Electro-Harmonix 1969-71 Big Muff Pi Triangle V1 Switch NM

No sales tax for US customers outside California.

This is THE Big muff!  What a clean machine!  A local customer found this at a recent yard sale - amazing!  He has his first baby on the way, so handing him some solid cash for this felt good!

Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Matthews recollected in 2007: "Back in 1969 I was already selling the Muff Fuzz, which was a mild overdrive circuit in an LPB-1 box. I wanted to come out with a three-knob distortion unit in a bigger box. I asked my buddy, Bell Labs designer Bob Myer, to design a unit — one that would have a lot of sustain. When I got the prototype from Bob, I loved the long sustain." Mike hand-wired the first run himself, including one for Jimi Hendrix. The guitar effects pedal that would define more recordings, inspire more circuits, and influence more players than any other distortion or fuzz device in history began in a New York City apartment with a Bell Labs engineer and a request for sustain.

The earliest V1 Triangle Big Muff, introduced in 1969, features a crude design with simple black font and very little in the way of ornamentation — the three control knobs forming a triangle in their layout, which is how the first generation came to be known as the Triangle Muff. The on/off switch configuration — a toggle switch rather than a footswitch — identifies this as one of the earliest examples produced, before the design evolved to the footswitch bypass that later versions adopted. The all-metal finish casing with simple black lettering and knobs in a triangle formation represents the earliest and most valuable model. 

The characteristic properties of the Triangle sound are smooth highs, warm bass, and comparatively low gain — even with the sustain all the way up, the classic Muff violin sustain leaps from the speakers, and with sustain down the Triangle functions better as a low-gain drive than later Muff variants, which only really sound good wide open. This is the specific voicing that David Gilmour and Carlos Santana used earliest, before the Ram's Head and later variants shifted the character of the circuit. Early Big Muffs were purchased and used by Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, John Lennon, Robert Fripp, and Steve Howe. 

Near mint condition.   A pedal from the first three years of production that Mike Matthews hand-wired himself in the first run. The reissue EHX released in 2018 for the company's 50th anniversary confirmed that original Triangle examples were by then selling for hundreds of dollars and that the circuit remained definitive enough to warrant exact reproduction. This is the original. There is no substitute.

Shipping policy:

Shipments will require signature on delivery, no exceptions.  If there is damage, the buyer must retain all packing materials intact and picture them immediately and send them to sales@maharsvintageguitars.com.  Less than 1% of our shipments are damaged in transit, and we are committed to making sure your item arrives safely, but we are taking these additional measures to make sure you are happy with your purchase.