What’s not to understand? An OD tries to do that tube-distortion-clipping-thing. There’s a better, more technical explanation out there (I think the guy who designed the Polychorus has a better explanation on his website), but that’s what it’s for. A Big Muff does more of a fuzz thing. I think it was supposed to sound like Hendrix’s later sound (he did test some prototypes in ’69, but died before the proper Big Muff was released in ’70). Feeding the latter into the former makes noise. Lots of crazy noise. Desired by some, despised by others.

Me? I loves me some Big Muff. Black Russian goes into my VT Bass, which does it right for me. I also have an Octavia clone (I won’t name brands, save for the fact that Chicago Iron DOES NOT make it, and it’s made in the US), the OD on my Boss Rotary Ensemble, and I guess my BMS. They all have some dirt to them. Not exactly overdrive proper, but I like them, and that’s what counts.

sometimes i like to put my ds-1 with the distortion at around 10 or 11 o’clock or just a low setting and with that and the big muff pi at a high distortion setting, it adds more distortion to the big muff and really sounds cool for solos or whatever. and of course big muff and lpb-1 sounds great too