First off, let’s tidy up the terminology: there ARE no “germanium chips”.

Second, consider that, if anyone could or would do it, Mike Matthews and EHX would arrange for production of a limited run of germanium transistors, or at the very least buy up the world’s NOS supply (or close to it) of a given germanium transistor, the way he did with the Matsushita MN3005 for the Memory Man in the 90’s.

That said, there is a LOT of unit to unit variation in germanium trannies, so you’d need to have a large supply of them in order to pick out the usable ones and have a dependable product. Small boutique houses can afford to use varying components, but a major manufacturer risks damage to their brand if they can’t turn out a consistent product that sounds exactly the same at every Guitar Center. Admittedly, this is but one pedal in a VERY large stable of excellent products, but even so, unit-to-unit variation within a pedal can breed some hard feelings and, in tandem with forums, can release a tidal wave of “bad press”.

All of which leads me to ponder that a) there isn’t a whole lot about the pedal that *depends* on germanium, and b) there is no grand plan to have as many of these in the world as there are Big Muff Pi’s. The one confirmed gutshot I’ve been able to find shows that it is mostly a surface-mount board, with what appear to be two pairs of germanium transistors mounted to the board, and a dual op-amp I each channel.

Thanks for that. It’s sort of what I thought I saw in the one picture I could find, but I didn’t want to leap to conclusions. Turns out, the conclusions were right. Chalk up another victory for intuition.

The NKT275 units are preferred germanium units for Fuzz Faces these days. I have no idea what sort of supply is remaining out there, but I’m pretty confident no company as big as EHX would launch a product based on it unless there was some sort of supplier big enough to justify the launch.

The distinguishing feature of the traditional transistor-based Big Muff is that it uses double-clipping. That is, it boosts and clips, then it boosts and clips all over again. The degree of boost used in each stage, and the manner which bandwidth is trimmed or enabled here and there, as well as the width of the scoop in the tone circuit, plays a role in the tonal quality found from issue to issue, not to mention within issues (according to Magic Mike himself in a business mag interview). That is not to say that other designs can’t sound fuzzier, but the sustaining quality of the traditional silicon BMP stems from the design telling the signal “Hold on a sec, I’m not done with you yet”.

The G4BM, in its use of NKT275s, and non-reliance (at least from the gutshot) on diodes for clipping, would appear to be another Fuzz Face derivative. It is nigh impossible to estimate the number of designs derived from the basic Fuzz Face structure utilizing feedback from Q2 to Q1. Over the past 50 years, they just keep coming and coming. And for good reason: it is a very rich test bed for yielding different distortion qualities via small adjustments to bias, feedback, etc. The early Muff Fuzz itself was a FF derivative (albeit with a fixed gain), and the Double Muff might be described as a distant relative of the G4BM by packing in two cascadable Fuzz Face-like circuits.

I have every confidence that EHX has gathered up a sufficient supply of NKT275 trannies to launch a viable product. That said, the supply IS limited. Assuming it hasn’t gone digital by then, I expect to see Big Muff PIs being made in some form a decade from now. The same can probably not be said for the G4BM.

I remember there was a schematic posted on the DIYstompbox forum some years back (at least 10, and probably more) for a self-biasing Fuzz Face (used an op-amp for the self-biasing sub-circuit), that compensated for the sorts of temperature, and other fluctuations.

I also enjoy the serendipity that comes with analog gear. But then, I’m a basement noodle, and not a working musician. I fully understand the desire of working musicians to have something that does what you want, in the way you expected, at the time you need it to.

Unpredictable is good…when there is some predictability to it!