I need an opinion by hopefully anyone that has done this mod, just want to know its worthwhile before i dive into this vintage unit. I had just bought a version 1 Deluxe Big Muff (w/ “blend” switch) and came across a mod that was issued in DEVICE issue #7 in 1979 (Thanks to Mark Hammer for having this on his site). From reading the article about how to do this mod, my understanding is that it would increase the volume quite abit with the compressor in series with the fuzz plus add more definition and sustain. I’ve already verified that my unit can be modded according to this article I have found the pad on the circuit board that has the “fuzz”.

For the little time i’ve used this pedal, I have found that it competes quite well with my other muffs but I have some mix feelings about the unit in stock form especially with the compression in parallel. however with a blend of a more clean type tone (though compressed) may help with cutting into the mix with a band (i have yet to test this out w/ my band) but so far i am finding i always switch back to the blend off position, since with the blend on and the compression volume pot any more than half rotation when hitting the low E string the sound will clip slightly (i’m primarily using the wide range humbucker on my tele custom, not exactly hi-output) this doesn’t happen with the blend off and only fuzz.

so i’m looking for any other experience to support what is stated in the article, and i’m assuming that a modded version 1 is possibly preferred over the version 2 (with stock series/parallel switching) because i’ve read of lack of volume as a major complaint… sounds like this won’t be the case for a modded version 1.

link to the issue/article: http://hammer.ampage.org/files/Device1-7.PDF (mod starts on pg 5)

also can this mod be done while maintaining the original blend switch? i would still like to have the ability to completely remove the compression, from the article this can be done with a 3pdt switch… but can it be done by leaving the stock blend switch and adding the dpdt series/parallel switch for the mod and possibly drilling a another hole in the enclosure? (though may not want to do this modification on a vintage unit)