Best big muff pedal?

Calum13

I’ve been playing lots of dinosaur Jr lately and have been able to nail the clean and distorted sound with my Maxon OD9 and boss DS1 but I just haven’t been able to get the lead tone. I know he uses a rams head big muff but I don’t have the budget for one. What kind of big muff should I consider under £100? I’ll be buying used. I’m thinking of either the standard one, the triangle one, the op amp or the green Russian. but am unsure what one will get closer to the sound.

bbill335

The old bass big muff sounds great

JD50

Deluxe Big Muff.. . Most tweakable Muff

JezWynd

Germanium4 gives good muff, even though it’s not strictly speaking a muff apparently. Sounds excellent if you crank the muff side and then wind down the boost side to control it.

monquixote

bbill335 said:

The old bass big muff sounds great

I'm currently selling one of these for not too much cash.

it's essentially a green Russian Muff with a switchable clean blend and bass boost.

ICBM

I'm not sure you'll really be able to nail that sound without a 100W Marshall turned up full...

monquixote

I'm pretty sure J Mascis uses a Big Muff Boosted with a Box of Rock.

Jonathanthomas83

I love the EHX Green Russian...my favourite kind of Muff.

ThorpyFX

monquixote said:

I'm pretty sure J Mascis uses a Big Muff Boosted with a Box of Rock.

He also bought a Fallout Cloud from me- uses it in the studio apparently.

earwighoney

ThorpyFX said:

monquixote said:

I'm pretty sure J Mascis uses a Big Muff Boosted with a Box of Rock.

He also bought a Fallout Cloud from me- uses it in the studio apparently.

Seriously? I have no reason to doubt you but that is truly incredible. 

You should put that up on your website!  

monquixote

I've tried a lot of Muffs and the Fallout Cloud is the best.

Had the OP not indicated a budget of £100 I'd have suggested it.

ThorpyFX

earwighoney said:

ThorpyFX said:

monquixote said:

I'm pretty sure J Mascis uses a Big Muff Boosted with a Box of Rock.

He also bought a Fallout Cloud from me- uses it in the studio apparently.

Seriously? I have no reason to doubt you but that is truly incredible. 

You should put that up on your website!  

I have. It was a pretty awesome moment tbh.

monquixote said:

I've tried a lot of Muffs and the Fallout Cloud is the best.

Had the OP not indicated a budget of £100 I'd have suggested it.

yes i saw, I was thought it would be interesting to people here to know he bought one.

monquixote

ThorpyFX said:

monquixote said:

I've tried a lot of Muffs and the Fallout Cloud is the best.

Had the OP not indicated a budget of £100 I'd have suggested it.

yes i saw, I was thought it would be interesting to people here to know he bought one.

Totes.

If it was me I'd put a billboard on the M1 and tattoo it on my forehead.

ICBM

ThorpyFX said:

He also bought a Fallout Cloud from me- uses it in the studio apparently.

Lou Barlow bought an HH 100W head from me.

OK I didn't actually *make* that, just serviced it... so you win .

earwighoney

ThorpyFX said:

earwighoney said:

ThorpyFX said:

monquixote said:

I'm pretty sure J Mascis uses a Big Muff Boosted with a Box of Rock.

He also bought a Fallout Cloud from me- uses it in the studio apparently.

Seriously? I have no reason to doubt you but that is truly incredible. 

You should put that up on your website!  

I have. It was a pretty awesome moment tbh.

monquixote said:

I've tried a lot of Muffs and the Fallout Cloud is the best.

Had the OP not indicated a budget of £100 I'd have suggested it.

yes i saw, I was thought it would be interesting to people here to know he bought one.

Hell yeah! 

He's one of the godfathers of fuzz.  Well maybe not to everyone but to some people! 

Great work Major Thorpy! 

pintspiller

My ears rang for days after I saw Dinosaur Jr at Belfast Art College.

zepp76

A used Vick Audio '73 Rams head is a nice muff as is the Skreddy Rust Rod. I had the Muffroom cloud but those other two edged it for me.

english_bob

As I recall, @Gassage, who's a bit of a Big Muff connoisseur, was seriously impressed with the CustomPedalboards muff clone, which is well within the OP's budget. He's more in to the Gilmour Muff sound, but still...

fretmeister

Save up for longer and get the Thorpy.

It's worth the wait.

Gassage

english_bob said:

As I recall, @Gassage, who's a bit of a Big Muff connoisseur, was seriously impressed with the CustomPedalboards muff clone, which is well within the OP's budget. He's more in to the Gilmour Muff sound, but still...

Yup- absolutely brilliant pedal.

Also the Astoria Muff is V V good.

Vick Audio too

MattBanshee

There's so many Big Muff types out there, you're never going to get a subjective answer.

My favourite is the Black Russian, but I don't want to sound like J Mascis, specifically.

There are some reasonable quality ram's head clones on ebay for £30 or so that will do the job. The trick is though, if you watch any J Mascis gear interviews on YouTube, he has a passive volume cut box in front (e.g. EHX Signal Pad, £20 or so). He then leaves the Muff on 100% of the time, has the volume cut on for his "clean" sound to tame the fuzz, and turns it off for the full fuzz distortion sound.

EDIT: links below

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/183746809018 muff clone


https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/143098559105 cheap volume pad pedal