Big Muff Mids mods- pot v switch

[claytushaywood]

I recently populated the board for one of pickdroppers baby muffs.  and I had to do some research to get the mids pot to work- you gottasub the 10n for a 22n cap at c10 and change a resistor to like 2k.

Anyways- I have built a few muffs recently with this mids control, but I seem to remember liking all the skreddy vero clones I built that just put 3 caps on a 3 way dpdt toggle switch- 4n7 for stock scooped mids, another 4n7 in parallel with first for flat mids, and a 10n for 14n7 and boosted mids.  You leave all the other resistors the same. 

I feel like something gets lost with the variable resistor controlling the mids. 

Is there anything to this?  Or any knowledge as to how they would sound different or if that would change the eq curve? 

I tried going to the tone stack calculator but I have a mac and its windows only.

Just trying to figure out if its all in my head and I'm just not getting the pot in the right spots to get the good boosted mids sounds!  thanks a bunch guys!

[blearyeyes]

I recently populated the board for one of pickdroppers baby muffs.  and I had to do some research to get the mids pot to work- you gottasub the 10n for a 22n cap at c10 and change a resistor to like 2k.

Anyways- I have built a few muffs recently with this mids control, but I seem to remember liking all the skreddy vero clones I built that just put 3 caps on a 3 way dpdt toggle switch- 4n7 for stock scooped mids, another 4n7 in parallel with first for flat mids, and a 10n for 14n7 and boosted mids.  You leave all the other resistors the same. 

I feel like something gets lost with the variable resistor controlling the mids. 

Is there anything to this?  Or any knowledge as to how they would sound different or if that would change the eq curve? 

I tried going to the tone stack calculator but I have a mac and its windows only.

Just trying to figure out if its all in my head and I'm just not getting the pot in the right spots to get the good boosted mids sounds!  thanks a bunch guys!

I'd have to see the schematic to be able to say something irrelevant.


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[bsoncini]

I played around this a lot a few months ago. I tend to agree with you. I tried the pot with many different values and preferred a switch. Maybe it was just easier to select scoop, flat or boost.

[claytushaywood]

the schematic im working on is not downloadable and is in google drive.  you can find the info im talking about at this link or use the madbean schematic and the info ive provided below

http://www.kitrae.net/music/Big_Muff_Mods_and_Tweaks_Page.html

scroll down to the mids mod

in mad beans rabbit hole- we're talking about c10 and r18
stok c10 is 4n7 and r18 is 33k.  the mids pot mod would be changing  c10 to 22n and replacing r18 with a 25k pot and a small resistor in series- like 1-5k

the switch mids mod would just be putting different caps on a switch.

[claytushaywood]

I played around this a lot a few months ago. I tend to agree with you. I tried the pot with many different values and preferred a switch. Maybe it was just easier to select scoop, flat or boost.

do you really think it's just easier?  I think changing the resistance and putting that cap up to 22n really changes the muffs tone.  its not bad when you have the mids pot down (maybe its totally different there too) Maybe Ill build another one and do side by side... really wish I could get use the Duncan tone stack calculator!

[bsoncini]

I played around this a lot a few months ago. I tend to agree with you. I tried the pot with many different values and preferred a switch. Maybe it was just easier to select scoop, flat or boost.

do you really think it's just easier?  I think changing the resistance and putting that cap up to 22n really changes the muffs tone.  its not bad when you have the mids pot down (maybe its totally different there too) Maybe Ill build another one and do side by side... really wish I could get use the Duncan tone stack calculator!

Easier as in when I want the stock big muff I just flip the switch.

[juansolo]

It depends how you do it. This is where Duncan's Tone Stack Calculator is your friend (http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/). Basically you'll spend a long time in here trying different values until you get the result you want, but you'll also be able to visually see what your changes are doing to the curve.

If you use the AMZ method of adding a mids pot (http://www.muzique.com/lab/tone3.htm) it does mess with where the curve is and it moves dependent on where the pot is and the other components in the tone area. It will definitely need tweaking to maintain that base sound.

If you use our method (attached) it only moves the mids as it only blends in the additional cap. Much like if you put a switch in the same place (C10) with two other caps on it to add different values together to get the same effect. The key components you'll be changing are the resistors and the caps in the attached diagram, leave the pots alone.

If you don't fancy that, there's always the V2 of the muffs spreadsheet where I've already chosen some sensible values for a load of different muffs: http://stompage.juansolo.co.uk/muffbuild.html

[claytushaywood]

It depends how you do it. This is where Duncan's Tone Stack Calculator is your friend (http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/). Basically you'll spend a long time in here trying different values until you get the result you want, but you'll also be able to visually see what your changes are doing to the curve.

If you use the AMZ method of adding a mids pot (http://www.muzique.com/lab/tone3.htm) it does mess with where the curve is and it moves dependent on where the pot is and the other components in the tone area. It will definitely need tweaking to maintain that base sound.

If you use our method (attached) it only moves the mids as it only blends in the additional cap. Much like if you put a switch in the same place (C10) with two other caps on it to add different values together to get the same effect. The key components you'll be changing are the resistors and the caps in the attached diagram, leave the pots alone.

If you don't fancy that, there's always the V2 of the muffs spreadsheet where I've already chosen some sensible values for a load of different muffs: http://stompage.juansolo.co.uk/muffbuild.html

cool yeh thats what I was looking for, i had looked at the duncan tone stack before.  But as it isnt mac compatible and my mac has something causing it to crash right now I wasnt really feeling like installing parallels and running it on there. 

So in your body pot version.  are you lowering the values due to the extra resistance of the 500k body pot?

i'm still feeling like making that one cap switchable is the best way to get a stock muff sound and boost the mids without having to deal with changing the og sound at all. 

wouldnt the body pot in there change the response some still?

[claytushaywood]

by the way- thank you for that muff work.  Very cool that there are all these boards now where you can just swap values and preview all the muffs.

are the skreddy pink flesh and pig mine able to be added to that list?  I really like those iterations.  this current muff is a mayo clone- i'm digging it. Id be willing to plug in the values unless you already know they wont work with the layout

[juansolo]

I haven't updated the sheets in a couple of years now. I've built soooo many muffs I think I might be done. If anyone else fancies updating them, I'll happily send the Excel sheets to them.

[thesmokingman]

duncan's tsc runs well under wine ... that said, reset the mac's pram/nvram and maybe even the smc. It should run fine afterwards.