How does it sound?

Mudder has the same kind of diode clipping distortion that you know from the Big Muff, but Mudder removes the normal Big Muff tone circuit and instead utilizes the filters within the clipping stages to subtly shape the tone of the distortion.

Mudder prefers mids, which makes the pedal more usable in a recording or band setting. It also provides further tone shaping options with the "Smooth" switch and a more fuzz like distortion option with the "Boost" switch.

The classic Big Muff sound is very stylistic and cool. It can take you back in time to the 70s or the 90s, or it can take you far into the future. However, there are some situations where it can be hard to use. The tone circuit involves very heavy filtering which cut out a big part of the mid frequencies. Mids are a very important part of the guitar sound in most situations, especially in band and recording settings where the guitar needs the mids to cut through the mix.

Mudder tries to deal with this issue by keeping the classic Big Muff distortion characteristics while shaping the tone in a less invasive way, not cutting out big chunks of the signal but only trimming the bass so it’s less invasive and dampening the high frequencies to reduce shrill sounds.

The “Smooth” switch allows you to shape the tone additionally. The filter smooths out the high frequencies by engaging additional low pass filtering in the diode clipping section.

The “Boost” switch adds additional compression to the distortion, pushing the sound closer to fuzz. Engaging the switch will overdrive the input amplifier, making the signal distort before it hits the diode clipping sections.