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EHX English Muff'n review

J

JLW

Dec 5, 2006
751
529
San Francisco, CA
#1
Got my English Muff'n

Excellent pedal. Goes from very soft smooth overdrive to crankin' distortion.

I am going to use it for every single song that I have. You can put the gain at about 8-9 o'clock and, with that setting, it would be very light, almost unnoticeable overdrive, but then once you dig in with your fingers the overdrive gets a bit stronger. This is incredibly useful for choruses of songs, etc.

Another thing I've been doing is almost using it as a tube preamp. I have the gain at like 7 o'clock (which is pretty much no gain at all), and just run it through the pedal to get a warmer, more round tone. For any who owns it, try it out, sounds really good.

It really does a great classic tube sound. That nice, warm, round tone.

Although, I have only played through one tube amp (a 1979 Fender bassman, which sounded excellent by the way). So I really can't say for sure if it emulates it that well, but to my ears, it sounds great regardless.
 
#3
Got any soundclips?!

I'm really looking forward to buying one of these soon, and probably using it just as you do as more of a pre-amp for certain tones... Kind of like a Sansamp BDDI, but with real tubes, and without the DI.
 
#5
Yea, I'm about to try it out with the full band tomorrow to see how it does.

This is said over and over again, but its true: What sounds good alone, sounds terrible in a band setting. So I'll report back and let you guys know how it sounds with my guitarist/drummer.

As for sound clips, I am recording on Saturday. I will probably use it for at least a few of the songs, if not all. Maybe I can fit in a really short 30 second clip with it turned on with no gain, and with it turned off. And then I'll post another one with the gain at 8-9 o'clock. By the way, I'll be playing using a Musicman Stingray 4 string.

I was looking for a pedal that gave me VERY light tube overdrive, and more of a round tube tone, and this is the pedal for that sorta deal. You can also get a surprisingly distorted tone out of it, but the difference that I've noticed compared to other pedals is that the notes are still clearly defined. But it still sounds very fuzzed. For most other pedals, once you turn the gain up, it starts to just sound like noise, not music. at least thats my opinion.

I cannot 100% recommend this pedal til I try it with the band, though, so I'll keep you guys posted.
 
#7
EricF said:
My Muff'n sounds good with my band. I hope you have the same experience. :)

:bassist: :bassist: :bassist: :bassist: :hmm:
4 out of 5 bass players think the Muff'n rocks. The other guy is bugged by the fact that it's really big and needs it's own power supply.
Click to expand...

+1 to the problems with it, but the fact that it's got tubes in it should make those problems seem obvious. If it's good enough, it shouldn't matter how much space it takes...make some freakin' room for it.
 
#9
Tried the English Muff'n with the band on a bunch of settings.

One thing I noticed is that in order for the overdrive to be really heard, I needed to crank the gain to around 10-11 o'clock.

I'm using the clean tube sound (gain at about 6-7 o'clock, no grind/overdrive at all) for a few of our songs as well. Overall a great pedal if you want to fatten up your sound.

I recommend it 100%.

I've tried the Ibanez tube screamer for overdrive, the TS808, and this is FAR superior to it. I've also tried the Bad Monkey, the Boss ODB3, and for what I am using it for this is the best.


Although, I haven't tried the more high end stuff (Fulltone bassdrive etc), so I can't say for sure if it's the best out there.

For my uses, it gets an A+
 

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