This is one I've been working on for a while.
There's still some unanswered questions and puzzle pieces out there just floating in the ether, but at this point I feel like we have enough for a decent article.
So let's dive in, to the previously unknown history of the Elk Big Muff Sustainar.
This is going to be a long one...
Back in 2017 a listing popped up on Reverb.com for three Elk Big Muffs. Up until then it had been extremely rare to see one for sale in the US, let alone three different versions all at the same time! So without hesitation I pulled the trigger and snatched them up.
By that point it had become common knowledge in the vintage pedal world that there were a few different versions of this infamous Japanese Big Muff clone; the Elk Super Fuzz Sustainar, the Electro Sound Big Muff Sustainar, the Elk Gakki Co. Big Muff Sustainar, and the unbranded Big Muff Sustainar. Additionally, there were also two more oddities in the mix; the Maccanbell Big Muff Sustainar, and the This Sounds Better Big Mag. All of which were very hard to find, and any information about them was near impossible to track down, save a flight to Japan.
And if you're a regular reader here then you know that any time there's a combination of, Pedal + No Hard Evidence, it almost always = Misinformation. Which is exactly what happened with the Elk. The story ranged from "These were made as early as 1970!" to "we've only ever seen really clean examples of the Elk Big Muffs, so maybe they were made in the last decade and just appear old!" And this could have gone on forever, but finally in 2018 a very pixelated 1974 Elk catalog surfaced on the internet, and inside you could clearly see an ES-960 Super Fuzz Sustainar!
Now that I knew they were indeed vintage, and pictured in a catalog, it was time to start digging.
So over the next few years I was able to find even more appearances in print, along with photos of the actual pedals. By 2020 the Japanese market was beginning to open up to the US, and more and more resellers were not just willing to ship across the world, but actively listing on sites like Reverb.com and Ebay.
With each new piece of evidence we were beginning to get a (sort-of) clearer picture of the Elk Big Muffs. And in 2022 we got this important breakthrough when one showed up for sale with its original box! (*note, the knobs are NOT original on this unit)
So in 2024 I made it a mission to seek out all of the Elk catalogs I could possibly find. And with the help of my good friend Marcelo from Guitar Restos, we were able to track down pretty much every Elk catalog and brochure from 1970 - 1976!
The earliest appearance I could find of the Elk Super Fuzz Sustainar was from a 1973 Elk catalog. Listed as the "ES-960 Super Fuzz Sustainer" it sat right next to Elk's other pedal offering at the time; the WF-880 Wau Fuzz. The following year's catalog would replace the WF-880 with the WF-1100 Wau-Fuzz, and also include the WS-1400 Wau & Sustainer. Either version of the Wau-Fuzz was clearly made by a third-party manufacturer (and possibly even an OEM deal) because the same pedal could be found as early as the 1971 Guyatone FS-5 Wah-Fuzz. The Wau & Sustainer was even more interesting because it seemed to be a Big Muff circuit + Wah, but neither the transistors or the clipping diodes match those used in the Super Fuzz Sustainar. The enclosure is a clear ripoff of the Cry Baby, which we also see in the Ibanez/Maxon/Greco Blubber Wah and Pedal Phaser; which all lead me to believe that these brands simply purchased from the same supplier and slapped their logos on the effects, rather than manufacturing them in-house.
Unfortunately even though we were able to find all of these catalogs, we seemed to hit a dead-end when the Big Muff completely disappeared in 1976. And after seeing the two wah pedals, that almost certainly weren't made by Elk, a new question arose; did Elk themselves even build the Big Muff Sustainar?
So WHO actually built the Elk fuzzes? This part of the story is one I am still trying to find answers to, but luckily there appears to be enough available info that we can, at the very least, create a timeline of when each version was released and which of them were official Elk products and which, probably were not...
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June 1973, Music Life magazine, gave us not only the earliest image of an Electro Sound Big Muff, but also answered many questions we had been asking for years!
For one, it confirmed that the pedal had been released at early as 1973. This would have, in Japan at least, meant that the Elk version and the Electro Harmonix "Triangle" Big Muff could have potentially been sold side-by-side (which is kind of hilarious to think about). This also means that it was, almost certainly, the earliest Big Muff copy to have been made in Japan, beating out the Ace Tone FM-3, the Mirano Exciting Fuzz, and the Sekova Big Muff.
This ad also confirmed that the Electro Sound Big Muff was 100% an Elk product. Very few people were ever questioning this, but there are other ads, that we'll post soon, showing "Electro Sound" as the manufacturer, which did make it somewhat confusing.
And maybe the biggest question answered, in regards to the "Big Muff" labeled version, is which came first; the SustainAR spelling, or the SustainER spelling. And as we clearly see on both the ad and the pedal itself, the "ER" spelling was indeed the original.
Just two months later, in the August 1973 issue of Music Life magazine, we get two ads featuring the pedal. But this time they are divided as the Elk "ES-960 Super Fuzz Sustainar", and the Electro Sound "Big Muff Sustainer". With the latter now stating that "Electro Sound Co." is the manufacturer.
They even went as far as putting completely different addresses and contact information for both brands. Which I found odd, because it's clearly the same company selling both. Even the image on the box from the Elk, that we posted up above, is the same sketch of Santana that's in this Electro Sound advertisement. So what was actually going on here?
In the early 70s Electro Harmonix had almost no distribution outside of the US. This led to some very blatant copies (and in the case of the Soviet Union, very blatant counterfeits). And while I have no evidence for this statement, I believe that Elk could have intentionally named the brand "Electro Sound" in order to confuse and potentially mislead their customers into thinking they were buying a true Electro Harmonix product.
If this is accurate it would explain the two brand names, the separate ads, the two different addresses/contact numbers, the different spellings of "Sustainer/ar", and also this Music Mita catalog. But again, total speculation on my part.
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Both of these were listed as being Elk products and have those cool, but completely unnecessary descriptions of what each part of the pedal does. lol
I have to imagine that Elk was in possession of the two examples above of original Electro Harmonix Big Muffs in order to make their copies. But unless we talk to someone who was there in 1973, there's no way to know for sure.
In September 1975, from what I can tell, Elk discontinued (or at the very least, stopped advertising) both the Electro Sound Big Muff Sustainer and the Elk Super Fuzz Sustainar. Instead they introduced the "New Big Muff" under their Elk Gakki Co. brand.
This tends to be the most common version of the pedal, and were made seemingly by the thousands. It's very possible that production even lasted through to the end of the decade.
Taking all of this information into account, a basic timeline has started to emerge; with the Electro Sound Big Muff Sustainer coming first, then almost immediately after, the Elk Super Fuzz Sustainar, then finally the Elk Gakki Co. New Big Muff Sustainar. But it would take looking inside these pedals to get an even better understanding of what came when.
First is that small "Elk Inc." sticker on the front of the pedal. Which I originally thought was put there by a past owner, but since I discovered this example I have found 3 more just like it (same sticker, but the placement can vary).
The second is that circuit board. Not only is the shape not a perfect rectangle, like all other Elk Big Muffs, but the PCB layout is totally different as well! It's clearly the same circuit, and mostly the same components you'll find the early rectangular boards, but they apparently chose to redesign it at some point so that the Sustain pot wouldn't need the additional real estate. I have yet to find one for myself so I can not comment on any tonal differences, but even within the three I do have, they all sound drastically different. So at least Elk's inconsistency was authentic to Electro Harmonix's.
The second is that circuit board. Not only is the shape not a perfect rectangle, like all other Elk Big Muffs, but the PCB layout is totally different as well! It's clearly the same circuit, and mostly the same components you'll find the early rectangular boards, but they apparently chose to redesign it at some point so that the Sustain pot wouldn't need the additional real estate. I have yet to find one for myself so I can not comment on any tonal differences, but even within the three I do have, they all sound drastically different. So at least Elk's inconsistency was authentic to Electro Harmonix's.
This was also the first time I noticed the difference in spelling with "SustainER", and after seeing the early ads determined that most likely this was the original version of the pedal. It's definitely possible that the added "Elk Inc." stickers were done for some shops that preferred to have their branding on the pedal, and if these predate the Elk Super Fuzzes then this would make sense, as there were no other options at the time? But as of now, we can't say for sure.
Both of these were very short-lived, as they're still difficult to find. But with the amount that have shown up over the last decade I would guess that somewhere between 500-1000 were probably produced.
Again, the sound in every version (and even unit to unit) tends to vary enough that it's hard to say one sounds "better" than another. The transistors used in both V1's are silicon 2SA495's. Which you're about to see is just the first of many that Elk will use along their Big Muff journey.
The first is a brand new PCB layout and board shape. One that Elk will continue to use all the way through to 1976/77. Another small detail is the battery holder changed from the exact style that Electro Harmonix used in their pedals to a folded metal style that again, Elk continued to use throughout the remaining versions. Other than resistor choice, the general component selection is the same; including the 2SA495 transistors. And while I haven't mapped it out, I would put money on the circuit being identical to the V1.
The next big departure here is the Electro Sound version has switched over to spelling it as "SustainAR". I'm really curious why this decision was made, or even why they spelled them differently in the first place, but for whatever reason, now both the Elk and Electro Sound pedals spell it this way.
Oddly enough, three contemporary Japanese Muff copies chose to stick with the American spelling; the Guyatone FS-6 SustainER, the Aria Distortion SustainER, and the Aria Super Fuzz SustainER (which I feel it's safe to assume was a rip of the Elk).
That being said, some time in 1974 (or maybe even '75) Elk introduced two new knob options on both the Super Fuzz Sustainar and the Big Muff Sustainar. In addition to these cosmetic changes they also made a handful of updates to the circuit itself; keeping the same basic layout but changing the transistor type and some resistor/capacitor values.
Above are three different examples of the V3 Elk Muffs. Each one features four 2SA733 transistors, and a mixture of different components, but going off of possible dates on the caps, it seems as though they were all built within a year of each other.
Again, it's hard to know exactly when each of these were made, or if there's any relation at all between build-style and timeline. But what we do know is that a ton of V3's were made, and most of them featured the black Radio Shack knobs. The silver top hat knobs I wouldn't consider "rare" necessarily, but they were used significantly less.
This era is still a bit of a mystery, but luckily for us Elk had big plans for the Fall of 1975...
In the September and October issues of Music Life magazine Japanese fuzz fanatics would get their very first look at the NEW Big Muff Sustainar (or for the purposes of this article, "V4"). With a complete cosmetic overhaul, nearly everything about the look had changed. A new "Big Muff" logo, a new almost cartoonish font choice, a dark blueish text, a new set of knobs, and even a new company name, Elk Gakki Co.,
But, initially at least, the New Big Muffs would use the same exact PCB and component selection as the V3's. Even the same 2SA733 transistors were used, which most likely means that while they discontinued the older look of the pedals, they planned to use the already populated boards for the new design. And since the enclosures are identical, it may be safe to assume that they could have stripped them clean of the V3 text and replaced it with the V4?
Next up was what I'm calling V4.b. This unit again uses the same V3 PCB and the majority of the same components, except there was a brief switch over to the classic 2SC828 transistors (most notably used in the Univox Super Fuzz). And I haven't yet taken the time to see if any component values changed, but it is a possibility as well. (*note, I have found 3 examples of a V4.b, so I felt it was safe to assume this was a legitimate build)
This is a little harder to confirm without holding one in my hand, but I also believe that Elk moved from the dark blue text back to black for the V4.b, which would continue through to the final run some years later.
From 1975 on, it's difficult to pin down exactly when each new version was released. Which means we don't have the hard evidence to say 100% that this one came next and what year that happened. Either way, I do feel very confident that this ("V5") was next.
V5 kept in line with V4.b when it came to cosmetic appearance, but inside it was a complete overhaul! New PCB layout, a new way to mount the board, new component values, new 2SC495 transistors, and a tonal departure from its predecessors; the "NEW Big Muff Sustainar" could finally live up to its name.
Judging by the sheer amount of V5's that still exist I would have to assume that they were manufactured for a much longer duration than any previous version. But as of now, that's still a bit of a guess. Either way, if you happen to buy an Elk Gakki Co., Big Muff there's a good chance that the circuit pictured above is what you'll find on the inside.
Luckily, reader of the blog, Pedakichi, reached out about a month ago and sent me a few Elk Big Muff related ads that I had yet to find. One of which is from an April 1979 issue of Music Life (see above).
It's hard to tell exactly what is going on in the full page, as it appears to be an ad for an upcoming guitar show. But in the bottom corner is this section where they highlight an Elk Gakki Co., Big Muff Sustainar (that seems to be used?). So with only this confusing bit to go off of, we can't say for certain that Elk was still selling the pedal this late.
Living completely in the land of mystery are the This Sounds Better Big Mag and the Maccanbell Big Muff Sustainar. Between the two, I was able to find a "Maccanbell" branded guitar online, so I'm guessing it was either a music shop or small distribution company? But unfortunately I have found no information for the hilariously named, "This Sounds Better" brand.
As of now we don't know who made these, when they were released, or where they were sold. But after looking at photos of the two it's plain to see that they are identical to each other, and were certainly made by the same manufacturer. They both use the same combination of components, including 2SC710 transistors. And another clue is that they both feature an on/off LED, which did not become commonplace until the early 80s. Another indication that they were possibly made around this time is that the pedals themselves are much smaller than all of the Elk branded versions. The Boss and MXR influence had really changed the pedal game by 1980.
There are some additional clues here that point to a relation between these and the Elk pedals. For one, the layout of the PCB is very similar to the V5 Elk Big Muff, and of course that odd vertically mounted board that's also found in the V5. Another interesting thing I noticed was that the font used for the control knobs and the jacks is the same exact font found on the V5 Elks.
So were these the true successors to the Elk Muffs (the V6)?
It's very possible, and if they were made in any other country I would feel quite comfortable assuming that was the case, with all the similarities we've found. But this is Japan... and one thing I have learned is that stuff just worked differently there. So it's possible that Elk themselves had nothing to do with this, and if they were using a third-party manufacturer the whole time maybe that company tried to continue building the pedals after the Elk deal was done, and these were the only two clients they had? Another option, is that a completely different manufacturer just straight up copied the Elk Gakki Big Muff, shrunk it down, added an LED, and licensed it to these two random companies?
Here's the one you've all been waiting for me to talk about...
I promise I didn't forget it! What has become affectionately known as the "Wata Muff" (based on the legendary Boris guitarist, and inspiration for Earthquaker Devices Hizumitas fuzz) is long thought to have been the earliest and original version of the Elk Big Muff Sustainar.
Unbraned, with that oddly-chosen-font "Big Muff" blazoned across the front, this is the one that everyone seems to want! But what's the deal with it? Did these really come out first? And were they even made by Elk?
Let's have a look, and you can decide for yourself.
The unbranded Big Muff Sustainar is a bit of an outlier when compared to the Elk units. In addition to the obvious, it also has differences like the font for the control knobs, different transistors, and those strange yellow and black clipping diodes. The PCB layout doesn't seem to match any version of the Elk, and even the battery holder piece is cut to a smaller width (*note, the earliest Elk/Electro Sound Big Muffs used a completely different battery holder style).
One glaring piece of evidence that, at the very least, points away from this being the "original" version, is that it uses the name "Big Muff SustainAR". Because we now know from all of the earliest advertising that the Electro Sound Big Muffs spelled it as "SustainER". Another important difference is that PCB layout, which seems much closer to the V5 Elk Gakki Big Muffs than it does to any V1's. And finally, the unbranded version above appears to have ceramic capacitors dated to 1978 (I have found at least 3 other examples with the same date, and one that recently sold where the Sustain pot was clearly dated to 1976).
This is all to say that I now have big doubts that this either came before the Elk/Electro Sound Big Muffs, or was even made by the same manufacturer! But if it had no relation to Elk, then who was responsible for the unbranded Big Muff Sustainar???
One day a little while back I was randomly looking through photos of the Pearl, trying to figure out what type of fuzz it used, and then I noticed something I hadn't before. The Pearl had two sets of clipping diodes, and appears to use 4 transistors for its fuzz section. It was almost certainly a Big Muff variant and even showed similarities to the Elk Wau & Sustainer (as more of an inspiration than a descendant).
But the next realization I had was that the clipping diodes were the same, very unique, yellow and black ones found in the unbranded Big Muff Sustainar. And not only that, the Pearl also used the exact same 2SA564 transistors that the unbranded Muff uses! And upon further inspection, I realized that the circuit in the Pearl is nearly identical to the one found in the Elk Wau & Sustainer (which is essentially a Cry Baby wah circuit with a Big Muff attached). With the main differences being the circuit layout and that instead of using an inductor for the wah, it uses a transformer (which oddly enough, is what you find in the Elk Wau-Fuzz!).
So is this a scenario where a totally different manufacturer is essentially copying Elk and just selling the pedals as an OEM situation? Is it also possible that the Pearl could be an earlier build by the same manufacturer of the unbranded Big Muff? And if so, who was responsible for all of this?!
*WARNING, you now are about to enter into:
The Complete Speculation Zone!
The Complete Speculation Zone!
You may remember our last post where we talked about the extremely rare CS. Cathey pedals, and particularly the AS-01 Sustainer fuzz from that series. Going by the description and control labels alone it really sounds like the Sustainer was a Big Muff copy. Unfortunately we weren't able to find any photos of what's inside those, but there was a possible clue hiding in the knobs that were used. Featured on Univox, Sekova, and Melos branded effects, those tall black silver-top knobs are not found in very many other vintage effects. And the tie that binds them all is Melos. So is it possible that whoever was responsible for building the Melos pedals also built the CS. Cathey Sustainer?
If you're wondering why I'm bringing this up, it's because the Pearl Cry Fuzz uses the exact same knobs. And after doing some more digging, I figured out that both the unbranded Treble-Bass Booster (which may or may not have a relation to Melos) and the Melos FL-1000 Flange/Delay use the same 2SA564 transistors found in the Pearl and the unbranded Big Muff Sustainar. So what are the odds that a single manufacturer is responsible for all of these pedals? All of them, except the Elk Big Muffs that is.
Obviously this argument is a bit flimsy, but I think we can all agree that there's at least more evidence supporting this idea than the long-held belief that the unbranded Big Muffs were made by Elk.
BUT ED!!! WHAT ABOUT THAT UNBRANDED BIG MUFF WITH THE ELK STICKERS???!!!
It first appeared four years ago on a certain Japanese gear seller's Youtube video. And then again just last week when it apparently sold.
The lore of the unbranded Big Muff goes way back to at least the mid-2000s, and even then it was thought of as being an official Elk product, sans evidence. That considered, I don't really know what to make of the two "ELK" vinyl stickers haphazardly stuck to either side of this pedal.
Neither the sticker style or even the logo itself matches what we saw on the earliest Elk Muffs. And I could not find any other examples of an unbranded Big Muff with even the faintest outline of past sticker residue on its sides, let alone another one with any type of "ELK" branding. But I supposed we have to at least leave it open to possibility.
Could it be that Elk contracted two separate manufacturers to build their Big Muffs? But if that was the case, then why are there dozens of ads throughout the 70s for the Elk Super Fuzz and the Electro Sound Big Muffs, but there are NO ads (at least that I have found yet) for the unbranded version?
The logo on the stickers appears in Elk catalogs at least as early as 1972. And I was able to find an additional example of one (albeit a different type of paper was used) on what looks like the side of an amp, but it's hard to tell for sure what amp, and sadly there were no more photos available.
There's also another thing about this particular pedal; which is the obvious outline of a circular sticker that clearly used to be on the front of it, right in the middle overtop the logo. So we have evidence that at some point an additional sticker was placed on this unit and later removed. To me at least, it's very unlikely that any brand would cover up the name of the pedal itself in this fashion. But what do I know?!
Well this was definitely a super long one, but I promise it was all necessary to suss out what was going on with this iconic piece of fuzz history. So thank you for sticking it out and reading this far. I hope you got something new out of it!
And like always, if you happen to have any additional info on Elk that you think could help us, or if you know anything about the unbranded version, please leave a comment or feel free to send me a message via Email, Substack, or Instagram!
-ed
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