Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Big Muff Variant (in process)

I am building a Big Muff variant. As a base, I am using a classic ram's head PCB (made by etronics, cheap and quick, really good manufacturing!), which was quickly populated with BC109 and MPSA18 transistors (cool combination!), metal film resistors and a lot of Wima film capacitor MKP2:
Big muff PCB rams headBig muff PCB rams head
Fig. 1 Empty board, and populated PCB ! Very quick and funny to do !

I have already done few modifications on the circuit: possibility to bypass the tone stack circuit, feedback loop between the transistors for a maximal gain with a momentary footswitch. I changed a lot of values to make it smooth and not too scooped in the mids. It is already a very funny and good sounding device ! Last thing missing would be a 3-bands equalizer alternative (it would be possible to choose between classic big muff tonestack or a 3 band EQ with a switch).
It is already a "smooth" big muff, not too gritty, and has a lot of bass. The tone control is really efficient, but I still need more mids!

I am also trying to make a smaller proper PCB for this variant, in order to fit it into a BB enclosure. I am working on this with Eagle, a software to conceive PCB. Hopefully I will manage to finish it soon!
0 Comment