Old Bookmark Treasures: The Big Muff Page

25 Feb, 2026

Revisiting a nearly twenty-year old website chronicling the iconic Big Muff fuzz pedal

Today while accidentally cleaning out my bookmarks (Listen, I've changed browsers so many fucking times over the years that I have like a historical record of “imported from....” labyrinthian folder structures, and sometimes I uncover a cache of decade+ old treasures) I stumbled on this:

Header of 'The Big Muff Page' featuring an image of the iconic flat metal guitar pedal, accompanied by numerious smaller versions of the pedal surrounding it

What you're looking at is a fucking time capsule

This is a website with a lovingly kept detailed history of *every* iteration of the Big Muff guitar fuzz pedal.

I remember reading this website over ten years ago when I was still using a Big Muff on my board and thinking even then that the site felt dated (which is saying something since I grew up on the early days of the internet - BBS era baybeeee) but I was a bit shocked to look and realize today that this site dates only as far back as 2007.

There's a “this would have looked at home on GeoCities” energy to this site that I cannot help but admire. It was out of time even when it was first published.

But like one of the really standout things is like, man - just look at how much fucking text there is!

Howard was still involved with his E-H creations at the time this articel was written, doing custom mods and repairs to vintage Big Muffs, as well as his other E-H pedals. Here is an interview with Howard about his work on the Big Muff circuit from 2009.
<p>There was NO LED light on this version. Power was from a 9V battery or an AC power adaptor jack. The top had to be removed to change the battery. These had four rubber feet and shipped in a corrugated cardboard box. Most of the pots are dated 1977, though these were all likely made in 1978.</p>
<p>CLONES OR SIMILAR PEDALS - E-H released a reissie Op Amp Big Muff in the nano sized enclosure in 2017. The Deluxe Big Muffs from the late 1970s also used a nearly identical circuit to the V4, as well as some of the Little Big Muff pedals Electro-Harmonic made in the same time period. Later replicas are the Euthymia ICBM, Stomp Under Foot Op-Amp Fuzz. See DiscoFreq's Effects Database for a thorough listing of all the Big Muff clones and variants throughout the years.</p>
<p>THE V4 SOUND - This is a great distortion pedal with much of the same scooped mids character of the previous transistor versions. Very close, but not exactly the same sound. Overall the V4 has less gain and less bottom end than most of the V3 and V6 transistor versions, but the V4 is also much quieter than a V3 or V6 when the sustain is maxed. It sounds like it has a slightly flatter mid range than the V3 or V6, but the mid range notch actually dips a bit more into the lower mids than those. I think the transistor versions are more organic and reactive to pick attack, palm muting, and harmonics than the V4, but the V4 still sounds great for crushing, grungy, wall-of-sound distortion, heavy rhythm playing, and heavy leads. Dropped D tuning with humbucking pickups is where this version excels. The V4 fizz or buzz that is typical with a Big Muff has a slightly more machine-like, metallic feel in this one than the transistor versions. Compared to the hint of a revved motorcycle engine underlying the fuzz of the transistor versions, the V4 has more of the hint of a ripping chainsaw underlying the fuzz. As with the transistor versions, the scooped tone makes them easy to get lost in a band mix when playing live with certain amps.</p>
<p>Unlike the transistor versions, the V4 tone is very consistent from unit to unit. Some units may have a noticable volume/gain boost when the pedal is switched off due to the fact that these old Big Muffs do not bypass the signal even when off. The signal still goes through and is amplified by the active op-amps, which can sometimes add a gain boost. Adding a true bypass switch can eliminate this problem. This is likely the primary Big Muff circuit heard on most of Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot albums, so that should give an idea of the potential of this version. This is the rarest of the two op-amp Big Muff versions.

People used to just WRITE, man. It's like seeing magazines from the 90's and there'll be a car advertisement that instead of a photo of the car, it's stylistic sketch and then 2000 words on how owning the car would make your wife love you in ways your secretary can't. It's so weird seeing how fucked attention spans have gotten in terms of just text copy.

Which isn't to say there aren't also photos on the site; take my word for it, there are plenty of detailed shots of every iteration of the pedal, diagrams, photos of the circuit boards of ones they've cracked open, it's fucking wild how specific this site is.

If you wanted an in-depth look at literally every iteration of the iconic fuzz pedal, click through and go spelunking. There's an image map (g no reconguista, remember fucking image maps??) of all the pedal versions at the top, so you can click into like the Red Army Overdrive image at the upper right for example and it'll take you to the page specifically about that model, its history and design.

When people joke about autism and trains like, this is what we mean man, lmao. I love what's wrong with this person (complimentary). I respect it. I'm glad this chronicle exists AND that it's still online. A lesser person would have redesigned the site to make it completely “modern” and soulless 10 or so years ago, or just let it lapse and be wiped from the internet.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Here's your end of post cat, resting on the fabric of a chair she's absolutely demolished. Her name is Lilith.

Photo of a mostly white cat with calico face markings sleeping on the head of an armchair

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