Drunk Beaver's 16th Pedal Drop - the Poltava DOA Muff is a cool hybrid mix of 1978 EHX IC Big Muff and 1989 Ibanez CR5 Crunchy Rhythm

The Poltava gets its roots in the Opamp / IC Big Muff obviously, but where the main IC gain stage is replaced with a Discrete OpAmp (DOA) built with BJT (Bipolar Junction) Transistors. The DOA part is taken from the Ibanez CR5 Crunchy Rhythm [SoundTank Series] (another cool kids cheap pedal). Where the actual Opamp used is a rather unique TI RC4559P type made in Portugal.

The Diodes arrangement has been changed from 6 (3 in each direction) Silicon Diodes to > LEDs + Germanium types. But that’s not all! An Opamp Big Muff has quite a low input impedance, so Vitalii has added a FET buffer in front of the opamp - with the ability to choose ’Standard’ (~56k which is quite low) and ’Custom’ (normal high) impedance. 

Those additions quite change the gain structure of the pedal. As with low impedance it loses some treble and becomes more gated, but with high impedance it’s more open. And the last but not least modification is a tone stack mode switch that transforms the EQ from original scooped Big Muff style ’BMP’ tone control into a Rat-like low pass ’Filter’ (however with a narrower range than a Rat).

Controls : Volume, EQ, Sustain, Tone Stack : BMP / Filter, Impedance : Custom / Standard.

I’ve added some really cool Opamp Big Muff style fuzzes to the collection in recent year - and have really developed a taste for that particular slightly searing flavour of muff. Vitalii’s builds are always intriguing and he’s definitely introduced some cool enhancements into this circuit.

The Drunk Beaver muff-based Fluff Fuzz with Octave and Boost - is one of my most favoured of Vitalii’s fuzz pedals - so I’m expecting great things for this Poltava. The combination of rare Portuguese-made opamp with LED and Germanium Diodes should produce some really cool textures for sure.

I’m really looking forward to getting this one into the collection and putting it through its paces - Vitalii has made some truly fantastic muff-based circuits over the years!

20 should be up for sale already on the Drunk Beaver Reverb.com Store - where these go for $175 plus shipping.