Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi

Electro-Harmonix's four-transistor sustain-and-fuzz pedal, designed by Mike Matthews with Bob Myer and first sold in 1969. Production stopped when EHX went bankrupt in 1984, came back in 1992 under the Russian-made Sovtek name, and returned to New York in 2000. It is the defining heavy-fuzz pedal of rock guitar: a Gilmour pedal, a Dinosaur Jr pedal, a Smashing Pumpkins pedal, and a thousand other things; depending on the era and the variant, it's a violin-like lead boost or a buzzsaw wall of doom. Three knobs (volume, tone, sustain) and a famously scooped midrange that makes single notes sing and chords sound enormous. The current NYC version, made in New York since 2000, is a revision of a late-1970s circuit, not a copy of the earlier Ram's Head that Gilmour favored. Different Big Muff variants (Triangle, Ram's Head, Op-Amp, Civil War, Russian) have different EQ curves and gain structures, but the basic identity is consistent: huge, scooped, sustained fuzz.

• 01scooped midrange — chords sound enormous
• 02long sustain on single notes
• 03tone knob is wide and weird (boost lows OR highs, no middle)
• 04stack with a Tube Screamer in front to add mids back
• 05every variant sounds slightly different; all are correct