Renaming a Classic Big Muff Variant - Because... Reasons...

When I did my first build of a Tayda Big Muff Pi board back in January, I mentioned that the board included a set of instructions to allow you to build a total of seven (of the myriad) variations of this venerable circuit. I built my first one up as a Triangle, and it quickly became one of my favorite BMP pedals (okay, to be honest, there's none I don't like, but a few rise to the top). After finishing up that one, I'd devised a "cunning plan" to create not only a few more fun BMP pedals for my use, but a few to sell to "support the habit" as it were. Since I'm fairly good at Soviet green paint jobs (as you can see in my first Civil War / Red Army build as well as the enclosure I painted for a friend), I figured it would be fun to try and build a Sovtek BMP clone with as close to the original components as possible.

Pi All Around - Two Unique Versions of an Ubiquitous Pedal!

The Big Muff Pi, originally designed by Mike Matthews and released by his company Electro-Harmonix in 1969, is one of the most ubiquitous pedals ever produced. Combining elements of both distortion and fuzz with variable sustain, the Big Muff has been produced in a dizzying array of varieties over the years. Many of the variants were a result of EHX simply changing the value of the components willy-nilly during the production run. When Electro-Harmonix went out of business in 1982, clones and copies exploded on the scene, and Mike Matthews would re-open shop in the USSR under the Sovtek brand name and begin re-issuing his designs in the early 1990s. Matthews would bring production back to the US in 2000, and numerous new editions of the pedal have been released since then. If you're interested in the history of this great pedal, there are several great references, but one of the best is Kit Rae's page. 

Aion FX offers the Halo, which is their trace of the Big Muff. The only change is a mid-range switch that provides three mid-tone options: stock, flat, and boosted. Otherwise the circuit is a completely faithful tracing of the original. A spreadsheet of 18 different versions is included so you can target any variant with your build - or play around and develop your own recipe. At this point I've built two versions which are included in this entry, a Ram's Head '73 Gilmour and a Civil War / Red Army version. Depending on what transistors I'm able to find, I may go back and build other variants as well, as these are a lot of fun!