Drunk Beaver Poltava DOA Muff

The Drunk Beaver Poltava DOA Muff is a Big Muff style fuzz that combines the 1978 EHX IC Big Muff and the 1989 Ibanez CR5 Crunchy Rhythm. Its roots are in the Opamp / IC Big Muff, but where the original uses an integrated circuit for its main gain stage, the Poltava replaces that chip with a Discrete OpAmp (DOA) built with BJT (Bipolar Junction) transistors, a design taken from the Ibanez CR5 Crunchy Rhythm. The actual op-amp used is a rather unique TI RC4559P type made in Portugal. Vitalii has also added a FET buffer in front of the opamp.¹

It was Drunk Beaver's 16th pedal drop, released in December 2023 as a limited run: 20 units were listed at $175 plus shipping on the Drunk Beaver Reverb.com store.¹

Controls

¹

The impedance switch

The Impedance switch lets you choose between Standard, around 56k, which is quite low, and Custom, a normal high impedance. Guitar Pedal X describes the difference this way: as with low impedance it loses some treble and becomes more gated, but with high impedance it's more open.¹

Clipping and circuit changes

The diode arrangement has been changed from the original six Silicon diodes, three in each direction, to LEDs plus Germanium types. Alongside the discrete op-amp gain stage and the added FET buffer, these are the departures from the stock IC Big Muff circuit.¹

What reviewers said

Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson, who covered the launch, wrote: "Vitalii's builds are always intriguing and he's definitely introduced some cool enhancements into this circuit".¹ In an earlier review of the builder's Secret Sauce Fuzz, the same publication said: "Drunk Beaver is quickly turning into my go-to supplier for cool extended-range fuzz circuits".²

Drunk Beaver has since continued the pedal drop series with limited runs including the Taras Bulba V2, Bashtanka Muff and Kupiansk Sub Fuzz. For more on the effect type, see Fuzz Pedals.

Questions