Electro-Harmonix Double Muff

Some people comlain about how little is covered in electro-harmonix manuals. Honestly, I appreciate how they assume that you know a little something about what sound you are after and leave it up to you instead of giving you settings for this or that sound. The basic controls are described, and thats all you need. There are two knobs, and a switch for single or double mode. It's not difficult.

I play experimental indie/grunge rock and this pedal is awesome for it, especially with a lot of influence on my tone being from classic rock. The setup I am currently running with this active is: 1978 Music Man Stingray II (yes, it is a guitar, not bass)->double muff->big muff pi->Vox wah->EH Deluxe Memory Man->Laney AOR Pro Tube Lead 50w head->dean markley 412 cabinet. My entire rig is noisy because of the old school active electronics in the guitar but this pedal doesnt really add a whole lot of noise to the sound unless you have your volume all the way up (more on this later). The Deluxe Memory Man, strangely enough, gets rid of 90% of my line noise when its engaged. It can be a little tough at first to find your settings if you are really after a low gain sound, but it is very achievable, just not in the first place you might think to look for it. Instead of trying to find a low gain setting in the piece itself (you won't find one you like, it will be very harsh and unappealing) set a sound that you like as a nice overdrive and then turn the volume knob on your guitar down, this will give you a nice light grit or breakup on your cleaner sound. This being said, i have mine set for, when the volume is on 9 or so (if i go higher, the line noise comes back pretty hard) a nice classic rock overdrive (double mode, muff one on 2 o clock, muff two on 11 o clock) and then play with my volume down around 4-6 for most of my cleaner sounds. I get a nice slightly driven, barely gritty glassy clean to a smoothly broken clean overdrive sound that simply sings. Very effective with a Wah pedal with a slight chorus from the memory man. Its just a very musical overdrive. It has clean crisp highs without any overbearing tones anywhere in the sound, there's just the 'right amount' of mids, lows, etc. It just feels balanced.

Its built solid like all the other EH products I've owned (big muff pi, deluxe memory man). I havent had any problems with them yet. I feel comfortable not having a backup. Just make sure you have batteries with you (or find the 9v ac/100mA power adapter).

Ive never had to deal with EH. Their pedals do what they say they will.

Like I said before, I play experimental Indie/Grunge. Most is written in the lines of Pink Floyd, Bush, Stone Temple Pilots, Sneaker Pimps, Autumn Thieves, Autolux, and a bunch of Folk artists. I have played for 4 years now and own a '78 Music Man Stingray II, Epiphone Les Paul Standard, this, EH Big Muff Pi, EH Memory Man Deluxe, Vox Wah, '86 Laney AOR Pro Tube lead 50 watt head, dean markley 412 cab. This is an absolutely essential piece of my sound as it allows me to have exact control of a huge range of gain and distortion simply by way of my volume knob. On top of amazing functionality, they are so affordable that I couldn't NOT buy another if this was lost somehow. I have been using this for about 3 weeks now and I have been very happy with it.

Very easy to use. Muff 1 is a mild distortion and both muff 1 and 2
yield some great nice fuzz tones. Cleans up well with the guitar's
volume control.

Very good- my first Electro Harmonix pedal after many years of
playing the guitar. A lot of usable distortion and fuzz in this little
box. And true bypass for a $65 pedal! It is noisy with my rig, however, especially on the Muff 2 setting.

Haven't owned it for very long, but it appears to have a pretty good
build quality.The switch is a bit stiff when engaging and disengaging.
I use mostly vintage Boss and Ibanez effects and EH seems to be a well-made product.

Absolutely no idea on this subject.

A steal for $65. Great fuzz and a variety of distortions with a bit
of tweaking. You must run this effect first in the chain (if using
buffered bypass such as Boss)or it will affect the tone in a big way.
It does not have the endless sustain of its sister pedal, the Big Muff, but it is a nice pedal to own for classic rock. I'm seriously
considering trading some of my other pedals and buying more EH products.This baby is really a treat.

It has one switch and 2 knobs, if you can't work out how to use it you should put the guitar down and go sit in the corner.

I use the following set up:
Epiphone Supernova>Loooper>Vox Brian May Special (Treble Booster)>Boss GT-3>EH Double Muff>Boss MT-2>EH Small Stone>Fender Twin Reverb 65 Reissue
At first I was a little disappointed with the sound but when I started tweaking the knobs left and right and adjusting the volume on my guitar slightly it made a huge difference. Changes are very subtle but hugley effective, drop your guitar volume to 7 or 8 to give a nice light overdrive with the knobs turned halfway. Swithc on the single muff to get just a touch of drive, flick the switch up to give it some more kick. It won't give you a fuzz sound like the Big Muff but wack up the gain and you'll get some very good creamy sounds that compliment the Big Muff perfectly (my lead guitarist uses a Big Muff). Works great with other pedals too, phasers delays and choruses will have you experimenting with it for hours.

Sturdy build, excellent quality.

N/A

This is my favourite pedal now and I have it kept at the same setting. I know that when I gety bored though I can fiddle about and change my sound without losing what I had before, if that makes any sense. I have to make use of the volume on my guitar but I don't mind doing that, it jus tmeans I have a wider range of sounds. I play a lot of rock alternative type stuff and it is perfect. Not for metal heads but a great pedal to have if you like a variety of distortions with having the gain dripping out of your amp. For the price, everyone with a guitar should get one.

Two controls and a switch, very simple. The manual is a sheet of paper with a little text explaining the controls and how great the pedal is.

The Double Muff is not two Big Muff circuits as some people believe it to be but rather two Muff Fuzz circuits in series that can be cascaded into each other. The original Muff Fuzz units were simple boxes that plugged directly into the guitar jack which you would switch on with a slider switch.

I'm running a Gibson Nighthawk through a handful of pedals into two Matamps - a 1224 and a C7. There is a trick to getting the best out of this pedal which MUST be done to get the right sound. As stated in other reviews it is VERY important that this pedal is the first in your fx chain, no buffers before it. If you do run it after buffered fx the unit is VERY noisy (hissy) and the sound is thin and very trebly. As soon as you run it first in line the hiss disappears and the sound fattens up, the fuzz effect is more prominent and gets much closer to Big Muff territory.

When setup correctly as above the sound is simply outstanding! Smashing Pumkins springs to mind. The big difference between this and the USA Big Muff is that the Big Muff gets muddy in the lower registers - it doesn't like my amps at all really. The Double Muff IS NOT muddy at all!! Now I've got the Muff sound and no mud and can solo and chord all over the fretboard and it sounds awesome throughout!

The two settings available - Muff 1 and Muff 2 - offer a fairly large gain range. With the slider switch you go between the first circuit or both combined. Naturally the gain/distortion is more intense when cascading the circuits together but in either mode you get a nice bite.

Electro-Harmonix boxes have always been the same: folded sheet metal screwed together. The only problems I've ever had with EH stuff was a dodgy switch. As long as you're careful with your pedals they will gave you no problems with reliability. New EH pedals are wired for true bypass. As usual you get a silk screened paint job which do scratch very easily - that is to be expected for EH pedals and I wouldn't change it!! All part if the charm.

I've never had any reason to contact EH re any technical problems - I have e-mailed them before ona general enquiry and got a reply the next day.

I play rock, blues, alternative indie and this pedal is simply outstanding! I've been playing 10 years and have owned a Jimi Hendrix Dunlop Fuzz Face, a EH NYC Big Muff and now this. There is a whole world of fuzz pedals out there but I want the EH sound and this is it!! You will be hard pressed to find a pedal with value for money like this, only ?38 brand new and made in the USA!!

It is a pain that you have to run this first in line and the guys at Electro-Harmonix should really put something in the manual explaining that it is necessary to do this to get the best out of the pedal. I can imagine people rejecting the Double Muff if they don't know about this which is a shame because when setup right, this thing destroys all!

Ease of use is actually a lot harder than it seems. I mean, its easy and its not. It is cos its just two friggin knobs and a switch. Its not easy because since it is so limited in how you shape the sound, you have to fiddle around with your amp EQ a lot and the knobs and it varies BIG TIME from amp to amp. Like I said, its easy and not.

My guitars consist of a Gibson Les Paul, Epiphone Sheraton, Nelsonic Tele-copy, and some Dean Explorer-copy. I also use a Maxon OD808 and a Fender Blues Junior and I used to run this through my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe (but i recently sold it).

On single mode, the pedal isnt noise. On double, it is, but not any noisier than any other distortion pedal. Through my fender blues jr, the single mode is the mode to go with. Since the blues jr's clean is never 100% clean, it adds character and it sounds SO good. its bright and crunchy with a hint of subtle fuzziness. the double mode seems to get compressed too much and is a bit muddy. i can tweak out decent tones with the double mode through this amp, but the single mode sounds so good that i rarely bother.

through the hot rod deluxe, the single mode was very weak. but the double mode was BIG and nasty. I loved it. I like the sound i get with the single mode through my blues jr more, but the tone i got when using my hr dlx was absolutely killer. more similar to a smashing pumpkins tone (when they used the big muff).

like i said, the tone REALLY varies from amp to amp. I used this through my friends Fender Twin and it sounded like Neil Young's tone in Hey Hey My My. Obviously, I didnt have as much time to tweak with the amp and pedal as i did with my own gear, but the fact remains. The tone was cool (if you like all out raunchy fuzz sometimes) but definitely different from amp to amp.

I also used this through a PA. Lemme tell ya, not a good idea. Thin and buzzy. I've tried this through several amps, but the first three were the three i used the most with it. The rating for this comes from me using with with my Blues Jr.

I had a capacitor break on me. Not because of anything I did, but just because it was faulty. I'm not worried about it breaking though. Shit happens.

Like I said, a cap broke because it was faulty. EHX paid for the repair and part, but they made me ship it out there and pay for the shipping. It was only $7.50, but I think if I buy a pedal and about 2-3 later it breaks because of a faulty part, I shouldn't have to pay a dime. Especially if i registered the warranty already.

Could've been worse though. At least they were quick about it.

This is actually my second review for this. Its a follow-up from probably about a year ago. The stuff i play is heavily influenced by oasis, beatles, coldplay, interpol, dave matthews band, acdc, and other bands/artists. This works very well with my set-up. It sounds unique and it was inexpensive. I've been playing for 5 1/2 years and have always been a fan of the muffs. The Russian Big Muff Pi RI is absolutely amazing. Its nasty, raunchy, fuzz and I love it. Too bad mine broke. Its not that sturdy... and I didnt even drop it or anything. Just a LOT of use. The NYC Big Muff Pi RI is cool. A lot sturdier, but the sound is a little more tame. I prefer the Russian sound to the NYC sound, but the NYC is built better. The Double Muff is built the same as the NYC muff (since it is a NYC double muff..) and sounds just as great as the big muffs. It can be more frustrating since the controls are your standard (gain, vol, tone), but its definitely an awesome pedal on its own. it works well with other od pedals or just by itself. if it were lost or stolen, i'd either get another double muff or the nyc big muff. both are great. i'd probably get the double muff though since it goes so well with my amp. everyone should at least give this pedal a test run. but, i would strongly suggest testing it with an amp that is the same, or at least most similar, to your own.

factoring in the price of this pedal (which is CHEAP) and how much i love this pedal, it gets a ten.

3 knobs and a switch.
Only thing that bugs me is that it doesn't sound very good in
double mode unless you pull the volume to max.
Other than the fact that the guys in my band
don't know shit about how to define sound - I love it.

Fender Strat, Fender Hot rod, boss sd1, wha.

Noisy as hell, but hey - that's the point!

The double-single switch is getting harder to use..
maybe I should clean it once in a while..

Great if you like lots of sustain and if you want to
turn a clean amp into a monster.

Really nice. I didn't find the "single"mode to be as I had expected it at high volume, but it had a really nice "dirty" sound. I've played it on a Orange rockerverb30 combo amp and it sounded great.

How hard can it be with three knobs and one switch?

Really the best fuzz, overdrive and distortion I've owned to date.
The "single"mode sounded more like overdrive or semi-dirty but the doublemode, all knobs full was really awesome.

This is exactly what I have been looking for all these years!

I play a Fender Strat with vintage noiseless pickups and I have a Fender all-tube amp.

Hmm.. I think I will eventually have to replace the on/off button since I often play drunk and there is a risk I'll step too hard on it..

Have'nt dealt with them yet..

I play lots of different styles of music but now, having bought this I'll play nothing but stoner again.

795 kronor (swedish piss-money) ain't too bad for this!

if it were stolen I'd kill to get it back!

Very Straightforward. Although it takes a minimum of understanding to really get the controls straight. It's basically two Muff effects chained together. I always enjoy two Muffs more than just one. Anyways, there's an individual knob to control the output of each Muff, an on/off foot switch and another switch that goes between single Muff mode and dualing Muff mode.

When in single Muff mode, only the Muff 1 control effects the sound. When in Double Muffer mode, both the Muff 1 and Muff 2 dials effect the overall output.

Sound is very good. Especially plugged into a Fender tube amp like i do it. Either Princeton Reverb or Twin Reverb. With one Muff on, it basically acts as a somewhat transparent gain. It gives your guitar a nice clean boost, but if you turn your guitar volume all the way up and the Muff 1 dial all the way up it starts to get into the mild Overdrive territory which can sometimes be a nice territory to be in especially when you are looking for that slightly distorted tube harmonic bliss. When you switch over to 2 Muffs; Two Muffs are always better than one, have i mentioned that before?; You get a real Overdriven distorted sound. But between the two dials for Muff 1, Muff 2, and the guitar's tone and volume control, you really have a lot of flexibility to alter the sound scape between heavily Overdriven and lightly boosted.

One other thing to mention here is that even though this is a Double Muff, it is definitely not a Big Muff. Do you need Double Big Muffs? I don't know, maybe after a night at the bars in some state highway motel. But certainly not every night.

The Big Muff will give you a very long sustain that this pedal is not capable of. With a Big Muff you can hit a note and make it last til sunrise. But this pedal is better for Boost, Overdrive, and distortion, not so much for the endless note.

As for added noise. I don't know, i don't pay attention to that because once you start cranking amps and pedals you inevitably get noise, but if you didn't want noise you wouldn't be cranking in the first place.

I've just recently acquired this goody, so it doesn't have much history with me yet. Maybe i'll update at a future date. But just to tell you, the Double Muff box is made of two materials. The top half is the standard aluminum box that Electro-Harmonix houses their wonderful little sound toys in, while the bottom half is a durable plastic. I'm not going on tour anytime soon so i couldn't give you the full crash test report. But i think it would hold up pretty well.

Don't know.

This is a very nice effect. I haven't put it head to head against a Tubescreamer but i imagine it would hold it's own. It's got a lot of range so you can dial in settings from a clean push on your guitar, to a dirty shove. So the spectrum of sound out of this one little pedal is quite nice. Although if you needed to quickly switch between a clean sound and a distorted sound you'd probably be best to get other stompers since you'd have to bend down quite a bit to vary the settings of this one.

Overall, a very nice pedal, for a very nice analog sound, with a very nice price tag.

The manual is good, tells you to use your guitar volume and tone to mess around and refine the sound, instead of kneeling down and going "Duh, which one is it again"

READ THIS FENDER JAGUAR PLAYERS! READ FOR SETTINGS TOO! The pedal has a very unique "feature" I have never seen before - you know the nigh-on uselss "bass cut" switch on the Jag? Not useless anymore! With the switch engaged, it removes a lot of the distortion from the sound and gives you the option of less distortion and slightly reduced volume at the flick of a switch on your guitar. Watch out when you switch it back on! Also, use your tone control with it - it strips away all the distortion, which you can then re-introduce for your back-arching, teeth-clenched, squealing thermonuclear guitar break. I use it with a peavey Classic 30 Valve amp - one problemino is that it sounds utterly dire with the amp distortion engaged - my Boss DF2 sounded ace in that respect, giving valve OD with a solid state edge. If only it sounded good with your amp distortion...and don't put it after buffered effects like everyone else is saying. It sounds awful, even after the minimal tone suckage of a Boss LS2! It has to go first, which is a minor inconvenience.

Settings:

Creamy high gain distortion that you can then customise on the guitar: > Both muffs on - M1 set to 9 o'clock and M2 to just before 3 o'clock. Use the guitar tone control, volume etc to set the pedal from there. You won't believe how wonderfully sensitive it is. Email me to talk Muffs and share discoveries of the pedal (oo-er, Matron etc)- bilbicus@yahoo.com

Sometimes you can hit the Muff 1 dial with your foot when engaging the footswitch. That can result in seriously embarassing moments when you give everyone a heart attack as your guitar comes in at 5 billion db's. Or, very quietly. Ooops. No probs otherwise.

Never dealt with them - their website could tell you more about the effects. It is a bit thin on information. I have a Micro synth too, and I really like that pedal as well. Getting a Memory man for christmas!

I play in a duo, we do rough rock thru to mellow acoustic stuff. This gives me a True Bypass distortion that is incrediblt versatile. Try it out - it is not for everyone, and takes some time to "get to know".

It's a fuzz doesn't get much easier. Two knobs one switch. It would be nice if EH put volume knobs on thier pedals but it's not a big problem on this one. I leave it on double and use one of the knobs to control the volume from the other one. Mine didn't come with a manual but i t really doesn't need one.

Freakin' awesome. I always liked fuzz. This box will fuzz but not as over the top as a big muff or a fuzz factory but it has just enough for me. Like everyone else I agree, muff 1 sounds like an over drive and muff 2 is a thick fuzz almost a distortion. Overall good fuzz sounds. I had a Maestro but I sold it and bought this on, much better.

It's built out of old Serbian tanks, no maybe not. It does feel very solid.

Any one wanting a good all around fuzz should check this out. Not incredibly versitle but fuzzes usually aren't. I like to play kind of raw indie rock. give me a marshall and some greenbacks and i'm good. maybe with brighter speakers it might be a little earpiercing but with things the way they are it is great. Put it in front of a wah and it will come alive. If it were stolen I would probably get another one or a big muff since they are so similar.