JHS Muffaletta v owning a ton of Muff reissues

[1973Marshall]

In the process of recording a bunch of Muff-laden tracks of late I've been using various EHX Muff reissues such as the Op-Amp, Triangle, Russian and Ram's Head. At this time the Op-Amp gets use for the wall of sound stuff and the Triangle and Russian get stereo treatment for a lot of other tracks. Sometimes the Skreddy P19 gets a run as it is quite unique and sounds great.

Carting them around or pulling them off and setting them up seems like a chore when the JHS Muffaletta exists. However, I have never had the chance to try one nor do I want to sit and A/B more Muffs when the internet may have done it already.

Has anyone compared the JHS to the reissues and variants and found they could successfully replace them with the Muffaletta alone?

 

[IRG]

I found it was a good pedal to try out these different "flavors" and then pick out the one you like best, and go with that. For me, I soon found I preferred the Triangle sound, and got a Thorpy Muffroom, which I still own to this day. I might get the new EHX Ram's Head reissue next, but for the most part, I don't think I need the other sounds, and the Muffroom has such a good EQ on it, that I haven't found myself wanting other muffs.

But that's what the Mufaletta is cool, for trying these variations. And if you like them all or most of them, just keep it and be happy. Tone chasing is an odd hobby all by itself.

 

[skiltrip]

The Muffuletta sounds pretty awesome. I really would not say there's any sonic compromise happening.

 

[jvin248]

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I had watched this video the other day, along with their multi-tube-screamer pedal.



.

 

[drbob1]

If it's the same idea as the Bonsai Tubescreamer, they've actually built 5 separate muffs in there and are just switching the input/output. Using SMD and having only one enclosure, it appears that it's pretty doable. The differences between the muffs are primarily EQ before and after distortion, so the fact that it sounds different makes sense. If you want to try a bunch of muff variants without the high cost of buying them from SUF, it's not a bad deal. If you want someone who's got some commitment to make each model sound exactly like the original, maybe this isn't the answer.

 

[Flatscan]

Check out the new W&C muff pedal...

 

[Vhailor]

Check out the new W&C muff pedal...

The De La Riva, I presume.

That's one hyper-complex pedal, having, iicr, two banks of 10 dip switches each, and two toggles, in addition to the usual three knobs on the face.

It has some great sounds in it, but not really a plug 'n' play device until you really learn how to get what you want out of it.

Expect to invest time and effort if you want to be able to get specific sounds out of it.

(Also kinda pricey, but you are getting a lot of capability - possibly more than you need - for your money.)

 

[blackba]

If you compare the small box EH muff's they are generally around $100ish. The JHS is $229, so if you want more than 2 muffs, than the JHS makes sense from a financial standpoint.

 

[Flatscan]

@Vhailor the manual outlines settings for a number of muff types. I've not tried the pedal and can't comment per the quality of the tone.

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...4abb/1552432852472/de-la-riva-bm20-manual.pdf

[no affiliation]

 

[ThinPaperWings]

I can only imagine there's a lot of compromising happening with that pedal in order to fit each model in there, they all varied so wildly.

There's what, at least 5 different Rams Head models?

The Muffuletta sounds pretty awesome. I really would not say there's any sonic compromise happening.

Just want to follow up on this idea of compromises...it's worth pointing out what the topology of the pedal is. The signal path(s) are analog, with digital routing of components. This approach allows a lot more flexibility and authenticity than would available with a single conventional analog circuit with standard controls. I don't know exactly what is different between models, but you can have, for example different tone stacks and different placements of the tone stack (before or after gain) per model.

Full disclosure - I do not own this pedal, or the Bonsai; the only JHS pedal I have is a re-housed Dano French Toast. But I do have a Subdecay Vector and the Electron Analog Drive which have similar topologies. Both of these also use the 'analog circuits with digital routing' concept and you can really hear as you flip through that these are genuinely different circuits with different feels, different breakup characteristics, different noise floors. JHS is going for a somewhat narrower palette, doing variations of one circuit rather than completely different ones, but any compromise is far less than one might expect. It's also worth keeping in mind that Muffs could vary in sound between the same production run depending on what components were on hand, and component age can affect this as well.

 

[Vhailor]

@Vhailor the manual outlines settings for a number of muff types. I've not tried the pedal and can't comment per the quality of the tone.

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...4abb/1552432852472/de-la-riva-bm20-manual.pdf

[no affiliation]

Yes, but would you want to use it in a live performance and have to repatch / reprogram the thing between songs?

And just to make it a wee bit more interesting, know that the pedal comes with a "Super pointy guitar pick" in the box, for the expressed purpose of setting the dip switches! (See page 1 of the manual.)

: )

 

[Flatscan]

Your point is an excellent one.

Major tweaks would be problematic - especially if you made several per show.

 

[Jess 1971]

Personally, I'd rather have one really excellent example of each sound. If you can achieve that in the Muffaletta, then awesome. I don't really care for the Triangle or Russian Muffs a whole lot, but I LOVE the Ram's Head and the Op-Amp. So I have a Wren and Cuff Eye See '78 and the new EHX Ram's Head reissue (which is completely awesome by the way).

I'm all for traveling light though, so if you can get all the sounds you love in one cool pedal, then that rules.

 

[drbob1]

There's a fascinating pedal built by Fuzzrocious called the Feed Me that's basically the tone stack from a Muff with all the caps switchable, so you can completely vary the "notch" for frequency and depth. It'll turn any muff into a really interesting variation!