Episode 4: Big Muff Pi
The Carpenters were cooler than you remember. Exhibit A: the Big Muff fuzz distortion pedal
Extra fun content from Episode 4 of the Effect Pedal podcast! ⬇️
Check out the Big Muff Pi playlist on Spotify with songs that have a Big Muff pedal in them (including the various versions of the Big Muff/Sovtek pedals)
Buy a Big Muff Pi t-shirt or art print from the MeteorWright shop
Kit Rae is the web’s foremost Big Muff expert, in my opinion. Take a deep dive into all things Big Muff at kitrae.net.
Speaking of deep dives, Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan has a series of track-by-track deep dive videos on the Gish album on YouTube. Here is the “Siva” deep dive:
Electro-Harmonix provides a good recipe for the Siamese Dream sound using a Little Big Muff and an EHX Memory Man
From 2016: “J Mascis and Lou Barlow Explain the Dinosaur Jr Sound” on Reverb.com
Also on Reverb, from 2017: “How to Use Big Muffs to Dial-In the Tone of Five Famous Guitarists” (Gilmour, Fogerty, Mascis, Corgan, Auerbach plus a bonus bassist)
Speaking of David Gilmour, the Gilmourish.com site has a nice rundown of his Big Muffs
I was surprised by how simply this was achieved: “The secrets behind Jack White’s guitar tone on the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army” from Guitar World
This is from 2009 but it’s still a good quick history and comparison of Big Muffs from PMT.
Last year the JHS Show did a comprehensive shootout of vintage vs. reissue Big Muffs:
Richard Carpenter explains how the “Goodbye to Love” solo was done on his website: "It's an electric guitar, Gibson, vintage 1957. Tony Peluso played the solo, done in the 'good old days' when all he used was a crude little fuzz unit called a 'Big Muff'. He hooked his guitar into the Big Muff and our engineer Ray Gerhardt took it into the board. It was recorded in Studio B at A&M Studios. The song and arrangement, including the 'raucous' fuzz guitar solo, are mine."
The Big Muff Pi at the Electro-Harmonix website
Thanks for reading!
-Wright
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