my big muff is dead

[DeviousJ]

Originally posted by BeautifulLoser
Well, I don't think I can help... I fix electronics everyday, but unless I can get my hands on it, I can't do much.

Well you could tell him how to use a multimeter and the best way to narrow it down to which bit's screwed up, or something.

Hey John, does it work with a battery instead of an AC adaptor? Or have you tried other adaptors with it?

[MstrGhost]

Originally posted by ******
and no i dont have any of those.

and mstrghost and mark, i've found tons of circuit diagrams but they are for the american big muff, not the russian one.

The russian one is exactly the same scheme, the small differences in sound are again for transistors used and caps. There are 3 main big muffs, the first series (with pots in triangle position) with germanium transistors and caps (with codes for parts you won't find nowere) known for a smoother sound. Then the one with silicon made parts arrived in something like 77 with the lined up pots, and briefly there as a series with op amp instead of old analogue parts, but these sounded very harsh and by the early 80's they were around no more so as the others. When they restarted doing them in sovtek they used the exact same scheme as that 77 model (wich is "the b0lly muff") with similar (as parts are always being replaced) specs for transistors caps and diodes,
hence a really slight different sound. Then big muff started being done again in usa with a similar case as the 77 version and scheme, but sound closer to the russian one because as parts are new, they have similar response curves (faster, but harsher sound) as used in the latest russian models. Either scheme you'll get will make almost no difference, most schemes around are even based on the green russians since these were the easier to get in the 90s.
But if you check those you'll find either no marks for their values (to protect the small differences that give a different sound character as on the us version) or even strange military codes, since russian big muffs use military grade transistors. These give much less specs float and are electronicaly much more effective, not that it translates into better sound since their response might not be softened , the same with diodes.

[bonsor]

Originally posted by BeautifulLoser
Well, I don't think I can help... I fix electronics everyday, but unless I can get my hands on it, I can't do much.

maybe you can just be really descriptive in telling me what i can look for?

[DeviousJ]

Originally posted by ShotFullOfDiamonds


I thought the russian one sounded like shit?

I think it was the first reissue that sounded crap. It's hard to keep up

Originally posted by ******
them choosing a name besides big muff would have saved me the grief of having you retards thinking you're god's gift to comedy because you make sexual innuendos with it.

I don't think I'm god's gift to comedy but I do however take the opprotunity to make easy jokes.

[BeautifulLoser]

Originally posted by ******
maybe you can just be really descriptive in telling me what i can look for?

Well, unless there are physical burns on the components or visible loose wires, there's nothing I can tell you. I'd have to test some of the components with a multimeter....

Is there a shop you can take it to or something?

[MstrGhost]

For that "russian sounds shit" thing, it all depends on what you want. I've had both reissues, the russian black and the 2001 usa. I could crack my sovtek all the way up without completely losing definition and mess up everything, the russian I had sounded much less compressed and more "grainy", it had much more texture and bite. The usa sounded more "round", but with much drive it was impossible to use, unlike the russian that would sound agressive as hell (perfect for chainsaw bass ).
I ended up with the usa, because I had a proco turbo rat (more between "fuzz" and "distortion"), what I liked about the russian I had in double on this one, wich has less compression but shitloads of attack. But this difference between the usa and the sovtek "in real life" is much less than I seem to explain, until some point I would find no difference between both. Understand that I'm on bass (active) wich drives them with much more volume and energy in low freqs, sometimes the usa "farts" for over compression/saturation, this didn't happen on the sovtek wich as I explained, due to less compression sounded more "open" and dynamic.

edit: just to add, there are at least 4 different russian series since the 80's until now, parts have tolerances from 5 to 15% (using the best!), no two muffs sound the same. The bad reputation of the russian is due to bad quality on the green one. And yes they would sound worse than late 70s (last usa's at that time) series due to the lack of old parts, but today's usa's sound almost the same as russians, altough I agree some tuning was made for them to sound more fuzzlike as the older models but with the withdraws I've explained above.

[bonsor]

Originally posted by BeautifulLoser
Well, unless there are physical burns on the components or visible loose wires, there's nothing I can tell you. I'd have to test some of the components with a multimeter....

Is there a shop you can take it to or something?

bleh.

and there probably is a plce i could take it to, but i was hoping i could save 20 bucks and take care of it myself. i guess i should go to the library and check out a few books this weekend, just so i can understand half of what the hell mstrghost was saying.

[MstrGhost]

Originally posted by ******
bleh.

and there probably is a plce i could take it to, but i was hoping i could save 20 bucks and take care of it myself. i guess i should go to the library and check out a few books this weekend, just so i can understand half of what the hell mstrghost was saying.

As said before, you should get a multimeter and test the output values of condensers (capacitors?) and resistors (sorry, I don't know if the are the correct words to define these components in english). As big muff is based on gain stages in series, it can a transistor blown, this would sound like a buzz or even no sound. For diodes, I don't remember well, but one would clip the positive part of sound, the other the negative, if one wasn't totally out I guess you'd still have sound. What is your problem, the led lights up but it does no sound (or makes strange ones), or it doesn't even receive power? If so, recheck solder points that look suspicious.

[Injektilo]

great.

I went and plugged in my big muff after reading this thread, and now... mine's not working properly.

waytago netphoria...

[keebs]

chances are its a transistor (probably black and looks like a half circle with 3 leads coming out of it)....i think they use mosfets. with the pedal on measure the drain to source voltage with a DMM. whichever has no voltage across it, is prolly fucked up. look up the part # for the transistor and go get one. take the old one out and solder the new one in. i think i made that understandable. me engineer...me speak bad.

[i wanna die]

you can always just buy a new one. arent they only $50 a pop?