That was surprisingly easy (Russian Big Muff Repair)

[Nick Ellingworth]

I just had my Russian Big Muff Pi die on me, naturally I initially thought 'oh bugger this could be expensive/time consuming.' Thankfully though it turned out that the battery clip had broken so I grabbed a more robust one from my large selection of electrical parts and set about replacing the broken one, job done in about 5 minutes once I found my soldering iron and butane refill can.

It's nice when a repair like that turns out to be really easy, now if only I could solve the huge hiss problem that's always been a problem with this pedal.

While I was repairing the pedal I was rather shocked that it wasn't a chip based pedal like most modern reissues are. Nice to see transistors, they are somehow reassuring in a pedal.

 

[dbw]

I think  most reissues use something like MPQ3906, which is a quad 2N3906 transistor on a 14-pin chip.  Just makes assembly cheaper and easier, shouldn't really affect the sound compared to using four individual 2N3906s.  (I have been prototyping big muffs for like 3 days straight now, I have visions of NPN transistors dancing in my head. )

 

[Nick Ellingworth]

I can think of worse things to have dancing in your head than NPN transistors, a few weeks back all I could think about was Schmitt triggers as I had to write 2 long essays on the buggers over a single weekend.  :doh: