IV1 Triangle Big Muff - The high pass resistor value was 27k in the early units, but 33k was the most common. 22k and 39k were also used, but rarely. You will find the same range on the Guild Foxey Lady version.

When EHX started building Muffs in the late 60s, the circuit was not standardized and any two Triangle Muffs could sound different. EHX referenced two vintage models to create this reissue, and successfully captured the bite and gated unpredictability of these early units. Easy to use: the pedal only has three knobs. Volume, Tone and sustain. The sustain knob controls the amount of distortion and of course, as the name says sustain.

With respect to amps, some of the Ram's Head's most distinctive qualities, particularly the detail and air in the midrange, are less distinctive in Fender-style pairings. (Many Ram's Head tones were made downright Russian with a Bassman downstream.) With a brighter Marshall in the mix, though, you can more distinctly hear the Ram's Head's midrange sparkle and throatier voice. David Gilmour’s Big Muff tones are based on mid range oriented Hiwatt amps and a volume that creates a lot of tube and speaker compression. This is crucial for getting that smooth violin like sustain. A Big Muff tend to sound either very harsh or muddy otherwise, which isn’t necessarily bad but not quite what you want for your Gilmour tones. ELK BIG MUFF SUSTAINAR / SUPER FUZZ SUSTAINAR - Among the many Japanese Big Muff clones, one of the first on the market was the Super Fuzz Sustainar, a nearly exact clone of a 1972 era Big Muff made by the Hoshino Gakki company (early units possibly made by Miyuki Ind. Co.) sometime around 1973. It was housed in an identical enclosure to the V1 Big Muff with very similar graphics. These were sold throughout the 1970s, and not long after its introduction, Gakki shamelessly changed the name from Super Fuzz to Big Muff. The pedals marked Electro Sound are the earliest, and those marked Elk Incorporated or Elk/Gakki are the later made production. V4 and V5 op-amp Big Muffs were made with 10k linear taper Sustain and Tone pots (marked PO130 or ZA2124). The Volume pot was 100k linear (marked XM2184 or PO150), but some early V4's had 50k volume pots and some late model V5s had 150k.

Technically the Big Muff is not a fuzz but closer to a distortion. Sonically though, its tone is perhaps closer to a silicon transistor fuzz than a DS1. As a rule of thumb, and for authentic David Gilmour tones, I would say fuzz for 1968-75 and Muff from 1977 to present.

Tech Specs

A criticism of the Muff is that it dominates your tone, nullifying all the work you put into choosing your amp, pedals, and guitar. The Pharaoh and Son of Pharaoh pedals seek to fix that issue by being extremely versatile. It can be a light overdrive all the way to an intense fuzz that cleans up with your guitar volume. With two tone controls, a hi / lo input switch for increased headroom, and switchable germanium/silicon clipping diodes, this pedal can be the last fuzz you ever buy. VERSION 1 "TRIANGLE" BIG MUFF PI - Approximately 18 circuit variants exist, each made in extended manufacturing runs. If you have never opened your vintage Big Muff up to look at the transistors on the PCB, here are INSTRUCTIONS for taking one apart. resistors usually measure accurate to the printed value. Those appear to be metal film, not carbon. David Gilmour got his first Big Muff, a Ram’s Head model, around 1975 or early 1976, depending on which source you read, and it was used extensively on the recording of Animals. The Big Muff is still one of his main distortion or fuzz pedals to this day. Fuzz or Big Muff?