I think the last time I played a green Russian muff was when they were still the ones being sold, but as I understand it they are the preferred muff of bass players.
I have a bassist friend who used to use a green Russian muff he was borrowing from a friend and really liked it so I want to build him one. Any one have any thoughts on if it is worth doing any mods for a bassist as opposed to a guitarist? I am inclined not to, because he was happy with the stock one, but I could put some caps on a switch or something if it makes a big difference. Any one experienced in the ways of Bass Big Muff?
Big Muff can be surely modified for bassist at section of Tone controll. And maybe at signal capacitors too. But the Tone controll will be good enough for fiddle around. Raise values at capacitors in Tone circuit. Maybe this schema of FuzzWar will show:
I play bass and my go-to fuzz is my build of the blackout musket fuzz. The 3 extra controls are super useful and it can still be dialed in stock green russian.
I like to add blend control on my bass dirt. GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used. I'm on the search for a better design, though. It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.
Quote from: Bio77 on August 31, 2021, 07:57:39 PM
I like to add blend control on my bass dirt. GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used. I'm on the search for a better design, though. It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.
I do too. Though I have yet to find a blend utility that does what I want with a muff due to that unity dry signal.
Quote from: Betty Wont on August 31, 2021, 07:27:54 PM
I play bass and my go-to fuzz is my build of the blackout musket fuzz. The 3 extra controls are super useful and it can still be dialed in stock green russian.
Interesting, I played one on guitar once and didn't love it, but never tried it on bass. Thanks for the heads up, I'll take a look.
Quote from: Bio77 on August 31, 2021, 07:57:39 PM
I like to add blend control on my bass dirt. GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used. I'm on the search for a better design, though. It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.
I think if it was for me I'd be all about that, but for this guy... he plays pretty hardcore stuff, I don't think he would use it
Quote from: matmosphere on August 31, 2021, 08:06:22 PM
Quote from: Betty Wont on August 31, 2021, 07:27:54 PM
I play bass and my go-to fuzz is my build of the blackout musket fuzz. The 3 extra controls are super useful and it can still be dialed in stock green russian.
Interesting, I played one on guitar once and didn't love it, but never tried it on bass. Thanks for the heads up, I'll take a look.
Quote from: Bio77 on August 31, 2021, 07:57:39 PM
I like to add blend control on my bass dirt. GuitarPCB has a buff-and-blend add on circuit that I have used. I'm on the search for a better design, though. It blends unity dry signal in with your overdriven signal, so, if you have a lot of gain the blend is less useful.
I think if it was for me I'd be all about that, but for this guy... he plays pretty hardcore stuff, I don't think he would use it
If he plays heavy stuff then I double recommend the Musket. The extra gain stage and focus control are what makes it such a beast for me.
I use the green Russian with no mods, sounds fantastic for that early 70s Black Sabbath sound.
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Quote from: jimilee on August 31, 2021, 08:29:50 PM
I use the green Russian with no mods, sounds fantastic for that early 70s Black Sabbath sound.
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Same here. Built one for my wife to use on bass ten years ago for the band we were in at the time. We tuned 2 steps down and played loud
Quote from: harryklippton on August 31, 2021, 09:11:04 PM
Quote from: jimilee on August 31, 2021, 08:29:50 PM
I use the green Russian with no mods, sounds fantastic for that early 70s Black Sabbath sound.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Same here. Built one for my wife to use on bass ten years ago for the band we were in at the time. We tuned 2 steps down and played loud
Wow, that sounds pretty heavy.
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A very useful mod could be to have some switches for the clipping frequency response. On this website: https://www.electrosmash.com/big-muff-pi-analysis (https://www.electrosmash.com/big-muff-pi-analysis), the capacitors in question are C6 and C7 per their schematic. Stock values for the green russian are .047uf. Many Big Muffs use 1uf in those positions. It might be worth trying a three-way switch to have 1uf, .047uf, and .022uf. Then you can mix and match the different clipping frequency options and go from heavy to tight fuzz madness.
Everything else I would keep stock to the green russian specs.
I just built a green russian based muff on a mudbunny board for bass that sounds great.
A few things:
-- I put the diodes on switches for silicon/none/LED. Second stage was more of a dramatic difference for me, so if you have to do one, that would be it.
-- Basically replaced the 100n coupling caps with 220n caps and the 100n clipping caps with 47n caps. This gives it a much deeper and bigger sound and the clipping is more of a deep fuzz and not as much of a top end fizz.
-- I'll have to look at what I did for mids, but just replaced some caps to get more mids.
-- I tried a blend but didn't love it. Couldn't believe it, but I listened hard and it just didn't sound as good.
-- I used lower gain 2-400hfe transistors for the first three and a more modern higher gain for the last one. Another thing you'll read a lot about. People say it doesn't make a difference, but I could hear it. Higher hfe transistors were just too blasting for me. The lower HFEs sounded mellower and rounder to my ears.
Just looked at my notes and here are some things that worked for my last mudbunny build for bass after socketing a lot of components. Here's what really worked for me, and I did a ton of research. Some are Green Russian values already, but these are all the areas that I kept reading about and listened hard to component switches. Glad to share this a I had to compile it and put it together. But the muff I have is great. Really love it. Very versatile.
Tone:
R18: 22k
R19: 20k
Flatter mids
C13: 10n
C14: 10n
Coupling Caps:
C3: 220n
C4: 220n
C7: 220n
C15: 220n
C16: 220n
Tone caps:
C2 470p
C5 470p
C8: 470p
Clipping caps:
C6: 47n
C9: 47n
All pots B100K
Like I said, I didn't like the blend. If you have a good sounding circuit I don't think it's necessary, esp since you can always turn the fuzz way down and the vol up to get a quasi OD/boost sound, which is very useable for bass when you don't want full on fuzz. I played mine with a blend at first and just didn't think it necessary.
The Hoof mids knob is very good too, if you want to go that route. However, I think that building in flat mids is the way to go to have less fiddling. Kind of a set it and forget it thing.
Also, if you put the diodes on switches. Having all LED's gives you something closer to a Hoof/Fuzz sound. Open gives you more of an OD/BIG sound, silicon gives you a more traditional sound. Mix and match too.
One thing to add... the creamy dreamer switch on my Wren and Cuff green russian is great. I need to figure out how to do that. I can't seem to track down exactly how to implement the mod. If anyone knows, please post!
Modifications of Big Muff including Creamy Dreamer:
http://www.bigmuffpage.com/Big_Muff_Pi_versions_schematics_part3.html
This explains the creamy dreamer version... but there's a switch that you can do which is a "creamy dreamer." I want to know what exactly to do to make this work. I know it has something to do with emitter resistors... just not sure exactly how to execute this mod.
If I understand clearly (english is not my native language), you have some BIg Muff - like version, and you want to do modification to get Creamy Dreamer sound. So, to change circuit with some switch to this creamy version I attached upper? What is your version? Typicall Big Muff?
I have a wren and cuff super russian that has a "dreamer" switch. It's been a while since I've looked at it but I think it's just a dpdt switch with two wires going to the end of two resistors. I'm guessing that flipping it just "ungrounds" them? Maybe I just need to take my super russian apart again to see how they did it:
(https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/553c81b0e4b0ee62c7b9bd89/1609829706519-QE4W6YO11JVWWAWP2RB3/super-russian-front.jpg?format=500w)
From youtube video "Creamy" switch seems to promote that mid range notch, as it is usual for pot "body" or "contour" in tone controllers. So, only high and bass are up. Something like Univox fuzz I attached. Flat-scoop switch only sets in tone controll, like at Big Muff opamp version Tone bypass switch. See as attached picture too.
BTW that link I gave you has 4 parts as you surely noticed. Many Tone modifications are seen here to fiddle around.
http://www.bigmuffpage.com/Big_Muff_Pi_versions_schematics_part1.html
In case anyone comes looking...
Holy crap, the Green Russian was the way to go. Just finished this one up. Tried a bunch of different transistors and landed on BC549C's for all four. Mpsa18 sounded good (and louder) in the last position, and a 2n5089 sounded a little more gnarly in Q1, but nothing else quite sounded like the 549's on bass. Not sure this would be my favorite for guitar but it is full of crazy punk rock goodness on the bass.
Sweet spot for me seemed to be with the tone between 2 and 4 o'clock and the sustain between noon and two.
Yep, I used one for years when I was gigging.
Quote from: matmosphere on August 31, 2021, 07:16:32 PM
I think the last time I played a green Russian muff was when they were still the ones being sold, but as I understand it they are the preferred muff of bass players.
I have a bassist friend who used to use a green Russian muff he was borrowing from a friend and really liked it so I want to build him one. Any one have any thoughts on if it is worth doing any mods for a bassist as opposed to a guitarist? I am inclined not to, because he was happy with the stock one, but I could put some caps on a switch or something if it makes a big difference. Any one experienced in the ways of Bass Big Muff?
if you don't want to hit up Russian Federation ebay, try 2N4401 transistors and 1N400x diodes. those are the closest to the originals in terms of hfe and Vf