Three knobs: Volume, Tone, Distortion. A non-true-bypass footswitch. No power adapter jack so you must use a battery.

I should say that many pedals, in my opinion, don't need to be true bypass. Boss pedals, for instance, have a well-designed buffer stage so that sound quality is actually, if anything, enhanced by having the pedal in the signal chain but off. Anyway, this is not one of those pedals. Noticeable dulling of tone when the effect is not engaged.

Also, the shafts of the pots, to which the knobs attach, bend really easily.

It's hard to get a good sound out of this thing. Often the best results come from running two amps so you can mix the affected signal from one amp and the dry signal from another. In my experience this allows both for some clarity to be preserved so you can hear what you're actually playing and it also puts back the midrange frequencies that the pedal, when on, scoops out.

That said, in this application, this pedal has got me some really incredible fuzz tones that I've not heard anywhere else. I know I'm dissing it pretty hard right now, but, believe me, I have no intention of selling it. It has its place, and there's always going to be songs in any band that call for this particular kind of thick-fuzz-buzz-madness cocktail.

I can't really imagine using this live. The sound of the guitar when the effect is off just suffers too much, and there's no way you'd want your guitar to sound like this on every song.

Also, as I said before, when the effect is on, even though the quality of the distortion is great, there's this weird mid-range scoop that happens. Unless you're playing metal only, it seems like you want to have a mid-boost rather than a mid-cut when you turn the distortion on. I don't know, maybe that's just me. Anyway, the distortion has great boomy low end and sparkling high end fizz. Like -- I don't know -- carbonated molasses, maybe?

As I said before, I've found the need to overcome the lack of mid response and the sometimes muddy-ing quality of the distortion by running a mid-heavy clean sound on a secondary amp. This has given my one of my favorite fuzz tones in the studio. Whenever I record other guitarists I make them do a take like that, and they're always pleased with the results.

The Big Muff Pi is a reissue fuzz box/sustainer made in Russia. Its a very different manifestation of the classic in appearance, in a sturdy black metal casing with chicken beak knobs, and comes with a cool wooden storage box. It has 1/4" input and outputs, which are annoyingly on the opposite sides from where you would expect them to be, like other effects boxes.

Dialing it in is pretty easy and self-explanatory with just a gain, tone, and volume knob. I never used the manual.

I have to admit, I don't understand what the fuss is all about with the Big Muff, or fuzz pedals in general. Its thin, hissy, buzzy, fuzzy. It is not thick, pleasing, or even musical sounding to my ears. I played with it for a while, using my Les Paul style guitar through a small tube combo, and found no usable sounds. I don't think theres anything wrong with mine, I just think the overall tone of it makes me cringe.

I will stick with my TS9 Tube Screamer for creamier sweet sustain, and other pedals for more heavy distortion. This Big Muff just does nothing for me.

According to Electro-Harmonix, the Little Big Muff is identical to the Big Muff, only smaller. It's a rather basic, but seemingly sturdy stomp box fuzz pedal. One input, one output, three knobs (volume, tone, and sustain), and a foot switch.

I chose this pedal primarily as a compromise between the Big Muff and the Nano Muff. The Big Muff is just too... big, and I honestly don't understand why the pedal has to have such a large housing. The Nano Muff only has a volume control, and I wanted to be able to tweak the sound. But I really feel that the Little Big Muff is no compromise at all, more like the best of both pedals, and it seems deceptively flexible.

Some people have complained that it adds too much low-end. While I do tend to keep the tone above 12 o'clock, I feel there is plenty of room for adjustment, and it might be more about the amp they are playing out of; my tube Peavey Classic 50 makes this pedal sound a bit less bassy than my digital Peavey KB-60 keyboard amp (but surprisingly enough, I feel that this pedal sounds good through both of them).

I was inspired to try an EHX Muff pedal when I heard some of the gritty fuzz tones coming from Jack White's guitar on the DVD "Under Blackpool Lights." It's extremely easy to get a very similar sound with this pedal and variations on it. Perhaps this pedal IS a bit more bassy than the regular Muff, but someone searching for Jack's sound is probably better off with this one, because I feel some of his low end is probably coming from that hollow-body Res-o-Glass Airline guitar, as they tend to "growl" quite a bit. But most people don't have an Airline.

Anyway, to me this pedal sounds "full," so I'm not complaining at all about any perceived amount of low-end. It's got a sound that I like a lot.

There's no real manual to speak of. The instructions that come with it give a basic overview, and the gist here is that if you plug in an AC adapter, it must be outer-ring positive (like most pedals). EHX didn't supply an adapter with it, but they did include a battery. I've got mine plugged into a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus.

It's simple to use by just adjusting the three knobs. The volume, tone, and sustain all seem to have the ability to affect the sound, which is a good thing, because it gives the pedal quite a bit of versatility. I just love the sound I get from it, and it's hard to come up with a combination of settings that doesn't sound good. It does seem to get a bit too bottom-heavy with the tone control set low, but if you like fuzz, it'll be easy to get a satisfying sound out of this pedal.

In my opinion, it's a perfect combination of simplicity and versatility. Very easy to use.

"Sound quality" is an interesting metric for a fuzz pedal. As I said before, I love the sounds from this pedal. It trashes up the signal very nicely, though inevitably there will be people who do not like it for one reason or another. I was actually a bit shocked by how much I liked the pedal. It sounds a lot fuller than the overdrive box I have. I thought maybe the pedal would be redundant seeing as how I had two other fuzz pedals as well. But this pedal seems to have its own character, and a significantly different fuzz sound than the two Effector 13 pedals.

I play a Switch Wild One (single bridge humbucker with coil tap), an Eastwood Corona (SG clone, with excellent Eastwood humbuckers), and a modified Squier Strat through this and the rest of my pedals, and each guitar has some subtle differences that can be heard. It sounds good with all of them. It even cleans up a bit if you put an overdrive after it, but I'm not really liking much of the sounds I'm getting from my overdrive. A Boss DS-1 would probably be more to my taste than the AMT Du Hast pedal that I have now. But that's not the Muff's fault.

My favorite guitar, as far as sound from the Muff is concerned, is the Eastwood Corona, and it sounds so good that I often leave the other pedals turned off. However, a new addition to my pedals is a BBE Sonic Maximizer, and this makes the Muff sound even fuller. You can almost sort of adjust the tone of the Muff even further with this pedal. So while I liked the sound of the Muff by itself, I tend to leave the BBE on at all times.

***WARNING: THE FOLLOWING (RATED G, FOR GENERAL AUDIENCE) REVIEW APPLIES FOR THE BLACK RUSSIAN-MADE ELECTRO HARMONIX BIG MUFF (THAT ON THE PICTURE ABOVE), NOT THE EARLIER (USUALLY MORE EXPENSIVE) TANK-GREEN MODEL WHICH MAY SOUND DIFFERENT***

This analog stompbox is something in-between a distortion and a fuzz. The controls are Volume, Tone and Sustain (which also controls the amount of distortion). No D.C. in, and the input and output jacks are reversed compared with ALL other pedals that I've ever seen or owned... Please note that although some units (like mine) were provided with a true-bypass switch, not all were... This model is no longer produced, replaced by the U.S. Big Muff which is said to sound a bit cleaner.

Well, three mere knobs... could be worse, couldn't it?

It took me some time to get used to this very dark, grainy, almost experimental kind of sounds. I rarely use it alone, most of the time I have it follow a cheap overdrive which gives the Big Muff the mid frequencies that it lacks, and the whole provides for one HUGE distorsion sound...

The way the tone knob shapes the sound is a bit surprising as you get in no time from an almost total lack of treble to a shrieking sound. This pedal is rather versatile as it goes easily from punk to vintage rock to a growling metal sound (needless to say that in the latter case you definitely shouldn't expect a sharp-edged sound -- hey, that's a FUZZ).