Sovtek Big Muff

[Limo]

In case anyone's interested: I'm turning my unused for decades Sovtek Big Muff into money.

It's the Big Muff Pi Electro Harmonix had made in Russia in the 1990s, in what must be, judging from the thickness of the metal and the color of the paint, a disused tank factory. There were two releases of this pedal and mine is the first, with the tall font and the piss-poor paint job (so, yes, the paint is peeling, though there's still quite a bit on).

It works fine, though I'd recommend you'd spray some contact spray in the distortion knob to get rid of crackle. Sound is awesome if you're into that kind of thing. I'm not, it turns out.

Ships from the Netherlands. Price is the regular Sovtek Big Muff price but with a tiny WATMM discount.

[TubularCorporation]

A coworker gave me one of these that had been modded with a rotary switch to swap one of the clipping diodes for about half a dozen different types and polarities, and I HIGHLY recommend doing that to it, I'm still surprised how different they all sound.

 

Sounds like yours really is the first black version (there are actually at least 4 or 5, mines the second version that's short but weighs a lot more than any of the later versions, and the first one I got in high school was a variation that I've never seen listed anywhere - short, light weight but with high gloss paint and a battery holder for AA batteries instead of 9v even though it ran on a 9v).

 

Anyeway, just throwing out the mod there for potential buyers.  I guess since this is one of the early ones it might be better to leave it stock for collectors or something, but it really does make it an even better pedal to add a diode selector.  Tone stack bypass is supposed to be good, too, but I've never seriously considered doing that.

 

http://www.kitrae.net/music/Big_Muff_Mods_and_Tweaks_Page.html

[Limo]

32 minutes ago, TubularCorporation said:

Sounds like yours really is the first black version

No, it's the green one - the first. It's much heavier than the second version, which my girlfriend at the time had. That one is made from metal plate. For this one the body is from what we used to joke was cast metal.

Never modded it. Lucky, it seems, because now it's worth more Eurorack money

[TubularCorporation]

Oh, I figured it was the tall black one because usually people specify green if it's the green one.  The tall black one was the same case as the green one I think, but I haven't seen a green one in a long time.  A few years ago they were getting like $300+ for a while but I don't think they do anymore.  Even a later black one (short, light case) was $150+ for a few months, I kind of regret not selling mine back then but every time I sell one I end up missing it.

[TubularCorporation]

Actually I just checked and the cheapest green Sovtek Big Muff on Reverb right now is $350, with most of them being i the $500-$600 range so you might want to reconsider. The green one has a pedal nerd following because they were used by someone or other.

[Limo]

The cheapest one may be mine  There's a few others in roughly the same condition that sell for slightly more than I'm selling mine but that's ok. I just need money to finance a Eurorack DIY habit  and if I sell it for this amount I'll have made a killing as I bought it new at then retail prices.

Don't know who the someone or other is. They were fairly common at the time - and cheap, which is how I landed one. Never really gelled with it, tbh, which is probably why it's still in one piece.

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, I don't use mine much but it was free and it's good for recording sometimes.

 

I wish I still had the first pedal I ever bought when I started playing guitar as a kid.  It was a Marshall Shredmaster, and about a year later I traded it in for $20 in store credit on some other pedal.  The prices aren't so bad now, but about 5 years ago it got trendy for a while and they were in the same zone as the green Big Muff.