Mini Muff Compendium

custompedalboards.co.uk/product-category/pedals/custom-pedal-boards/

Classic David Gilmour singing lead tones - with a properly a period correct muff flavour. This one is made in the UK I believe by Custom Pedal Boards. The incredibly close control knob cluster strikes me as a touch odd - not sure why that was done in that manner - while I guess it's vaguely interesting from an aesthetic perspective. This seems to do pretty much what you would hope for it to deliver - I really like what I've heard so far - and as mentioned in the intro - hopefully this one will be in the reference collection very soon!

dsoundeffects.ru/#!/tproduct/476757953-1500469911302

I've had a unique purple sparkle edition of this one since about 2020 - a Russian-made pedal, so somewhat difficult to get hold of nowadays understandably. Really cool classic Ram's Head voicing - not quite as fabulous as say the Vick Audio compact variety - but close enough for most.

x.com/free_fall_diver?lang=en-GB

A really cool mysterious and impossible to trace Japanese boutique brand (beyond its 'X' account) - I was very lucky to get hold of one of these on Ebay, and in fact I alerted good friend Henry Kaiser to one also on Reverb.com - which is where these pop up very sporadically. Probably my favourite mini fuzz of all time - sounds absolutely immense - really beautifully richly textured, kind of thick - but punchy too. Very well balanced - and incredibly poised - just exceptional really! If you need a mission in your life - then go and track down one of these!

'Discontinued!'

Weird! - I just found out that this is no longer listed on the Ibanez website - and is therefore no longer being manufactured. A mini version of Ibanez's Maxon-made original Triangle Big Muff Take. Based on the original Muff circuit - but with a little licence to be slightly different. Actually a really potent mini muff - with some excellent rich muff textures that bely its diminutive format. I always found it to be pretty decent sounding - I'm very surprised that it's no longer seemingly in production - it really does not come up on the Ibanez site at all any more - what happened! 

Would be cool if someone did a mini version of the Japanese Elk Big Muff Sustainar too - which has a very different EQ, and delivers a really cool and kind of different searing tone. Mini pedal geniuses - get to it!

www.koamps.com/big-muff-fuzz.html

KO Amps' Kevin O'Reilly made me a sort of Skreddy Mayo variant of Muff back in the day - which is a a kind of special Triangle Muff take - with something very unique happening with its mids -  a really special version. I own the actually Skreddy MKII Mayonaise pedal - which is a forerunner to the Mayo. Mark Ahlfs tends to re-label his pedals when he runs out of specific components and needs to change the circuit a touch - hence all the Pig / P19 / Pig Mine etc. varieties for instance. My Skreddy Mayonaise is one of my favourite ever Big Muffs - and Kevin O'Reilly has done a great take on that format - here labelled as Rhino - which name - to add further confusion has latterly been assigned to quite another different variety of Muff. My Rhino is pretty special though!

Kevin can do all the classes Muff circuits in mini format - I've never asked him about the ELK Sustainar though - maybe he can make me one of those! Pricing is up $25 since I bought mine quite few years ago - which is entirely understandable!

'Discontinued'

www.mooeraudio.com/product/Triangle-Buff--136.html

So still listed on the official Mooer Website, but evidently no longer being made - and already sold out everywhere! I had to wait for the occasional one to materialise on Reverb.com. One listed Italian one had no shipping to the UK, and ignored my inquiries, I thought I'd snagged one - kind of twice in a row - but each time I was thwarted and a note was sent to say those had already been sold - and I was instantly refunded - which was kind of frustrating, Third attempt at purchase seems to have worked - and that one has been shipped and is on the way - also from Italy! Sounds pretty great in the demos, but I won't know for sure until I get mu hands on it - a lot of these mini pedals have a tendency to have a low-ish output - and I do like somewhat expansive volume capabilities. I will undoubtedly report back on this subject again when I've added a few more to this Mini Muff Capsule Collection. It's a shame that this one is discontinued! Hence this was not a candidate for Anderton's Ultimate Doom Fuzz roundup - as the Triangle Buffs were all long since sold out by then!

one-control.com/products/one-control-baltic-blue-fuzz-english

I'm actually on my second one of these as they're really quite fragile - very thin-walled aluminium enclosure with somewhat cheap potentiometers seemingly. I dropped my first one from around waist height only - around 1 metre - but the aluminium visible buckled and the stem of the Tone knob entirely sheared off! This is such a beloved Mini Muff of mine - especially before I got the Deep Fall Diver Huge in. Björn Juhl has calibrated this circuit so expertly - that you can access Triangle, Ram's head, and R/B pi tones all through the same clever circuit. Still a favourite of mine - while a little in the shadow of the Huge nowadays!

www.tonecityaudio.com/Products/info.aspx?itemid=35&parentid=9&lcid=15

Obviously I've reviewed this Matcha Green Fuzz very recently - so you can refer to that article for further details. Generally I was kind of impressed - while the Andertons video is a touch misleading vs a clean pedal platform setup. As for Andertons' demos the amps were set a little bit hairy - and so the Matcha Cream sounded somewhat more aggressive than it really is. It also doesn't have the best output volume, but certainly enough to get by. I'm a touch spoiled by the Free Fall Diver Huge though, as most Mini Muffs sound a little pedestrian when compared to that!