Standard Boss type power supply. Actually, I think just about all EHX pedals have gone standard.

Yes, you really need to invest a few hours in playing with the G4BM to hear the full potential, and I suggest trying each side out individually to find the best settings, then mess around with combining them together in different settings. Setting everything to 12:00 and playing with it for 5 minutes in a music store won’t really tell you much.

Looking at just the overdrive it, it is pretty good compared to some of my other overdrive pedals like the modded Boss BD-2 and Tube Driver. It does not get really heavy, but no need for that in this pedal when you have the distortion side going along with it. For my rig I have found the tone needs to be completely on the bass side for the OD I like. Another thing I have found – this overdrive is a great booster for a NYC Big Muff or Little Big Muff, either before or after it in the signal chain. Dial the BMP sustain about 30% or so, tone around 45% and drive it with the G4BM overdrive side – gain on full, bias at 70%, tone on 0. You can kick in the G4BM distortion side too for some added dirt, but it takes some messing with the controls on that side to get a good sound with the BMP.

I am still messing with the distortion side of the G4BM to find the tone I like best. Lots of good Fuzz Face type tones to be had here by changing the bias and volts knob, but it really sounds best in conjunction with the OD side. All alone the distortion is great for some vintage fuzz tones, but not quite screaming over the top like a vintage Fuzz Face. That’s where the OD comes in and takes it into that territory.

I am getting some killer tones through my Reeves Custom 50 with this pedal.

It is actually not a BMP tone stack, nor does there appear to be much similarity in the circuits, or the sound for that matter. I think the designer, Bob Myer (also the original BMP the designer), just went for a big Germanium sounding fuzz pedal, and with the added orverdrive section EHX probably thought it qualified as being in the Big Muff family, but its a GERMANIUM Big Muff – a new class of Big Muff. Or at least that’s how I took it. It could have been strictly a marketing decision to use the name, but I tend to think more care went into the decision to do it.

Killer band. Mark needs some Davies Molding replacement knobs for those pedals! Too bad this lineup did not last.

IMO, they do sound best when played through clean tube amps with lots of head room and little breakup. I have never had great results using them with amps that already have dirt, though some people do. The dual clippers in the Muff circuit create a very scooped distortion on their own, so throwing that signal again into another circuit making more dirt out of dirt can sound bad. If the amp is too distorted the lows can bottom out and you can lose all your clarity.

Billy’s amp was a Marshall JCM 800. Not exactly a clean amp, but based on the sound, pix of his Muff, and the pots, he was likely using an op-amp Big Muff, not a transistor Muff like the LBM. Op-amps react slightly different to dirt than the transistor Muffs do.

Not all the first editions had perf board circuits, just the very first ones. Once regular production got underway they changed to a printed circuit board. Email me the pix if you want to confirm if it is legit or not. My email addy is at the top of my music page, linked below.