# Trying to layout a muff on the breadboard



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

It's a little abstract for me to understand, but am I doing this right? I'm following this schematic, http://www.bigmuffpage.com/images/KR_1973_V2_No 3 Schematic.jpg


----------



## Dan M (Mar 22, 2022)

Yes.  
My only suggestions would be to 
1.  swap the 3 wires going to the bottom 2 rows, to keep + along the red line and - along the blue line.  Just to avoid confusion, but It will work the way you have it now.
2.  Pot pins are too large and can damage the breadboard.  I would move them off to the side and run wires like you did for the jacks.


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

You may want to pick up a protoboard if you’re enjoying the breadboarding process. You can swap pots out on a whim with no damage to the breadboard itself


----------



## Feral Feline (Mar 22, 2022)

Here’s my Quarantine (Muffish) breadboarded:


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

I think I am done, can anybody double check this for me?


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

What’s that 100n cap in the middle for? It’s not connected to anything


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

Fixed, I think.


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

Q2 diodes aren’t connected fully

Correction. Both sets of diodes need to go from collector to base. You may need to rearrange your layout

Also the recovery stage is a bit of a mess. Is it possibly to clean it up a bit?


----------



## fig (Mar 22, 2022)

Btr, fixing electron flows and cash flows like a boss.


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

BuddytheReow said:


> Q2 diodes aren’t connected fully
> 
> Correction. Both sets of diodes need to go from collector to base. You may need to rearrange your layout
> 
> Also the recovery stage is a bit of a mess. Is it possibly to clean it up a bit?


I'm literally just trying to make it fit, and this is the first I've ever done one, Thank you for the corrections!


----------



## Dan M (Mar 22, 2022)

It's looking great for a first try.  I've only done a few myself, you'll get better at organizing the layout each time.
Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work right away and you need to walk through it again.  

I like to think of it in terms of the nodes, and how many "things" should be attached to each node.
For example, all the red dots below are the same node (same exact place in the circuit) and all green things are hooked to the same node.
Likewise, the Q2 base also has 6 things connected to it.  Since you can only fit 5 on a breadboard line, you'll need to link a couple of rows to allow enough connections:


----------



## mybud (Mar 22, 2022)

Dan M said:


> It's looking great for a first try.  I've only done a few myself, you'll get better at organizing the layout each time.
> Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work right away and you need to walk through it again.
> 
> I like to think of it in terms of the nodes, and how many "things" should be attached to each node.
> ...


Once you get to a nice layout on breadboard, it's fairly straightforward to mount it on Veroboard for a more permanent arrangement. Just beware of the 'off-by-one' mistakes that I made, hence why some resistor legs are squew in the example.


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)




----------



## Dan M (Mar 22, 2022)

Did you lose the 0.1 uF that goes from the diodes back to the base of Q2 and Q3?


----------



## Dan M (Mar 22, 2022)

And don’t get frustrated.  I spent 3 days debugging this mess.  I had ONE resistor going to V+ that should have been going to ground.  I had to walk away from it multiple times.  I was about to tear the whole thing apart!


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

Yea I'm definitely ok with taking my time and getting all the help I need. I want to learn.


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

For what it’s worth you CAN build a full muff on a small breadboard


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

No signal is going into q2. There needs to be a jumper to base

 Think there needs to be a cap from q3 collector to tone stack but I can pull up the schematic

Your 33k resistor in the tone stack can’t start and end in the same column


----------



## mybud (Mar 22, 2022)

There’s a reasonably priced Kindle edition of the esteemed Jack Orman’s book on the Big Muff, which is technical (at a level that even I can understand) and a great read on the various versions of the Muff through history  Well worth the price of admission.

Good luck with your Muff endeavour. Crossing the fun barrier will surely happen.


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)




----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

Nightendday86 said:


> View attachment 24315


In muff circuits all signal comes out of the collector pins and into a decoupling cap (100n usually) You layout has signal coming out of the bases


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

BuddytheReow said:


> In muff circuits all signal comes out of the collector pins and into a decoupling cap (100n usually) You layout has signal coming out of the bases


So I should just start over from scratch and try again.


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

Nightendday86 said:


> So I should just start over from scratch and try again.


Perhaps. It’s not bad for a first attempt. I would also take a look at some of the tutorials in the test kitchen to get a sense of schematic to breadboard. The writer is pretty good 👍. Here are some tips:

Keep things neat. They will be easier for you and us to trace for troubleshooting

Try to make the layout match the schematic in terms of flow

You can jumper across the middle channel giving you a total of 8 holes (after jumper use) to work with. This will be needed to keep a neater muff layout

You’ve also got issues on your tone stack section. It won’t work in your layout. Check out the tone control tutorial for some tips


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

I tried to be a little more neat...


----------



## fig (Mar 22, 2022)

Looks like the jumper from Q2 to the .1uF missed the .1uF?

Oh, nevermind...just my alignment..LOL!


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

Much better! Are those 100k resistors from emitter correct? 100ohm would make more sense


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

BuddytheReow said:


> Much better! Are those 100k resistors from emitter correct? 100ohm would make more sense


It autofills k, thanks for catching that for me!!


----------



## mdc (Mar 22, 2022)

I'd strongly suggest that instead of trying to work out the whole thing in one fell swoop, you work through the schematic stage by stage by stage and troubleshoot as you go. 

The big muff is a really great choice since it's just one thing plugged into another thing plugged into another thing, so there's always an easy place to stop and make sure you haven't dropped in the wrong value resistor or you've got a dead row or a short on the breadboard.

See if you can get the input resistor to the sustain control working and move on to the first clipping stage, etc.


----------



## Feral Feline (Mar 22, 2022)

Dan M said:


> And don’t get frustrated.  I spent 3 days debugging this mess.  I had ONE resistor going to V+ that should have been going to ground.  I had to walk away from it multiple times.  I was about to tear the whole thing apart!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I feel your pain, breadboard brother.




mdc said:


> I'd strongly suggest that instead of trying to work out the whole thing in one fell swoop, you work through the schematic stage by stage by stage and troubleshoot as you go.
> 
> The big muff is a really great choice since it's just one thing plugged into another thing plugged into another thing, so there's always an easy place to stop and make sure you haven't dropped in the wrong value resistor or you've got a dead row or a short on the breadboard.
> 
> See if you can get the input resistor to the sustain control working and move on to the first clipping stage, etc.


This is exactly what I was forced to do with my February Muff, I wasn't getting signal out of the first stage (390k instead of 390-Ohms, I'll never live that down).

@Nightendday86
Tried to find the following last night when you first posted the thread,  but I was half-asleep and have no access to my computer at the moment so didn't have my bookmarks and couldn't find it online again... You'd think it would've come up with search terms such as "Breadboard layouts effects"; add my signature and searching PPCB and Talkbass (where I knew I'd previously posted it) and it still didn't come up last night; don't know why it finally popped up on radar today and not last night, I used the same damn search criteria... Grrr.

Anyway, enough whinging from me

BREADBOARD GUITAR FX

It helps if you can speak a bit of French, but is not necessary. Unfortunately there isn't a plain-jane Muff layout, though there is Dead Astronaut's Space Patrol, which is a muff with some extra switchable features (see below). Take a look at the layouts, try to get a feel for how they're being "flowed", and it'll help you with your future layouts.

There're several categories and numerous FX in each category:

* Effets *


Ampli  ( 2 )
booster  ( 8 )
Chorus  ( 1 )
Compresseur  ( 3 )
delay  ( 2 )
Distortion  ( 17 )
Divers  ( 1 )
filtre  ( 3 )
Fuzz  ( 22 )
Lo-Fi  ( 1 )
Octave  ( 1 )
Oscillator  ( 2 )
Overdrive  ( 20 )
Phaser  ( 1 )
reverbe  ( 1 )
Tremolo  ( 1 )
utilitaire  ( 2 )
wah  ( 1 )

Good ol' BEAVIS has some breadboarding tips:
beavis audio research


As already mentioned by BtR, there are some fantastic breadboarding resources BtR (and others) put up in the Test Kitchen.


Here's that Space Patrol Fuzz, don't let the extra switchery confuse, and you might just find his style/way of breadboarding is not for you:


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

Feral Feline said:


> I feel your pain, breadboard brother.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you so much for the information! those look might different from mine... I can't wait to try them out.


----------



## Feral Feline (Mar 22, 2022)

Nightendday86 said:


> I tried to be a little more neat...


It looks neater, but I think you've introduced some errors in the tidying up. Each clipping stages'  caps 1uF and 470pF are parallel to each other, which gives you 1.00047uF, but the schematic doesn't have those caps parallel each other.

Those 1uF are meant to be 0.1uF (100n) and should be only attached to respective bases and non-power side of the clipping diodes.
Easy solution, FIRST CLIPPING STAGE: extend the left side of the diodes two spots over to the left (keep the right side of diodes as they are) and move the "1uF" caps over two spaces — that'll connect one end of the cap to the diodes and the other to the base.

A little bit more involved shuffling things around for the second clipping stage, but I'm sure you can sort that out, maybe move the 10k onto an angle to free up space...


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

Feral Feline said:


> It looks neater, but I think you've introduced some errors in the tidying up. Each clipping stages'  caps 1uF and 470pF are parallel to each other, which gives you 1.00047uF, but the schematic doesn't have those caps parallel each other.
> 
> Those 1uF are meant to be 0.1uF (100n) and should be only attached to respective bases and non-power side of the clipping diodes.
> Easy solution, FIRST CLIPPING STAGE: extend the left side of the diodes two spots over to the left (keep the right side of diodes as they are) and move the "1uF" caps over two spaces — that'll connect one end of the cap to the diodes and the other to the base.
> ...


I think this should fix that?


----------



## Coda (Mar 22, 2022)

I breadboarded a BMP this afternoon (V6, minus the tone bypass…I’m outa switches). Anywho, it did require some troubleshooting. Turns out I forgot two resistors (most importantly, the resistor to base at Q4). Go through with a fine-tooth comb, and then don’t stop combing till it works…


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

Nightendday86 said:


> I think this should fix that?
> View attachment 24332


Q2 diodes should go collector to base. You can also remove the red jumper going into q3. Oh wait, I see what you did. Extend the 1u cap there one more column to the left. You’re really close…


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 22, 2022)

Piggybacking on what others have said, build this in stages rather than all at once. It’s a great way to solidify the learning and building processes


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

alright this is my last try tonight...


----------



## Nightendday86 (Mar 22, 2022)

I've already found what I think are errors, I'm tired, I'll go over it in the morning


----------



## Feral Feline (Mar 23, 2022)

The first clipping stage is still paralleling C6 & C12 for 1.00047uF;
The second clipping stage’s C7 has been shorted by the jumper above it.

My brain gets pretty foggy when it needs sleep; get a good rest and maybe check out Fig’s Anatomy of A Breadboard thread when you’ve a clear head. 
😴


----------



## BuddytheReow (Mar 23, 2022)

This will help too 





						TUTORIAL - Breadboarding Tips and Tricks
					

@Harry Klippton this one’s for you!  Not really a tutorial, but I wanted to share a few tips and tricks I've learned in my breadboarding journey.  First things first. Light up a diode!  One of the very first things you should do is light up a LED. It accomplished 2 things: you've verified that...




					forum.pedalpcb.com


----------

