Russian Muff Resurrection!

[Daddy Hojo]

I have a Russian Big Muff Pi (the green tall font four screw crackly paint job one for you Green Russian fans) that has been sick. It just wasn't bringing that delicious fuzz and sweet nasty like it usually had. It had a 9v adaptor that had come loose and my dad and I fixed it with some electrical tape years ago. I guess our tape had given up or maybe there was a short in the original 9v wires that wasn't connecting because it was just working intermittently - sometimes great, sometimes not. At first I thought it was the pots because I thought I had a good connection on my patch repair, so I looked elsewhere...

I had decided to replace the Russian with a Little Big Muff and that just didn't do it for me. I eventually traded that for a Bass Big Muff which is far closer to the Russian than the Lil' version. I was quite content with this setup until I watched one of gearmandude's videos comparing the green and civil war muffs and I knew I was missing a bit of something. Don't get me wrong, the Bass Big Muff is awesome - try it out -but know that still comes in second place (a very close second) to the mean green Sovtek machine.

I decided to dry test wire a new 9v connector to the broken leads and lo and behold it worked! I felt like Dr. Frankenstein... It's alive! I quickly A/B'ed the Bass and the Russian Muffs and although I could get close to the overall sound, the Bass Muff didn't quite have the same smooth compression in the attack when I'd dig in and I knew I had to permanently patch my old comrade back up.

Although my soldering skills are lacking, I decided to man up and solder the new 9v connector in for good. When they say "built like a tank" about these pedals, they aren't joking. It literally looks like the inside of a soviet tank in there with these big flat head screws joining everything together. The brass plate inside had this great dusty patina and you could even see where fingerprints had turned the metal different colors. They/we/us/them don't make things quite like this anymore.

It took me awhile with my less than ample soldering iron, but I got the two wires put back in, plugged it up and now it works as good as ever.

I'm a happy camper now than I am back in the wooly fuzz heavens, rocking some nasty Black Keys tones.

Anybody else have a story about a piece of gear coming back from beyond?

[Chautauqua]

I've got one of those too... picked it up for $10 US and fixed a simple wire-fault... now I won't play anything else. Aside from a FuzzFace (an original Arbiter) nothing compares to these old Russian monsters. Great story man, glad to see a great old pedal kept alive by a little elbow grease aye

Cheers

Dave

[lareplus]

that's a great story of renaissance. . .wonderful pedals, all of them. .

[TheSmokingMan]

currently doing my homework for scratch-building a tall font(its not as easy to get the parts values as most schems have the bubble font or just say "same as civil war")

I'm in the long process of bringing my v1 small stone back to life as well(very limited info out there for it). I acquired it ages ago with the stomp switch replaced with some on-off-on toggle abortion and other woes(no bypass). great phase, just needs tlc

[Daddy Hojo]

Originally Posted by TheSmokingMan

currently doing my homework for scratch-building a tall font(its not as easy to get the parts values as most schems have the bubble font or just say "same as civil war")

I'm in the long process of bringing my v1 small stone back to life as well(very limited info out there for it). I acquired it ages ago with the stomp switch replaced with some on-off-on toggle abortion and other woes(no bypass). great phase, just needs tlc

A friend of mine had the Sovtek small stone. Way deep phase on that thing. Very cool.

You might look into the wren and cuff tall Russian pedal. I think they discovered something useful and unusal about the original v1 pots, but I dunno what it was.

[TheSmokingMan]

just lacking free time to dredge up the answers atm, but not to the tune of paying a boutique cloner for something I can otherwise build myself.

[Daddy Hojo]

Originally Posted by TheSmokingMan

just lacking free time to dredge up the answers atm, but not to the tune of paying a boutique cloner for something I can otherwise build myself.

True. If you can build it, don't buy it. If you build one, I definitely wanna hear it. Best of luck.