Black Russian Big Muff - considering mods?

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 3:54 am

My Black Russian Big Muff final arrived today. My first official Big Muff. I was patient and not willing to pay $100+ for one of these,so I think I did okay at $70. The pedal is in mint condition and works perfectly. I got to jam a little with it and did some A/B with my MadeByMike Germanium Fuzzface. The amount of head room and tone from the Big Muff was pretty impressive. I really like the tone.

I am currently powering with a Visual One Spot attached to my Voodoo Labs since these don't come with a 9V power adaptor. I also believe this particular Big Muff is true Bypass. This is the last Russian Muff and most of the previous ones were not.

I was wondering if it would be worth it to install a 9V power adapter so I don't have to use the battery clip and can reattach the battery door on the bottom.

I know there are two ways to accomplish this(I think)
1) Cutoff the battery clip inside and wire them directly to the 9V adaptor (lose the battery option)
2) Solder the 9V adaptor to the same holes on the circuit board as the battery Clip (power it both ways)

Any recommendations? Will both these ideas work?

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sholkham · Post by **sholkham** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 1:45 pm

If you don't want something permanent Godlke sell a Battery clip to daisy chain adapter. I'm not sure if it will work with a positive tip pedal like the muff though.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 1:53 pm

You can't plug a battery in the wrong way round, so as long as the PSU is appropriate to the adaptor (i.e. centre neg. supply & adaptor expects centre neg.) there shouldn't be an issue.

DasBeef · Post by **DasBeef** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 2:55 pm

Be very careful. I don't know if this thing has a positive ground. If it does, your normal adapter will blow it. Even if you use a battery snap thingy, you will have problems. I have a couple of vintage style Fuzzes that have germanium transistors, and can't be powered by normal supplies. You can get a positive ground supply, but my advice is, stick with batteries if it's a positive ground. The current draw won't be much, so if you disconnect after use, you should be looking at 100hrs+ out of one battery. Also, buy the cheapest batteries available.
Here's why.....
WHY!

If it turns out not to be a positive ground, then normal supplies should be fine. Let's see if an expert feels like chiming in.....

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 4:02 pm

I am currently running it off a 9V battery clip adapter into an isolated power bank and I am experiencing no problems. Mike on the forum builds several different Big Muff pedals and they all run off 9V adapters so I know it should be okay, I just want to make sure I don't need to wire something special to make it work properly.

SGJarrod · Post by **SGJarrod** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 4:07 pm

Nothing special needed ....just a boss style power Jack

I switched the jacks on mine too

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 4:29 pm

SGJarrod wrote:Nothing special needed ....just a boss style power Jack

I switched the jacks on mine too

How did you wire it? Did you solder it to the circuit board? Did cut off the batter clip and attach it to the wires?

Is there a way to wire it up so I can keep the battery clip and the boss style power jack?

I think the backwards inputs is kinda funny so I will leave those as is.

I noticed the extra knobs on yours. Did you do the Creamy mods to yours?

DasBeef · Post by **DasBeef** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:31 pm

I'm not sure if it's a positive ground or not, and I'm afraid I'm not techniacally gifted enough to work it out. I just know very vaguely that there is a difference between germanium and silicon transistors, one's NPN, and the other is PNP. (Don't even know which way round)
I think you can get away with using an isolated battery snap power supply on a positive ground pedal, but again I am not sure. (Yours seems OK thus far) I know that you definitely cannot daisy chain a positive ground pedal using the battery snap.
Check out the description here on Mike's site for his Germanium Fuzz Face.
He must have stuck an invertor (I think that's what it's called) into the box to allow it to be powered by a standard 9v 2.1mm centre negative supply. You'll notice he says, and I quote 'It cannot be daisy chained'.
I'd get his expertise to cast an eye over this thread so you can confirm you wont end up with some dead transistors. It might NOT be a positive ground pedal, and in that case all my worries are irrelevant.
As I said, I don't know all the technical stuff, but I've tried to explain it as best I can. All my positive ground pedals are battery only. No power supply option, no silly mistakes!

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:49 pm

DasBeef wrote:I'm not sure if it's a positive ground or not, and I'm afraid I'm not techniacally gifted enough to work it out. I just know very vaguely that there is a difference between germanium and silicon transistors, one's NPN, and the other is PNP. (Don't even know which way round)
I think you can get away with using an isolated battery snap power supply on a positive ground pedal, but again I am not sure. (Yours seems OK thus far) I know that you definitely cannot daisy chain a positive ground pedal using the battery snap.
Check out the description here on Mike's site for his Germanium Fuzz Face.
He must have stuck an invertor (I think that's what it's called) into the box to allow it to be powered by a standard 9v 2.1mm centre negative supply. You'll notice he says, and I quote 'It cannot be daisy chained'.
I'd get his expertise to cast an eye over this thread so you can confirm you wont end up with some dead transistors. It might NOT be a positive ground pedal, and in that case all my worries are irrelevant.
As I said, I don't know all the technical stuff, but I've tried to explain it as best I can. All my positive ground pedals are battery only. No power supply option, no silly mistakes!

I actually own Mike's Germanium Fuzzface (awesome) and it's fine as long as you don't daisy chain it with other pedals (isolated power from my Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2) it works fine.

All of the Russian Big Muffs came with battery clips, but I don't think it was because they are positive ground pedals. I will check with someone who knows before proceeding.

SGJarrod · Post by **SGJarrod** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 6:36 pm

taylornutt wrote: How did you wire it? Did you solder it to the circuit board? Did cut off the batter clip and attach it to the wires?

Is there a way to wire it up so I can keep the battery clip and the boss style power jack?

I think the backwards inputs is kinda funny so I will leave those as is.

I noticed the extra knobs on yours. Did you do the Creamy mods to yours?

First, these are NOT positive ground. EHX has not made a positive ground muff since the mid seventies.

With mine I just wired it up like any other pedal build, with a bat clip and the 9v adapter. Just use normal power wiring and you will be fine.

Use this for the power wiring.

But one thing to notice is that the neg from the bat snap goes to the input jack. This is so the battery is disconnected when no cord is plugged in to the input. On your Russian BMP this is achieved thru the ground plane on the PCB. Because of this you will have to leave the neg from the battery snap soldered to this same spot and ground the Boss style jack to one of the other many ground pads.

I did not do this in mine as I completely gutted mine and rewired the whole thing. The only thing original in mine is the PCB and all of the components(resistors, caps, tranistors, ect..) that are soldered to it.

I did not do the Creamy Dreamer mod. I have done that mod for someone before and I think it is complete crap. It basically turns the pedal into a one trick pony, and that trick is full blast at all times. What I did was the AMZ Presence control for a Mids knob. All it consists of is swaping a cap, a resistor and adding a 25kb pot. I used the Duncan Tone Stack calculator to determine the values I wanted to keep the same mid range voicing at full counter clockwise and to ad mids as it is turned clockwise.

purplehaze19x · Post by **purplehaze19x** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 7:42 pm

I wish I would have kept my last muff. You can get s 9 volt battery to last a month in these things

rps-10 · Post by **rps-10** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 8:40 pm

taylornutt wrote:

OOo another PW-10 user, do you ever use the dirt side of things? If so on what pedal emulator setting?

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 10:02 pm

rps-10 wrote:
taylornutt wrote:

OOo another PW-10 user, do you ever use the dirt side of things? If so on what pedal emulator setting?

I keep the dirt turned off because it bleeds through even when the pedal is off.

rps-10 · Post by **rps-10** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 6:26 pm

Yeah true that, but none stored in the memory banks with dirt?