#1 Sound-shaping session with the Dazatronyx Big Fuzz Console - 1969 V1 Triangle Big Muff Edition

In my original Big Fuzz Console overview article - you will have read that the unit comes standard with 2N2222A Metal Can transistors in the socket / 1st Transistor Option slot. I bought in 2N5133 transistors (£15 each) for my V1 Triangle take - as those were the original transistors used for that. They were also present in several of the V2 Ram’s Head Violet Editions, while the FS36999 were more common, and for later reissues EHX used BC547 variants. So when I do my next profile of Violet Ram’s Head Settings I will experiment with both 2N5133 and BC547C varieties.

For this V1 Triangle (my favourite Muff voicing) I deemed the 2N5133’s essential - I have them in others of my Muff pedals - and they always sound fantastic.

I then compared and contrasted a wide variety of resources - including Kit Rae’s Big Muff Page, and various AI tools - to find out all the appropriate reference Capacitor and Resistor values. I started off by assigning the closest match to the original references. The BFC doesn’t always have those same options - while the truth is that as for any pedal manufactured in that era - there were numerous idiosyncratic differences between individual models - and often a discrepancy in parts / values.

In any case - I set you the original settings per the various aggregate references - which are indeed referenced below in [parentheses] and then by ear I A/B/C’d each of those toggle-switches - a little like a visit to the option - to decide which option of those 3 sounded the best to me.

Those different Transistors, Capacitors and Resistors - impact EQ, Sear, Sustain, Timbre, Openness, Compression and a myriad other nuances. You get lots of interesting combinations - and often you feel like changing a few settings in tandem. While generally you are simply just switching around to see if each options sounds better or worse for your own preferences.

It’s a somewhat laborious exercise but I really rather enjoyed this first one. I decided also that I got a better tone with Stage 3 / Q2 having the BC337-25 Transistor selected - with all the others on the Socketed @2N5133’s. This is not an exercise of trying to precisely authentically tone-match the pedal to a specific original pedal, but rather to ’dial in’ the most pleasing version of that specific Big Muff type.

I’ve always tended to favour Triangle, Ram’s Head and Green Russian varieties - and those are the first 3 Profiles I will be going for. I also really like the EQD Hoof take - which has 2N1304 Ge Transistors in Q2 and Q3, and where Aisha Loe uses 2N1308 varieties in her equivalent She Fuzz. The second set of Transistors I acquired were 2N1308 varieties - which is will do as a follow up to each of the 3 primary profiles.

Here follow the results of the first experiment!