Elk Sustainar

The Elk Sustainar is a vintage Japanese fuzz distortion pedal from the early 1970s, built as a copy of the Big Muff Pi, specifically the first "Triangle" version with its Volume, Sustain and Tone knobs laid out in a triangle¹². It was produced by ELK Gakki Co., one of the earliest Japanese makers to interpret the Big Muff circuit, and it survives today in small numbers at high prices³⁴. Its modern fame rests almost entirely on one player: Wata, guitarist of the Japanese band Boris, whose well-worn Sustainar became the template for the EarthQuaker Devices Hizumitas Fuzz Sustainar in 2021⁵⁶⁴.

For a player arriving at this circuit, the short version is this: the Sustainar is a Japanese Triangle Big Muff variant with its own component values, its own tone stack, and enough production variation that no two originals sound quite alike. It is not a pedal you can easily buy, but its circuit has been documented, cloned, and recreated by several makers⁷⁸².

Where the Sustainar came from: a Japanese Big Muff

The Elk Sustainar is an early-1970s, Japan-made copy of the triangle Big Muff, the Version 1 Big Muff Pi that Electro-Harmonix sold from around 1969¹¹⁰¹¹. Kit Rae's Big Muff history lists the Elk Super Fuzz Sustainer among the early clones of the V1 circuit, alongside Japanese and American copies like the Jordan Creator (circa 1971), the Mirano EF-1, the Sekova Big Muff, and later the Ibanez OD-850 and Maxon OD-801¹⁰. Japan in the 1970s had a busy pedal industry, and the Big Muff circuit was widely copied there; the Maxon D&S Distortion & Sustainer OD-801, circa 1974, was one of the most popular Japanese versions of the circuit¹²¹³.

Elk's version stood out for how closely it copied the original's presentation. The Elk Muff Sustainer was housed in an enclosure identical to the V1 Big Muff, with very similar graphics, and its circuit is a nearly exact clone of a 1972-era Big Muff made by the Hoshino Gakki company, built with PNP transistors where the New York original used the silicon transistor four-stage layout⁹¹⁴. Wren and Cuff, which has recreated the pedal, describes the originals as very cheap Big Muff "Triangle" copies made by Elk Inc. in the 1970s¹⁵.

How it works: the Triangle Big Muff circuit

To understand the Sustainar, it helps to understand what it copies. The Big Muff Pi used an independent four-stage silicon transistor circuit: an input gain stage, two clipping amplifier stages that generate the distortion and sustain, and an output recovery stage, with a tone control network between the clipping stages and the output¹⁴. The Version 1 "Triangle" Big Muff, nicknamed for its triangular knob layout, is the circuit the Elk copies¹⁰.

The Elk Muff Sustainer's circuit is identical to a PNP triangle circuit from 1972, according to the Guitar FX Layouts analysis that produced a stripboard layout for the pedal⁹. That means the signal path follows the Big Muff shape, but the Elk's own component choices give it a distinct voice. Two differences stand out in the technical analysis:

• The Elk uses 47n caps in the clipping stages, against the 1uF caps in the clipping stages of the common triangle Muff layout, a change that shapes how the distortion stages respond¹⁶.
• The tone stack is darker sounding than the originals, and the tone control sweep behaves more like a synthesizer filter than a standard Big Muff tone knob⁹.

Component quality is another part of the story. Wren and Cuff notes that some components in the original Elk Super Fuzz Sustainar would drift as much as 50 percent of their stated values¹⁵. That drift is one reason original units vary so much in sound, and it is a fact any buyer of a vintage unit should weigh.

For context on the circuit the Elk copies: when Electro-Harmonix reissued the Triangle Big Muff Pi in 2018, Kit Rae compared the reissue against vintage V1 units and found it sounded almost identical to a common 1970-71 V1 circuit variant in his collection, but slightly brighter, with basically the same tone knob range¹². The reissue blended component values from a rare perfboard V1 and a circa-1970 PCB V1¹². That kind of variation inside the official version is a useful reminder that even the original Triangle Big Muffs were never one fixed circuit, which is part of why Elk copies differ unit to unit.

Versions: from Big Muff logo to Super Fuzz Sustainar

The Sustainar's naming history runs in an unusual direction. According to EarthQuaker Devices' own history of the pedal, early versions carried a "Big Muff" logo, and the "Big Muff" name later disappeared, replaced with "Super Fuzz Sustainar"¹⁷. Stomp Under Foot, which sells a recreation, gives the timeline the other way: the pedal was released around 1973 as the Super Fuzz Sustainar, modeled after the early Triangle Muffs, and later the name was changed to Big Muff Sustainar¹⁷. The two makers disagree on the order, so treat the naming sequence as unsettled; what is certain is that both names appear on Elk's Big Muff-copy pedals from the 1970s.

The versions do not just differ in name. GuitarPlayer's Art Thompson, reviewing the Hizumitas, noted that he had tested different versions of the Elk BM and found, in his words, "no surprise," that they all sounded different¹⁸. Between Elk's component drift and circuit changes across the run, the Sustainar is really a family of slightly different pedals rather than one fixed circuit.

The Sustainar's afterlife in modern pedals is broad. Stomp Under Foot sells an ELK Super Fuzz Vintage Mini recreation³. Wren and Cuff's White Elk Small Foot is a recreation of the Elk Super Fuzz Sustainar¹⁵. The Guitar FX Layouts blog published a stripboard layout for the Elk Muff Sustainer in September 2018, including a version with a requested mids switch⁹. And Guitar Pedal X's reviewer has covered a Free Fall Diver pedal, the ReLK Sustainer Fuzz, based on the Japanese Elk Muff¹⁹.

Wata of Boris and the Sustainar sound

The Sustainar would likely have stayed a footnote in Big Muff history if not for Wata of Boris. EarthQuaker Devices describes the vintage ELK Big Muff Sustainar as the thing that makes her comfortable distortion sound, and her unit dates from around 1973¹⁷. MusicRadar calls it a rare and ornery Japanese take on the Triangle Big Muff that has been crucial to her electric guitar tone⁴.

EarthQuaker's blog records the character of Wata's unit in her own terms, including a fuzz to distortion ratio she described as "Fuzz 2.5: Distortion 7.5," a low fuzz ratio for a fuzz pedal¹⁷. The company describes her as a connoisseur of Big Muff-based fuzz circuits¹⁷.

That character carried into the Hizumitas. When EarthQuaker Devices and Boris launched the Hizumitas Fuzz Sustainar in November 2021, the company said it was based on Wata's main Elk Sustainar pedal, and Wata sent her beloved pedal halfway across the world so the designers could see what made it tick²⁶. The development story matters for circuit hunters: Premier Guitar reports that EarthQuaker checked out vintage Sustainars and Big Muffs and concluded there was too much variation to nail down a faithful copy, so Wata shipped her own Elk pedal to EQD headquarters¹. Pedal of the Day adds that the EQD crew got their hands on Wata's actual pedal to capture the sound she has had for years⁸.

The Hizumitas is not a strict copy, though. The Guitar FX Layouts analysis of the Hizumitas circuit found that, despite the claims, it is not a 1:1 clone of the original, as there are some changes²⁰. Gearnews reported at launch that, according to the company's website, the Hizumitas is a pretty faithful copy of Wata's go-to distortion²¹. GuitarPlayer's Art Thompson, who had tested the original Elk versions himself, found the Hizumitas indeed possessed a special circuit that produced heavy saturation with a gritty edge and massive bottom, yet a clear and dynamic presentation with plenty of mids and top-end bite¹⁸. For DIY builders, GuitarPCB sells an EQD Hizumitas PCB described as a fuzz/sustain effects pedal based on the Elk BM Sustainar pedal favored by Wata from Boris²².

EarthQuaker's work with Wata did not stop there: a later EarthQuaker Devices x Boris collaboration fuzz was also based on Wata's main Elk Sustainar pedal⁶.

How the Sustainar compares to other Japanese Big Muffs

The Elk is one branch of a wider Japanese Big Muff family. The Maxon D&S OD-801, also sold as the Ibanez Overdrive OD-850, was another early and popular Japanese version of the Big Muff circuit, circa 1974¹³. The Sekova Big Muff Model 2015 is likewise a clone of a triangle Big Muff, as the Guitar FX Layouts analysis of that pedal notes¹⁶. Where the Elk stands out among these is its enclosure, identical to the V1 Big Muff with very similar graphics, and its PNP transistor build, which mirrors a 1972-era triangle circuit rather than the later op-amp direction the official Big Muff took in the late 1970s⁹¹.

Pedals on this page

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi

Electro-Harmonix · Fuzz

EarthQuaker Devices Hizumitas Fuzz Sustainar

EarthQuaker Devices · Fuzz

$149 list price

Maxon D&S Distortion & Sustainer

Maxon · Distortion

$189 list price

Electro-Harmonix Triangle Big Muff

Electro-Harmonix · Fuzz

$112.5 list price

Wren and Cuff White Elk Small Foot

Wren and Cuff · Fuzz

$199.99 list price

EarthQuaker Devices Hizumitas Fuzz Sustainer

EarthQuaker Devices · Fuzz

$149 list price

ELK Gakki Co. ELK Super Fuzz Sustainar

ELK Gakki Co. · Fuzz

Electro Harmonix Triangle Big Muff Pi

Electro-Harmonix · Overdrive

$112.5 list price

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