socket and which I should leave. Some of me says to myself, "Self - just build the Ram's Head." Not sure yet.

It would be interesting and informative if Madbean had a place to post comparative clips of the various OD's, Muff variants, fuzz variants, etc.  It would be cool to be able hear some of the differences.  I know it wouldn't be perfect because they would not be recorded with the same mic, guitar, amp, player etc. but it still could be quite informative.

I'm fairly certain if you googled you could find someone who has done audio tests on many different muffs. I think that there's consensus out there that they're all different but good in their own ways. I kinda like the Gilmour Muff sound personally, but the Smashing Pumpkins Muff sound brings me back to my youth. I'd rather play with the Gilmour sound personally, like the sound we here on Money, or his lead tone on sooo many albums.

Meh, the board hasn't arrive yet, so really I'm just creating little baggies of ram's head and mayo part values. Perhaps I'll enee-menee-minee-mo them.

Jacob