|
SUMMARY FOR Electro-Harmonics Big Muff (USA) : The following is a direct quote from Mike Matthews, Electro-Harmonix founder and president:
"Back in 1969 I (Electro-Harmonix) was already selling the Muff Fuzz, which was a mild overdrive circuit in an LPB-1 box. I wanted to come out with a three knob distortion unit in a bigger box. I asked my buddy, Bell Labs designer, Bob Myer, to design a unit, one that would have a lot of sustain. When I got the prototype from Bob, I loved the long sustain. This was done by cascading the circuit into additional sections, each one clipped by twin diodes. However, when you clip, the tone can be a bit raspy. So, I spent a couple of days changing capacitors to roll off distortion in the highs, and eventually found that the best long sustaining tone that was a sweet violin like sound was done by having three capacitors in different parts of the circuit rolling off the rasp. We plunged into production and I brought the very first units up to Henry, the boss at Manny's Music Store on 48th Street, NYC. About a week later, I stopped by Manny's to buy some cables, and Henry yelled out to me, 'Hey Mike, I sold one of those new Big Muffs to Jimi Hendrix.' "[1]
|