The Big Muff is a distortion pedal produced in New York City by the Electro-Harmonix company, along with their Russian sister company Sovtek, primarily for use with the electric guitar. A distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic of an object image sound waveform or other form of information or representation An effects pedal (or a " Stomp Box " is an electronic Effects unit housed in a small metal or plastic chassis used by musicians usually Electric The City of New York Electro-Harmonix is Sovtek is a brand of Vacuum tube owned by Mike Matthews's New Sensor Corporation and manufactured in Saratov, Russia. An electric guitar is a type of Guitar that uses pickups to convert the vibration of its steel-cored strings into an electrical current which is made louder It is used by bassists as well due to the Big Muff's low end frequency response. A bass player (bassist is a Musician who plays a Double bass, Bass guitar, keyboard bass or wind
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History
The Big Muff was first introduced in the early 1970s and was used by artists including David Gilmour and Carlos Santana. David Jon Gilmour CBE (born 6 March 1946 is an English Musician, best known as the Lead guitarist one of the lead Singers For the Costa Rican football player see Carlos Santana (footballer; for the Mexican academic see Carlos Santana Morales. Contrary to one common belief, the Big Muff was not used extensively by Jimi Hendrix and, in fact, production models were not available until 1971, a year after Hendrix's death in 1970. James Marshall Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix) (November 27 1942 – September 18 1970 was an American Guitarist, Singer and Songwriter Big Muff creator Mike Matthews, however, has claimed that Hendrix used a Big Muff prototype in some sessions prior to his death and he was reportedly impressed enough to want to use it on his next album. Hendrix played an integral part in the making of the Big Muff, as Matthews has often stated that Hendrix's guitar sound was the inspiration for the creation of the Big Muff [1].
An earlier EH pedal, the Axis fuzz, was also manufactured by EH for the Guild guitar company as the Foxey Lady and used a similar chassis as the early Big Muffs but had a simpler two-transistor circuit. With the introduction of the Big Muff the Axis was discontinued and the Foxey Lady pedal became a rebranded Big Muff. It was available at least until the mid '70s.
The Big Muff Pi was the first overwhelming success for Electro-Harmonix's line of pedals. Due to its reliability, its inexpensive price and its distinctive sound, the Big Muff sold consistently through the 1970s and was found in innumerable guitarists' pedal collections. Even after the Electro-Harmonix company was forced out of business in 1982, the pedal remained in such demand that clones of the Big Muff were made by both competing corporations and independent pedal builders, and demand for "vintage Big Muffs" rose. Unsurprisingly, when Matthews restarted Electro-Harmonix in the 1990s, the Big Muff was one of the first pedals he reintroduced to the market.
The "sustained grind" of the Big Muff was later used in the sound of many Alternative Rock bands through the 1980s and 1990s, such as the Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr. Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative; known primarily in the UK as indie) is a genre of The Smashing Pumpkins are an American Alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988 The band Mudhoney loved the pedal so much that they named an EP after it, Superfuzz Bigmuff. Mudhoney is an American Grunge band Formed in Seattle Washington in 1988 following the demise of Green River, Mudhoney has for the most of its recording An extended play ( EP) is a Vinyl record, CD, or Music download which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify Superfuzz Bigmuff is the debut EP by the Seattle grunge band Mudhoney. Singer-songwriter John Martyn also paid tribute to the pedal by naming a song after it. John Martyn (born Iain David McGeachy on 11 September 1948 in New Malden, Surrey, England) is a British Robert Sledge, Bassist of the since disbanded group Ben Folds Five, used the pedal during recorded and live performances. Robert Sledge is a bassist, best known for his work with Ben Folds Five. Ben Folds Five was a piano-based rock trio formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Jack White of the White Stripes has also made the Big Muff an integral part of his garage rock sound. The White Stripes is an American Garage rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. Chris Ross, the bassist of Wolfmother uses the New York version of the Big Muff and the pedal is a big part of the Stoner Rock sound that is essential to Wolfmother's music. Chris Ross was made famous for his former role as bassist/keyboardist of Australian rock band Wolfmother. Stoner rock and stoner metal are interchangeable terms describing sub-genres of rock and metal music Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth both use the Sovtek version of the Big Muff [2]. Lee M Ranaldo (born February 3 1956) is an American Singer, Guitarist writer and record producer best known as a co-founder of the Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958 in Coral Gables Florida) is an American Musician best known as a Singer, Sonic Youth is an American Alternative rock band formed in New York City in 1981 Sovtek is a brand of Vacuum tube owned by Mike Matthews's New Sensor Corporation and manufactured in Saratov, Russia. The Big Muff remains a favorite among guitarists and bassists for its distinctive sound.
Aside from Big Muff, Electro-Harmonix have made variants and new iterations of Big Muff, such as Metal Muff, which has a 3-band EQ and more modern distortion tones; Little Big Muff, a smaller version of the current NYC model; Double Bi Muff, where two Big Muff circuit are place into one housing and can be cascaded, and many others, including the English Muff'n, a tube based Big Muff. There also exists a custom Big Muff pedal, called Mogwai Big Muff. This pedal was designed by EHX for the Scottish band Mogwai, and has a slightly more extreme sound. Mogwai are a Scottish rock group from Glasgow, Scotland. Formed by Stuart Braithwaite and Dominic Aitchison in 1995 Electro harmonix produced only one hundred Mogwai Big Muff pedals.
Technology of the Big Muff
Most versions of the Big Muff use four transistor stages. In Electronics, a transistor is a Semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals Two of these act as input and output buffers, and two generate the distortion effect. For a short time in the mid-70s the Big Muff used op amps, which at the time were not as highly regarded as the discrete transistor versions. An operational amplifier, often called an op-amp, is a DC - coupled high- Gain electronic voltage amplifier with differential However, the op-amp (or IC) Big Muffs have lately seen a revival among collectors and players alike.
Electro-Harmonix also released a large-box version of the Big Muff known as the Deluxe Big Muff Pi. This version included an onboard compressor in addition to the standard Big Muff features. It was available in 2 versions: one with a BLEND switch and another with a SERIES/PARALLEL switch.
Many current guitar effect manufacturers produce clones of historical versions of the Big Muff Pi, ranging from the highly affordable Behringer VD-1 to higher-end products offered by Skreddy, RonSound, Euthymia, and others.
Electro-Harmonix themselves have joined the fray with a reissue version of their original Big Muff Pi as well as a smaller "Little Big Muff Pi" that incorporates true bypass switching, surface-mount components, and a smaller enclosure. Surface-mount technology ( SMT) is a method for constructing electronic circuits in which the components (SMC or Surface Mounted Components are mounted directly onto
Variants
Currently the Big Muff Pi is offered in three versions: the US-made Big Muff Pi, which can be identified by its silvery metal casing; the less expensive Sovtek Big Muff Pi, made in Russia; and the Little Big Muff Pi.
The company also offers the Double Muff, which contrary to popular belief, is not two separate Big Muff circuits. Instead, it is two separate Muff Fuzz circuits, one of the company's early distortion effects. Electro-Harmonix also offers a "Metal Muff," which adds a 3-band active EQ controls to the basic Muff circuit in order to modify the mid-range tone for a tone closer to that of many heavy metal guitarists, as well as a treble booster to provide more gain. There's also Graphic Fuzz, a multiple-effect unit containing Fuzz, Graphic EQ, and envelop filter, and English Muff'n, a tube-based muff with 3-band EQ.
References
- ^ http://www.guitaramplifiermagazine.com/pub/2005/premier_issue/mike_matthews_interview.html
- ^ http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/eq/gearmain.html
External links
- Russian Sovtek Big Muff parts-upgrade and rehousing projects
- Informative articles on both EH Big Muffs and Sovtek Big Muffs
- New and vintage Big Muffs
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