Guitar pedals & effects 1

What are the basic pedals you should have in a rig for synths?

1. Overdrive 

      (Ibanez Tube screamer)

      (boss SD-1 & SD1w)

      (Boss BD-2 & BD2W) ... Blues driver

2.  Distortion

      (ProCo Rat 2)

(Boss DS-1)

3. Fuzz

(Electro-Harmonix Nano or Op-amp Big Muff)

... really any big muff will be great.

(Z.Vex Fuzz Factory)

      (Jim Dunlop Fuzz Face)

      (Boss FZ-1W)

       (RML Electron Fuzz)

4. Reverb

(Holy Grail)

(Blue Sky)

(Fender Marine Layer)

5. Echo / Delay

(Boss DD-7) Digital Delay

(Electro-Harmonix Canyons)

(MXR Time Delay)

6. Tremelo - modulating the volume in a rhythmic way.

(Boss TR-2)

(JHS Pedals Tidewater))

7. Chorus

(Way Huge Blue Hippo)

(Boss CE)

(MXR Stereo Chorus)

8. Equalizer-- EQ.

(Boss GE-7)

(Boss GE-7 bass)

9. Phaser

(ElectroH Small Stone)

(MXR Phase 90)

10. Flanger

(Ibanez FL-303)

(MXR Flanger)

(Electric Mistress- EHM)

(Blue Hippo)

11. Uni-Vibe - Rotating speaker Leslie simulator

(Voodoo Labs microVibe)

(Shin-Ei Uni Vibe)

(EHX Good Vibes)

(MXR M68 Univibe)

(Dunlop JHM7 Univibe)

12. Octave Pedal

(EHX POG, POG2 and micro pog)- POG = Polyphonic Octave Generator

(Boss OC-5 & OC3, OC2)

(octavia - Dunlop ‘69 Psych Series)

(Mu-Tron Octave divider -1970's)

(Boss PS-2 "Pitch Shifter")

(EQD Organizer)

(TC Electronics Sub 'n' Up)

(EHX HOG2 (Harmonic Octave Generator)

13. Looper

(Ditto TC electronic)

(Ditto X2) -- stereo looper

(Boss RC-2 Looper)

14. Multi effects pedal

(Zoom MS70 CDR)

(Zoom MS50 G)

(Zoom MS60B - multistomp Bass)

(Hologram Microcosm)

(ZOIA - Empress effects)

These are some of my fav guitar pedals that work great with synths.

Little Big Muff

Big Muff - Russian 

MXR Time Delay

MXR stereo chorus

Ibanez Flanger. FL 303

Electro Harmonix Voice Box

MXR Flanger

Electro Harmonix LPB

Linear Power Booster

RML - Electron Fuzz

Retro Mechanical Labs

Small Stone - Electro-harmonix

Small stone - phaser - vintage EHX

Metal Zone MT-2

Boss

Acoustic Modeler - Behringer

AM-100

Korg Kaoss Pad.

Ok ... not a pedal, but works great. !!!

Electro Harmonix Mole

Bass booster

Electric Mistress - Flanger/filter matrix. EHX

EHX Q-Tron

Envelope filter & FX loop

EHX clockworks

Rhythm generator & clock

Boss PS-2

Pitch Shifter/delay

Slap back echo

Boss - DS 1

GE 7

Boss EQ

Boss RC-2

Loop Station

Guitar Pedals - A Historically Accurate Musical Comedy

..

Super funny video by JHS Pedals and yes, I do think it is historically accurate. :-)

The musical covers the 1960s.

+ Maesto Fuzz Tone FZ1 - 1962

+ Sola Sound Tone Bender MK1-1965 (Fuzz box)

+ FuzzFace - Arbiter Electronics Ltd. first issued the Fuzz Face in 1966

+ King Vox Wah pedal - First wah wah pedal November 1966.

+ Octavia- designed for Jimi Hendrix by his sound technician, Roger Mayer, 1967

+ Uni-Vibe - Designed by audio engineer Fumio Mieda in 1968. Phaser pedal.

   (love the bonsai & Mt Fuji painting)

+ Big Muff Pi - ElectroHarmonics -  Mike Matthews 1969.

.+ Electro-harmonix Timeline

Please do a part 2 covering pedals of the 70s

 

EHX Black Russian Big Muff

I think this Electro-harmonic Big Muff dates from around 2004.
Power was from a 9V battery only. A red LED light shows when the circuit is on.
Note the  “chicken head” style knobs 

.....and the lack of an AC power adaptor jack. 
Notice also that there are only 4 screws .. therefore it's most likely a second edition V8.
The 1st edition had 6 screws.

 

 Versions 7-8 only run on 9V DC power. The V8 was the last Big Muff ever made in Russia.
For some first editions and all second edition V8s,  the words "MADE IN RUSSIA" on the back panel was moved under the input jack.

 The resistors all look to be metal film.

The V8's used 547C transistors, and all second editions had a true bypass switch, which this has.

#buchla #musiceasel #buchla208 #bemimusiceasel #ehx #electroharmonixpedals #bigmuffpi #bigmuff #russianbigmuff

A post shared by jono (@dj_jondent) on Nov 2, 2017 at 12:46am PDT

Links:
+KitRae
+ mods to Russian Big Muffs
 

EHX Big Muff - Basic build

This must one of the most studied, rebuilt, cloned, copied circuits ever.

The Big Muff Pi (π), often known simply as the Big Muff, is a fuzzbox produced in New York City by Electroharmonix (and their Russian subsidiary , Sovtek). These are mainly guitar pedals.

 
The famous Mike Matthews Electro-Harmonix Big Muff guitar pedal. Pink Floyd used it. So did the Smashing Pumpkins. Jimmy Hedndrix gave it immortality. The list of artists is endless.

There are countless variations too. You can buy kits on the net with PCB & parts supplied to save you the hassle of understanding the circuit. But I like to know how things work. I'll build this on perf board.
So here is the basic circuit.

So how does it work?
The signal comes in through R2 and C1 before hitting the first stage, a basic transistor signal booster (Q4). Once the signal is boosted, it goes through C4 and enters R24 (the sustain potentiometer). This controls the gain. 

The signal goes through C5 and R19 before hitting the next stage, which is doing 2 things. Boosting  and clipping the signal. The clipping is achieved via the diodes (D1 and D2) & C6/C12.

The signal then goes through C13 and R12 before hitting the next stage : tone control.
It's identical to the previous diode clipping stage apart from the tone pot (R25) which pans between a high-pass and a low-pass. This explains why when you turn the tone control down the sound is very bassy, while turning it up cuts the bass, and it gets very bright.

After leaving the tone pot, the signal goes through C3 and enters into the final signal boosting stage before exiting through C2 and going out of the volume control into the pedal’s output.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Many thanks to Kit Rae for a wonderful website.
If you haven't visited it yet here is the link:
http://www.kitrae.net/music/music_big_muff.html
This is the site to go to for everything you could ever need on this topic.

The first pedals came out in the late 1960s and over the last nearly 60 years the designs have barely changed. It says a lot about how good the basic design is. Of course there has been lots of tweaking over the decades. At one point the four transistor design was changed to op amps. And for another one of those decades Electro-harmonics transferred production to Russia.

Today the company is strong and still building Big Muffs. I highly recommend the modern versions (I own a few and love them) but I think it is fun and educational to explore the older variations. These go for astronomical prices on Ebay & Reverb today. Vintage "Triangle" and "Foxey Lady" pedals regularly change hands for over $1500.
If you can afford the real vintage thing go for it as I think nothing really beats vintage components. They have a persona which only the years can give. But probably the only chance I will have to experience something like the vintage sound will be to build my own.  So below is a brief comparison between the different variations. It's a great way to explore the evolution.

Starting with the early "Triangle" pedal

Triangle V1
	Circa 1971	Circa 1971/2	Circa 1972-73
R1
R2	33k	33k	33k
R3	100K	100K	100k
R4	2.7K	2.7K	2.7k
R5	33k	33k	39k
R6	10K	12K	12k
R7	390K	390K	390k
R8	33k	33k	39k
R9	470k	470k	390k
R10	150R	100R	82R
R11	15K	15K (or 12K)	22k
R12	8.2k	8.2k	8.2k
R13	15K	10K (or 15K)	22k
R14	100K	100K	82k
R15	470k	470k	390k
R16	100K	100K	82k
R17	470k	470k	390k
R18	10K	10K	12k
R19	8.2k	8.2k	8.2k
R20	100K	100K	82k
R21	100R	100R	150R
R22	100R	100R	82R
R23	1K	820R	820R
R24	100K	100K	100k
R25	100K	100K	100k
R26	100K	100K	100k
C1	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C2	1uF (or .1uF)	0.1uF	0.1uF
C3	1uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C4	1uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C5	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C6	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.05uF
C7	1uF	0.1uF	0.05uF
C8	0.01uF	0.01uF	0.01uF
C9	0.004uF	0.004uF	0.004uF
C10	500pF	500pF	500pF
C11	500pF	500pF	560pF
C12	500pF	500pF	560pF
C13	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
Q1	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
Q2	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
Q3	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
Q4	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
D1	1N914	1N914	1N914
D2	1N914	1N914	1N914
D3	1N914	1N914	1N914
D4	1N914	1N914	1N914

 

The values seem to have changed slightly over those 3 years.
There is a lot of scope to do some tweaking to find that sound that's right for your needs.
Maybe play around with carbon vs metal resistors? In the 1970s those carbon resistors would have been 10% tolerance or more ???

R24, 25 & R26 are the pots.  
Vintage USA Big Muffs (V1, V2, V3) used single-gang, linear taper, 24mm,100k pots.
A possible future mod could be to use B100K for R25 & R24 & A100k for the Tone (R25).
Log pots (A-100K type) have a longer usuable mid position and less at the ends. ... better fine tuning.
Could be useful for the tone section.

 Leakage current for the 1N4148 as 5 µA .... I think the same as the old 1N914

What transistors to use???
They need to be NPN bipolar
BC549C, BC550, BC239, SE4010, and 2N5210 work according to Kit Rae.
2N5088, 2N5089, MPSA18, 2N3904, 2N4401 are possible candidates.
It might be best to use sockets to allow experimentation.
Were the transistors matched in the early pedals?

Kit Rae's valuable diagnosis identifies three sets of components which alter the BMPs the most.
1. The clipping blocking caps. (C6, C7)
2. The feedback / filter caps. (C10, C12, C11)
3. The Tone stack filter. (C9, C8, R8, R5).

The clipping blocking caps

" C6 & C7 determine the bandwith to be clipped by the diodes". They are usually identical in value and have a great effect on the sound. The smaller the value, the more bass. From the photos I've seem it looks like these are ceramic.

Feedback Filter caps;

C10,C12,C11 usually have identical values. They determine how buzzy/fuzzy the pedal sounds. "They filter the amount of high frequencies. Larger values roll off more highs and smaller values give more crunch and buzz to the sound. The better sounding vintage Big Muffs tend to have the larger values and sound smoother and warmer. Modern Big Muffs tend to have the lower values and sound a bit more buzzy/fuzzy." (Kit Rae).

The pics of vintage units indicate ceramics.

The ToneStack filter.
These 4 components surround the tone pot (R25).

 

C8, C9, R8 & R5. This section influence the mid frequencies. The more mids that are removed, the deeper & darker will be the sounds and the more the muff will probably stand out in a mix. The two resistors determine the amt of mids removed. Looks like 33K was the most common value for R8 & R5.
"Higher values have less mids scooped out and lower values have more mids scooped. This resistor also works in conjunction with the high pass tone capacitor (.0004uF in the example above) to affect the treble at low tone settings. Reducing this cap to .003uF alters the range and scoops slightly more mids. Increasing to .004uF reduces the scoop. Combined, a larger high pass cap and smaller resistor decreases the treble at low tone settings." (Kit Rae)

The pics of vintage V1 boards suggest C8 is a polyester  & C9 be ceramic.

Links:
Muffs Guts (Kit Rae)
Electro-Harmonic's Time Line

To be continued......

EHX -Little Big Muff Pi - "The Op Amp Muff "

Some pics of this beautiful vintage pedal.
It's a Electro-Harmonix Little Big Muff with the rare Op-amp circuit.
Up until 1978, the traditional Big Muff circuit used four transistors.
But in an effort  to reduce costs operational amplifiers were substituted. These versions can be found
in the V4 & V5 PCBs. Model Numbers: EH3003A, EH3003B, EH1322, EH1322B, EH3003.
Some of the same circuit boards used in the Big Muff V4 were also used in the Little Big Muff
The Big Muff has 3 knobs: Volume, Tone & Sustain. The Little Big Muff only has a Volume knob.

My version uses a walmart DC 9V, centre +ve

The Op-amp versions are often describes as "grungier" than the traditional transistor designs.

The PCB is labelled EH-1322.
Thus its a version 4 or V5.
Its the Op-amp version.

..

The RC4558 is a Dual General Purpose Op-ap.

The UA741 is also a general purpose Operational Amplifer.

The Pot ID: 1377840.
Thus the date : The 40th week of 1978

 The Muff guru Kit Rae describes the Op Amp Muff thus:
"I am including this as a legitimate Big Muff, even though it was not built on the classic Muff four-stage circuit. It was intended to sound like a Big Muff and was released in the same box as Version 3, so I feel it must be included as a true Muff version. Plus, I, and many others like them. It has a huge, crushing Big Muff sound. Though not quite the same as the organic transistor tone, is was very unique. Supposedly only a few thousand of this version were made".

"Version 4 is likely the Big Muff circuit heard on most of Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot albums, so that should give an idea of the potential of this version. This is the rarest of the two op-amp Big Muff versions".(KitRae.net)

Links
Electro-Harmonix Time Line
KitRae - The BigMuff OP Amp version