Muff Circuit Volume Problems

[thg]

I recently built the Supa Tonebender and the 73 Rams Head and both sound great but have problems getting to unity volume. Not in a band setting, but by itself, so I know it's not just a mids problem. In fact the Muff is really quiet. Otherwise, they work perfectly. Anyone ever have this problem? Any ideas on what might cause this? I should add that I built a green muff from the site and it's fine, no volume problems at all. Thanks for any ideas/help.

[Marbles]

Could be a problem in the build, in that case maybe you can post some pics in the Debugging section?

Are you playing at home through a small amp? And have you tried the amp on the cleanest settings? My high gain fuzzes always feel like they're lacking in volume when played through my small VibroChamp if there is some gain on the amp channel.
On the clean channel it does get very loud.

[nocentelli]

The absolute output level of BMP style circuits is determined by the last transistor: The maximum output level is easily adjusted via the emitter resistor. As far as I recall, this is usually 2k2 - It is sometimes recommended that this be reduced to 1k8 for more output. I notice the two you have made have 2k7 and 3k3 in this spot (please first check they are actually these values, and not 27k or 33k etc), so you could try lowering these a bit for more output.

[thg]

Ah, good to know. I'll give that a shot and see what happens. Thanks.

[thg]

Had a chance to change the resistors, but it doesn't seem to have helped. I'm going to look everything over and see if there's some stray solder or anything else causing problems. If I can't get them up to snuff, I'll just do a rebuild. Thanks for the help.

[Silver Blues]

Yeah a Muff with volume problems is a big no-no. The Muff is one of the crazy-loudest circuits in the world of pedals. It's probably some silly error but give it a check and let us know.

[thg]

Finally returned to the volume problem and thought I’d write what I found so maybe it will help someone (not that it’s incredibly technical). It was some bad caps. I used them on both builds and that’s why they both had problems. Anyhoo, much better (and louder) now. Thanks for the replies.

[nocentelli]

Glad to hear you it sorted.