Cytomic "The Scream" stomp box distortion plugin

[jbraner]

As Liero has pointed some fuzz emulations are on the way, but The Scream is a completely different circuit to those so it's not possible to tweak some component values of The Scream and get anything close in terms of tone. The Scream does cover most common mods and popular variations based on the Boss SD-1 and Ibanez TS808 type circuits.

That's cool. My favorite pedal was my old Muff clone, hand made by some fellow in Victoria, BC. Just the right amount of nastiness, didn't kill the bass tone from my Les Paul, drove every pedal after it into fits of hysteria. (Oh, you like the digital noises from a Whammy? Put a muff in front of it, lol).

Never gelled with a 808-style pedal, too much midrange honk, but The Scream has been great. Wish I had a pedal that was as easily modded.

I got around this problem by buying a real big muff on ebay
There are loads available and they're not expensive...

[dangayle]

I got around this problem by buying a real big muff on ebay
There are loads available and they're not expensive...

I've had a few others since, but none really compare to the boutique one. Sadly, I decided to try my hand at adding a potentiometer between the input and I think the battery (to simulate sag), but I never finished the project and it sat in my electronic doodads box. Eventually disappeared, don't know where to.

[zenvoxpop]

Love the direction of high quality pedal emulations. Nice to see some dev on this rather under-represented topic. I'm sure there are bigger pedal geeks out there, but here goes my opinion.

From all the pedals out there, the most culturally iconic and simply coolest are:

Big Muff Sovtek
Dallas Rangemaster
Dallas FuzzFace
Maestro Brassmaster
And basically all of the other Maestro pedals

[Winstontaneous]

Never gelled with a 808-style pedal, too much midrange honk, but The Scream has been great. Wish I had a pedal that was as easily modded.

Ever tried the Ibanez SD-9 Sonic Distortion? It's a cross between a Rat and a Big Muff but with good picking sensitivity and none of the gross Tube Screamer midrange.

[dangayle]

Ever tried the Ibanez SD-9 Sonic Distortion? It's a cross between a Rat and a Big Muff but with good picking sensitivity and none of the gross Tube Screamer midrange.

I've never played one. Sounds cool. I owned a rackmount Rat unit. Noisiest thing ever, made my tube amp have fits. I'll check out the SD-9.

[andy-cytomic]

Never gelled with a 808-style pedal, too much midrange honk, but The Scream has been great. Wish I had a pedal that was as easily modded.

Ever tried the Ibanez SD-9 Sonic Distortion? It's a cross between a Rat and a Big Muff but with good picking sensitivity and none of the gross Tube Screamer midrange.

The SD-9 isn't much like a Big Muff. The SD-9 is a basic op-amp boost followed by diode clipper. This means you don't get the parallel drive like the TS808, but you can get the same "tone profile" with The Scream by changing a single component: switch on the MOD switch, click the MODS button and change C105 from 0.22u to 0.022u and you'll get the same 7kHz low pass post clipping diodes as the SD-9 has. The high pass cutoff for the opamp negative feedback in the SD-9 is already copied from the 808.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I had a big muff in high school (a green one) and one thing I always thought was cool but never understood was that while the tone knob operated predictably for most of the range, when you put it all the way down, it had some different effect, like it wasn't at maximum darkness, it had some kind of boost happening as well that made the sound ultra fat. I'd usually use it with the tone either around mid way or all the way down. What was this?

Side note, I used it with a Les Paul as well going into a fender amp. Best tone I ever heard!

[Winstontaneous]

Never gelled with a 808-style pedal, too much midrange honk, but The Scream has been great. Wish I had a pedal that was as easily modded.

Ever tried the Ibanez SD-9 Sonic Distortion? It's a cross between a Rat and a Big Muff but with good picking sensitivity and none of the gross Tube Screamer midrange.

The SD-9 isn't much like a Big Muff. The SD-9 is a basic op-amp boost followed by diode clipper. This means you don't get the parallel drive like the TS808, but you can get the same "tone profile" with The Scream by changing a single component: switch on the MOD switch, click the MODS button and change C105 from 0.22u to 0.022u and you'll get the same 7kHz low pass post clipping diodes as the SD-9 has. The high pass cutoff for the opamp negative feedback in the SD-9 is already copied from the 808.

Interesting, thanks! Downloaded The Scream demo, will need to check it out.

[andy-cytomic]

I had a big muff in high school (a green one) and one thing I always thought was cool but never understood was that while the tone knob operated predictably for most of the range, when you put it all the way down, it had some different effect, like it wasn't at maximum darkness, it had some kind of boost happening as well that made the sound ultra fat. I'd usually use it with the tone either around mid way or all the way down. What was this?

If you're asking me for input I have no idea! I've not modelled a Big Muff Pi yet, could be something to do with that circuit type, or something odd with your particular unit.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I had a big muff in high school (a green one) and one thing I always thought was cool but never understood was that while the tone knob operated predictably for most of the range, when you put it all the way down, it had some different effect, like it wasn't at maximum darkness, it had some kind of boost happening as well that made the sound ultra fat. I'd usually use it with the tone either around mid way or all the way down. What was this?

If you're asking me for input I have no idea! I've not modelled a Big Muff Pi yet, could be something to do with that circuit type, or something odd with your particular unit.

A friend had one as well and had the same behavior. It was pretty cool, it was like a whole different sound when the tone was all the way down, that changed suddenly when you got all the way to the left.

[jbraner]

click the MODS button and change C105 from 0.22u to 0.022u

Andy,
How do you do this? The LP_C105 is set to .22u, but to change it - there is a preset list and .022u isn't on it.
If I choose "custom" - how do I set eh value?
(remember, we don't have a manual)

EDIT - I found it. I had to click on "Full"
I'll leave this here in case anyone else misses it...

[andy-cytomic]

click the MODS button and change C105 from 0.22u to 0.022u

Andy,
How do you do this? The LP_C105 is set to .22u, but to change it - there is a preset list and .022u isn't on it.
If I choose "custom" - how do I set eh value?
(remember, we don't have a manual)

EDIT - I found it. I had to click on "Full"
I'll leave this here in case anyone else misses it...

It is there, but it is written using a different si-prefix:
u is the si-prefix micro = 10^-6
n is the si-prefix nano = 10^-9

ie
0.001u = 1n
1u = 1000n

0.022u = 22n which gives 7.2 khz - which is written in the brackets.

[valhallasound]

I had a big muff in high school (a green one) and one thing I always thought was cool but never understood was that while the tone knob operated predictably for most of the range, when you put it all the way down, it had some different effect, like it wasn't at maximum darkness, it had some kind of boost happening as well that made the sound ultra fat. I'd usually use it with the tone either around mid way or all the way down. What was this?

If you're asking me for input I have no idea! I've not modelled a Big Muff Pi yet, could be something to do with that circuit type, or something odd with your particular unit.

http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_guts.html

Check out the caps called the "CLIPPING/BLOCKING CAP" in the diagram. These are in series with the back-to-back diodes, that are in the collector to base feedback loops of the transistor clipping stages. These caps control the frequencies at which the negative feedback occurs. Smaller caps raise the minimum frequency at which clipping occurs. Below this frequency, the signals are passed unclipped, which will sound like a boost of the low frequencies.

The triangle Big Muffs, and the earlier Sovtek Big Muffs (Civil War, Green Russian) used fairly small caps here. This is why they sound so bassy - some of the low frequencies aren't being clipped, and are passing through at relatively high gains. The Big Muffs from the mid and late 1970s used much bigger caps for the clipping/blocking caps, which meant that pretty much all frequencies were clipped. Most of the current EHX Big Muffs use the bigger cap values, but the Green Russian reissue uses the smaller caps, and has a HUGE bassy sound.

Sean Costello

[andy-cytomic]

I had a big muff in high school (a green one) and one thing I always thought was cool but never understood was that while the tone knob operated predictably for most of the range, when you put it all the way down, it had some different effect, like it wasn't at maximum darkness, it had some kind of boost happening as well that made the sound ultra fat. I'd usually use it with the tone either around mid way or all the way down. What was this?

If you're asking me for input I have no idea! I've not modelled a Big Muff Pi yet, could be something to do with that circuit type, or something odd with your particular unit.

http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_guts.html

Check out the caps called the "CLIPPING/BLOCKING CAP" in the diagram. These are in series with the back-to-back diodes, that are in the collector to base feedback loops of the transistor clipping stages. These caps control the frequencies at which the negative feedback occurs. Smaller caps raise the minimum frequency at which clipping occurs. Below this frequency, the signals are passed unclipped, which will sound like a boost of the low frequencies.

The triangle Big Muffs, and the earlier Sovtek Big Muffs (Civil War, Green Russian) used fairly small caps here. This is why they sound so bassy - some of the low frequencies aren't being clipped, and are passing through at relatively high gains. The Big Muffs from the mid and late 1970s used much bigger caps for the clipping/blocking caps, which meant that pretty much all frequencies were clipped. Most of the current EHX Big Muffs use the bigger cap values, but the Green Russian reissue uses the smaller caps, and has a HUGE bassy sound.

Sean Costello

Thanks for the input! I understand the basic operation of the Biff Muff circuit, the question was specifically to do with the Tone knob doing something different when at it's lowest position - something would jump and the pedal would not sound the same "dull" way it did just before the lowest position is what I am understanding from the question. Can you please shed some light on this odd Tone knob behaviour?

PS: great point about the dc blocking caps allowing for a bass boost, I hadn't analysed the circuit enough to pick up on that. There is a wealth of mods in this area to alter the tone, for example it would be nice to add a shelving filter here to limit the total gain of the bass boost

[jbraner]

click the MODS button and change C105 from 0.22u to 0.022u

Andy,
How do you do this? The LP_C105 is set to .22u, but to change it - there is a preset list and .022u isn't on it.
If I choose "custom" - how do I set eh value?
(remember, we don't have a manual)

EDIT - I found it. I had to click on "Full"
I'll leave this here in case anyone else misses it...

It is there, but it is written using a different si-prefix:
u is the si-prefix micro = 10^-6
n is the si-prefix nano = 10^-9

ie
0.001u = 1n
1u = 1000n

0.022u = 22n which gives 7.2 khz - which is written in the brackets.

Thanks - but I just had to click on "full" to be able to actually change the value to a non preset one.