Troubleshooting a Black Russian Muff

[ScottyQBass86]

Hey talkbass. I bought a black russian big muff off of ebay (always risky...) a while back. For a long time it worked great, and sounded amazing. Lately it's been a little weird though. I know they aren't true bypass, but I think this is especially bad: sometimes it cuts either volume and/or tone a noticeable amount. Usually if I just turn the muff on and then off again it'll go back to normal about 2/3 of the time. I tried replacing the battery, no luck. From what little I know about how pedals work, but my guess is something wrong with the switch. But i came here because I don't know much. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[McSpunckle]

If you're going inside it, it might be worth a true bypass mod.

I think newer Russians have true bypass, if that's the case... well, those switches are crap and do go out. The only solution is to replace it.

A friend of mine had a pedal that did something similar to that. I went in to replace the switch, and found the battery clip shorting on the jack. I replaced the switch anyways just in case (and because I had already bought it), but I'm 90% sure it was just that clip, so I taped it back, and no more problems.

-edit-

But that's obviously not the case here.

 

[ScottyQBass86]

actually there was a problem with the battery clip, the red end came undone. I thought I had fixed it, but I actually have a spare battery clip lying around that I can try replacing the old one with.

i think it's one of the newer ones, but I don't know how i could tell

 

[McSpunckle]

If the footswitch has 9 lugs on it (three rows), it's true bypass-- and thus, newer. Assuming I'm correct that the new ones are true bypass.

The battery clip being loose shouldn't cause this problem. It should at least bypass.

The first thing I'd try is simply replacing the switch.