Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi

Very easy to use. 3 knobs.

The volume seems to be a linear pot so it has plenty of range to it. The gain and tone knobs are log pots so a mid hump is probable. This is good cos its where the muff sounds best.

Could have more range on the fuzz knob i found.

Sound doesnt get much more fuzzed beyond 2 on the gain knob - it just adds a little more white noise.

Best settings for me are

volume : 10
tone: 1
gain: cranked

Good for solo work and sounds killer with a wah

Seems to react differently to single coils and humbuckers - but the differences are both amazing sounding so its a good thing.

Keep in mind that it is a heavily buffered fuzz so dont expect a gated sound like a fuzz factory face.

Use it all the time.
The case is a bit flimsy feeling but you can stomp as hard as you want and it wont budge. Its a brute of a thing to use.
Takes up a lot of room on a pedal board but its room well spent cos it looks mean as hell.

The paint job is rather nasty - small knocks come off as huge scuffs, but it all adds character.

Never had to deal with them yet, but i hear good things about the customer services.
All EHX pedals are tested before being sold anyway so chances are youl never have to bother with customer support for this particular pedal.

Bought mine for 30 quid - sounds amazing. Good mixture of nirvana/smashing pumpkins sort of heavyness. I use mine with an EHX HOG too to emulate white stripes stuff (octaves on Blue Orchid and whammy style on Ball and Biscuit and Icky Thump). Pulls it all off.
Doesnt take 2 minutes to find "your sound" either.
Uncomplicated, universal and a mainstay of many artists pedalboards - that should tell you something.

Also, dont believe the crap people say about it not sounding like the original - the settings just need tweaking a little more; it still sounds like a proper muff.

This is a very easy pedal to use - just three knobs and then two switches to switch the wicker on and off and to also bypass the tone control.

Very easy to get a good tone out of it and the manual is very good at explaining what each feature does.

Only reason I don't give this a 10 is because I think the unit could perhaps be manufactured to be slightly smaller but that's only a niggle.

Some people give this lower scores (like a 6 or a 7) but I'm not sure how this pedal could be that difficult to use - there are three knobs, two switches, in and out jacks and a power jack. What could be easier. I've owned a bunch of pedals and unless it's some mad delay or multi-effects unit I'd find it hard not to give any pedal a high score.

I use the following set up:

Mesa Boogie 1x12 Express 2:25 or Fender Deville 1x12 >> RV-3 reverb >> Verbzilla >> DD6 delay >> Voodoo Lab Tremolo >> Modded RAT >> Muff Pi >> HBE Powerscreamer >> Analogman Ibanez TS9 tubescreamer >> Barber compressor >> Fender Strat / Tennessee Gretsch / Rickenbacker 620

There are lots of ways to use a pedal, lots of different setups to use it with and lots of different settings to use. I'll just go into what I find it useful for and base my rating on that.

I use this as something to get a big chunky riff from (generally just using one string) and always on the neck pick-up of my guitars (esp a strat). I switch the tone-bypass on so I don't lose bottom or top end and I leave the tone-wicker on to get a bit of trebly highs on top of the fat sound.

I don't put the gain up past 11 o'clock really because I stick a tubescreamer in front of it (no drive - just a volume boost) and here is the result:

OMG...it's just a fat big rounded tone with a gritty edge to it. This works WAY better than my modded RAT (keeley'esque) and does wonders if you want a big fat gritty tone on your neck pick-ups. This sounds great without the tubescreamer boosting it but if you don't mind losing a bit of bottom end - the tubescreamer really pushes it to a big but beautiful sound.

There are lots of different tones with this that I'm still finding over the 8 months or so I've had this so for the price of this pedal - I'm going to give this a 9 as it's way better value than my power screamer or my RAT because of the versatility.

The only reason I don't give it a 10 is because of the big hum you get when you have it on a high setting but to be fair - without a built in noise-gate, you're never going to avoid this as unless you have it on 0 gain - it's uses A LOT of distortion.

BTW I hear arguments that this is a fuzz pedal and arguments that it is a distortion pedal. From what I've read, I believe this is a distortion pedal. I've owned a few Roger Mayer fuzzes (the best IMHO) and this doesn't really sound like them.

I think this pedal will become a fan favourite because of an excellent price-point.

I doubt you could break this easily. None of the knobs are loose and everything seems very well made. Having said that - I've NEVER broken a pedal but I'll give it a 9 as I think the footswitch may eventually break.

Never had to deal with them. I've heard their support is awful but I doubt you'd ever need it.

I play mainly alt rock and don't really get the chance to use this pedal much in my style of music as music as I'd like but when I need a big riff - this pedal is the one to use.

I've been playing for about 8 years and owned a TONNE of stuff for only 8 yrs playing so I'd say I'm fairly qualified to review a pedal. The only thing I'd probably ignore my review on is if you're REALLY into your guitar tone preservation (true-bypass lover) as I don't really care about that too much.

This is a great pedal if you want your own sound and a really versatile distortion pedal. You'd struggle to find a pedal that sounds like this at all - for whatever price.

If you want a big muff/fat distortion - just buy this - you can get the EXACT tone from a normal big muff on this too.

I'm writing about a 1974 Ram's Head Big Muff Pi that I've owned for decades. I've played a bit thru an even older model, the one with the knobs in a triangle rather than straight, and there seems to be some differences, but mine is the knobs-in-a-line ram's head model. And folks, there's some tricks to getting the best out of this pedal.

I'm rating ease of use a bit low, as it took me YEARS to figure out how to get the best use out of this thing; now that I know the tricks, I LOVE IT!

I mostly play Strats and Teles, but this can be cool with humbuckers, too, provided you put a bit of woodshedding in to get the best settings. Ampwise, I play various blackface Fenders (vintage) as well as stuff like Valve Jr.'s and assorted old single-ended class A amps. For this review, I'm pretty much referring to a recent gig with a '67 Fender Showman head thru a couple of small cabs w/ Celestion Vintage 30's.

The sound was off the hook! Very responsive and reactive, as you use the guitar's volume to vary the input signal...this is one of the keys to getting the most out of these vintage muffs. Backing down the guitar's volume smooths out the fuzz into more of a good, workable distortion even with chords. The downside being the overall drop in volume. I solved this by using a volume pedal after the muff, and setting my amp volume for the guitar-down, pedal-up volume setting. When I opened the guitar up, I could back down the pedal and maintain a fairly consistent overall volume.

Remember, this thing provides a fair bit of gain hiss, so I'm only rating sound quality a 9, although disregarding that I'd go 10++

Well, this thing is 35 years old and the only thing I've had to do to it was resolder on battery connection and clean the pots and switches. One of the reasons I did not use if for many years was the flimsy construction...I always felt a really good stomp on it would just flatten the thing. The couple of times in the past that it was part of my regular rig, I usually hooked it up late in the pedal chain, up on top of the amp, and manually turned it on and off, rather that using my foot. THIS HAS BEEN A MISTAKE! and one of the reasons I didn't GET how to get the most out of it. If I start playing out again, I'll probably use an ABY to create a little loop to bring it in and out with a more durable switch.

As far as backup, I'm in the process of working with an electrical engineer friend to see if we can revamp the newer "Little Big Muff" to sound and react like this vintage unit. I've hung onto the vintage Muff through thick and thin; if I lost it, I'd probably try to find another on eBay or something.

I have no idea. About a decade ago, I bought one of the russian reissues. I worked with it for several weeks and could never get it to act like the vintage. Some folks maintained that that version (green case, triangle knobs, very strange "button-like" footswitch) was supposed to sound and act more like the original muff, but that wasn't my experience. I ended up selling it to one of my students...I always felt a little bad about that.

I'm pretty much a blues-rock, classic-rock player. I've been a guitarist for 40 years and I've played through everything you can think of, pretty much. I've had Fender, Gibson, and assorted custom guitars; I've played a wide-range of amps, but after I got over having to have Marshall 50 and 100 watts, I've pretty much stuck to vintage Fenders and the ilk. Pedal-wise, again I've messed around with tons of stuff but I've almost always relied on the amp to get me the sound I wanted. I've worked with various distortion units and have some digital modelers but as far as I'm concerned, modelers are just that-simulacrums and not the real deal.

Managed correctly, this thing is amazing! I had read about guys like Duane Allman using nearly dead batteries to tame it down a bit, but my experience (see above) suggests that managing the input voltage is just as effective at rendering various settings reasonably useable. The vintage is very responsive to pick attack and makes the guitar really responsive. The whole reason I'm writing this review today is, I used it in a one-off performance yesterday, in a situation where at one point I had to play very clean and chimey, then later had to have a great, over the top solo sound. I couldn't find what I wanted with the modelers and, in a fit of frustration, decided to go old-school.

It was awesome. With the Muff out of the chain, the Showman and Strat sounded chimey and brilliant, perfect for the part I had to play. Later, I jacked in the muff and backed off the treble a bit, and turned off the bright switch. With the guitar backed down and the vol. pedal up I had just the right amount of distortion and responsiveness; when solo-time came, I rolled the guitar up and toed the vol. pedal back just a bit and the Strat just sang! I am in love with this thing!

It will be great if we can make the newer, more robustly-built models sound like this. If you can find a vintage for a reasonable price, GET IT!

3 Knobs plain and simple
BUT
I noticed that sustain doesn't make much difference when tweaked slightly, and the tone knob makes hardly any difference, I can only tell a slight change in 'clankyness'.
Also the volume knob is very tempermental, when it gets to just below 12 o'clock it starts to make massive volume jumps.

I'm using the Russian Re-issue (black, no wooden box) with a bass,
it's a vintage (1984) Fender JB Special with a passive EMG bridge pickup.
I also use a bi-amp setup and run the Muff through a Vintage (1974) Londoner L100A and have a Fender Rumble 2x10" running clean at the same time.
I'll go over the Parameters of the effect first:
Sustain: When turned low you the Fuzz becomes more overdriven and sounds a bit crunchier and the feedback/background noise is reduced alot however when the sustain is turned all the way up there can be a static-like background noise but the sound is extremely fuzzy and feedback increases the length of your notes, I usually keep it about half way but have recently started using it at full because I like the sound of half my signal being THAT fuzzy.

I've owned the USA muff aswell and found that when turned down the USA one became much more like an overdrive and wasn't fuzzy at all compared to the Russian one, the Russian also maintains alot more low end than the USA version though not enough that I would recommend to use this pedal without a blend pedal or a bi-amping rig.

Using this pedal I can get some sounds from popular band, Muse, but most of the Bass-fuzz parts are backed up with Synth from Morgan.

The Pedal has no DC input but I brought an adaptor (by a company called 1Spot) which I plugged into the Battery port to my power brick. I would and have gigged with this and it works fine, just the extra sensitive volume knob can cause problems in mixing etcetc.

Never had to deal with Customer Support.

The person who sold it to me gave me a circuit diagram for the Creamy dreamer mod but as I am using a bass I felt no need to get a 'Smashing Pumpkins' sound.

I play in a Post-Hardcore/ Emo/ Pop-Punk band and use this along with a BOSS OS-2 and a GT-6B(in studio/at home) and works fine as long as you can get the levels sorted out.
I've been playing about 2 years now and this is one of the best fuzz boxes/ distortions I've owned and is just so phat and big sounding, however the little time I've spent playing around with a guitar on it I've hated it and much prefer my fuzz factory for that.
Though I wouldn't dream of using one of them on basses *shudder*
I think this should have been shipped with a DC port and not one of those shitty tiny ones like ones on the US versions either but it's not a big deal to order a ??2 adapter.

You'll need to experiment a bit with the volume, tone, and sustain knobs to get sounds you're happy with, but it's not at all difficult or frustrating. Really, that's part of the fun with this thing. One bit of advice: Start low on the volume knob and work up--the unit can generate a whole lot of gain!

The muff I have is a recently manufactured Russian version, the black one. I play a Tribute Legacy through a silverface twin. Sound-wise, the muff is the real deal. It can deliver crunch, fuzz (though I don't think of it as a fuzz box) and a nice singing sustain (that is, a distorted rather than clean sustain). If you're into vintage heavy metal or the latest stoner rock, this box (or something like it) is a must. I played a US muff pi years ago, and the current Russian version is a capable of a darker sound. When I plug it in, I start play Black Sabbath riffs, and I'm not even a big BS fan. An important caveat: This unit is prone to noise and even radio signals when the volume is cranked

This rating is perhaps misleading--you could use it on at a gig without backup, presuming it's intact at start of the show. The problem with the unit is its durability, as described by many other reviewers. E-H should include a screwdriver and soldering iron with every unit! On my unit, first one of the chicken head knobs kept coming loose. Then, from my frequently having to screw the knob back on, a nut that held the pot onto the box came loose. When I tightened the nut, it moved the entire pot and one of wires attached to it was torn loose from the circuit board. I opened the box up and reconnected the wire to the board (with duct tape!) and saw how shoddily the thing is put together. Given this example of Russian electronics engineering and manufacture, it's no wonder the Soviets never made it to the moon.

My unit is a year old and past warranty, so I never communicated with them. E-H must not be too bad with customers; they've been around forever and are bigger than ever.

I like playing old blues rock, garage, psychedelic stuff and the big muff is a basic for that kind of music. It works very well with an Ibanez echo/delay unit I have, though when connected to a vox wah wah I do get a lot of hiss and other problems requiring that I tweak the knobs and go easy on the wah. I have a lot of fun with this box when it's working properly. It's reasonably priced, but when it dies I'll probably look for something else that delivers the same sounds--I'm not too handy with repairs!

* 1968 Rickenbacker 360
* 2004 American Fender Stratocaster w/ Rio Grande (Vintage Tallboy - Bridge & Muy Grande - Neck)
* 1982 Fender American Bullet Deluxe w/ Dimarzio Tone Zone S - Bridge & Dimarzio YJM - Neck)
* Mid 90'S Ibanez RG-570

Great Sound - thick but you can really get it to sing as well.

Here lies the problem. I've had the pedal for less than a year, and have really babied it. I've never even put it on the floor to step on the switch. It started breaking up and became absolutely useless (batteries or power supply) a few days ago.
I'm going to have to accept it's a lost cause and buy a Jimi Hnendrix Fuzz Face (which is what I should have really gotten in the fisrst place - but I tried to sace a few bucks)

I will not be replacing it....

Standard 3 knob pedal. sustain, tone and volume.

I bought this pedal off ebay, still had the wooden box that went with it. no instructions, but why need them when you have the internet?

this is definatley more of an overdrive pedal than distortion. That is, if you can convince the damn thing to give you a decent sound. It is also very tempermental. I've tried everything to get a decent sound out of this pedal. From chords, to batteries, to amps to guitars. The sound is choppy and like my drummer says "its sounds ratty" It has way too much bottom end. During a recording session, we had it hooked up to my Marshall G100r with 2X12 cab w/electro-harmonix speakers andit just wasnt producing a sound that was good enought o record with. So, The sound guy suggested using it on a Peavey 5150 and it sounded even worse.(Yes, it actually sounded shitty on a 5150) We eventually went with a BOSS SD-1 super overdrive and man,that did the trick.
The problem with this pedal, are the cheap parts and short cuts made during construction. If this tank had a dc9v input jack and true bypass it would probably be a better pedal, but as is, it kills the **** out of your tone and if you dont have a battery that it likes, then your going to get crazy and ****** sound.
I give this pedal a 5, when it wants to work for you, it sounds great but that's few far and between.

Case wise, yeah this metal tank was built well. Component wise.......HELL NO! If its gotten what it needs out of your battery,it will suck more tone when your hitting the stomp button and it sounds like you have a loose connection

dunno why bother? everyones pissed with Russia right now anyway.

I just bought a boss sd-1 super overdrive and a visual sound jekyll and hyde pedal. Far superior in construction and sound than this tone killing beast. If you want a pedal to mod, than this is the pedal for you. I havent decided this pedals fate yet. I may mod it or i may sell it to a basist friend, who has had more luck with it than I have.

If you have difficulties operating a three knob distortion pedal, I think you may need professional help.

I did knock off one point because the input and output are around the wrong way compared to Boss and MOST other pedal manufacturers. Not a biggie, just a bit surprising considering that my Russian Bassballs has them the "right" way round, and I can see a situation where if you're a bit tired or distracted you could inadvertently plug then in the wrong way round.

This one's the common Russian one.

I use this with Bass - a Fender Precision made up from about three other Precisions (all USA) which is my main gigging bass. My rig is (usually) a MarkBass SA450 into an Eden D210XLT or, occasionally, a Warwick 411 Pro.

I wanted something which could "sort of" sound like an old valve stack being driven way too hard while still retaining a solid well-defined and punchy bottom end.

I don't use it on everything, just some old classic rock numbers like Rock And Roll Hootchie Koo, Sunshine of Your Love, etc., with a Blues/Classic Rock Guitarist I gig with sometimes. Used *SELECTIVELY* it's unbeatable. It certainly gives ME the result I want.

9 because nothing's perfect, and it is a bit fiddly getting the volume just right so it sits in the stage mix.

It appears to be solidly built. I wouldn't carry a backup 'coz if it stops working, I'll gig happily without it although I would definitely get a replacement fairly quickly.

Dependable so far.

I've been doing gigs for 30 years, and do a LOT of casual subs and some session work as well as the three or four main bands I gig with. I play a bunch of styles: Blues, Country, Jazz, 50's and 60's Rock 'n' Roll, Swing, Heavy Rock. Only stuff I don't play is Metal and Modern Top 40.

As stated above, my main setup is the Frankenstein Precision into the MarkBass/Eden rig. I have a bunch of other Basses, Cabs and Amp setups for specific types of gigs, but 90% of the time this is what I'll show up with.

I only use the Big Muff for certain stuff and when I do it's magic. It just happens to fit the whole sound of the particular gigs I use it on.

It would be nice if it took a standard Boss type power adapter - it'd be easy enough to modify it to take one but frankly I couldn't be bothered.

If it was ripped off or if it broke, I wouldn't be devastated as I can gig without it but I'd get another one fairly soon.

It's definitely NOT for everyone, but it works for me.

Three knobs. The only three you will ever need. EVER.
Volume, Tone, Sustain (Gain)

First off, before buying this peice you need to know the difference between distortion and overdrive. This pedal basically takes your signal and sends it into orbit, it doesn't modify what's being pushed thru it (meaning more than guitar applications). This means you wont be getting your run of the mill barely distortion, no slight touch and get responce (no tapping or EASY hammer on's and pull off's), no palm muting. If you want a MUFF with these, i recomend the Metal Muff.

Another awesome thing about this pedal is, sence it boosts thru the roof, when having an even slightly overdriven amplifier, it feeds back. But, for some reason it isn't ear splitting, "i can't hear for the rest of the day" feedback. Once mastered, you can add awesome intentional feedback between riffs.

Set-up: Fender Princeton 65 (volume, treble, and bass all at about 7 1/2) > EHX Pulsar (original, not micro) > BIG MUFF(NYC) > Digitech Whammy WH-4 > Epiphone Dot Studio (Tomato Red) = Feedback generator.

Best pedal i've ever owned.

Have had for quite sometime and has NEVER had problems. I'm in a band where I use Big Muff, obviously, my memory is shot =\ ... anywho... I'd trust this thing with my life. No seriously, if some one tried to shoot me, I'd hold up my Muff and it would probably deflect the bullet. Die Cast aluminum housing. STURDY.

Never had a problem with my Muff. Never had to ask...

http://www.myspace.com/thecorpses
to listen to me and my muff in action

Pretty easy to get good sounds from this guy. Only 3 knobs, in fact it's very hard to get a bad sound.

I'm using a 1997 Epi Les Paul Standard Flake Limited Edition with a Fender Super 112 all tube 60w 1x12" combo.

My Big Muff is the black Russian one. Killer, unique, mystical sounds. It gives a nice variety of 70ish heavy psych stoner tones. I can easily nail the sound of Matt Pike (Sleep) and similar stuff. Only a few changes of pickup combinations in the guitar, a few tweaks in the Muff and in the amp eq and I have all the trippy sounds I ever dreamed to hear from my amp.

Very bass heavy, fucking great for downtuning (I tune down to C). This pedal can make your amp sound like is about to explode and can give you all the feedback you want, but at the same time it makes ZERO noise, which is absolute perfection (EH pedals are said to introduce lots of noise in the signal, that has to be the exception).

It's sound like a cross of a classic distortion pedal with a compressor, a bass booster and a certain amount of fuzz. I can get more classic 60's fuzz tones too (with the tone control in the treble side), but if you want 60's fuzz sounds you could be happier with a Maestro, a Fuzz Face or Mosrite Fuzz-Rite.

I'm in love with this pedal sound, don't ask me to be very objetive. Sure, you can't play metal or sound like SRV with it, but there are MetalZones and Tubescreamers for that. Buy the russian Muff if you want heavy psych, shoegazing or indie rock sounds. Period.

It hasn't died yet. Looks well built, but who knows. I bought second hand and works perfectly. The guy who sold it to me used it for a couple of years with no problems.

I would use it in a gig without doubt.

I live in Argentina and bought the pedal second hand. So...

I currently play Stoner-psych rock, this pedal is THE PEDAL for stoner rock, period. I had played guitar for 14 years, I also have a Vox Valve-Tone (Tubescreamer clone) which is great for "cleaner" blues-rock.

If it were stolen or lost I would buy another without thinking twice.

I love: The Sound, the sound, and the sound. It also looks cool and I love big things (big tits, big asses and big pedals).

I hate: no AC adaptor input, only batteries (I hate batteries). Also, no true bypass, but it doesn't sucks much tone.

Get one, it's cheap, it's terrific, it's really magic.