Why We Keep Falling for Discovered Circuits

I’m a sucker for a treasure hunt story.

Always have been.

So when I saw the headline, “Josh Scott discovers unreleased Bob Myer circuit in dusty workshop”, I was hooked before I’d finished my coffee.

A schematic lost for 50 years? The original Big Muff designer’s secret Op-Amp version that never made it to production? Found buried in a workshop full of old prototypes and handwritten notepads?

Come on.

That’s the stuff of gear nerd dreams.

I watched the announcement video. Twice. I read every article I could find. I checked Reddit for the inevitable skeptics (more on them later).

And somewhere between my third viewing and my first moment of doubt, I realized something uncomfortable:

I’d been here before.

Not this exact story. But this exact feeling.

The rush of discovery. The romance of hidden history. The sense that this time, the hype might actually be real.

I’ve bought more pedals because of their backstory than I care to admit. And I’m betting you have too.

So let’s talk about the Big Muff Pi 2, what “lost” really means, and why the pedal industry keeps telling us the same story over and over again.

The romance of the discovery

First, let’s give this story its due. Because honestly? It’s a good one.

Bob Myer was the original architect of the Big Muff Pi. He partnered with Mike Matthews at Electro-Harmonix back in 1969 to create what would become one of the most iconic fuzz circuits in guitar history.

Throughout the 1970s, Myer kept tinkering. Kept refining. Kept experimenting with new approaches as technology evolved.

Then, in the late ’70s, he drew up something different.

A hand-sketched schematic labeled “BIG MUFF USING (2 DUAL OP AMPS).”

His attempt to reimagine his own creation using the cutting-edge Op-Amp technology that had just emerged. A what-if version of his most famous circuit.

Fast forward to 2021.

Josh Scott from JHS Pedals and artist Daniel Danger are at Myer’s home, digging through decades of accumulated gear history for their upcoming book on EHX. The workshop is packed with old prototype pedals, tools, and countless notepads filled with circuit ideas.

And there, on a loose sheet of paper, they find it.

The dual Op-Amp Big Muff that never was.

“We found it. We built it. And have brought it to life,” Scott said in the announcement.

They breadboarded the circuit exactly as Myer drew it. And according to JHS, they immediately knew they had something worth making.

I have to admit. When I first read all this, I felt that familiar tingle. The same feeling I got when I learned about the Klon Centaur’s mysterious gooped circuit. The same rush I felt reading about vintage units with magical transistors that could never be replicated.

The feeling that says: this isn’t just a pedal. This is history.

And that feeling? That’s exactly what we need to talk about.

Lost vs passed over

Here’s where the story gets more interesting.

This circuit wasn’t hidden in a vault. It wasn’t buried under decades of forgotten junk. Bob Myer showed it to Mike Matthews back in the late 1970s.

Matthews saw it. Considered it. And chose a different design instead.

The Op-Amp Big Muff that actually made it to production in 1978? That was designed by Michael Abrams, not Bob Myer. Matthews picked Abrams’ version over Myer’s dual Op-Amp approach.

So the circuit wasn’t really “lost.”

It was passed over.

Now, this doesn’t mean the circuit is bad. In fact, when Matthews heard the modern prototype, he admitted it had “something special”, even though it strayed from the traditional Big Muff voicing he typically preferred.

“Sometimes the best creations are the ones that don’t follow the rules,” Matthews said.

That’s a great quote. And it might even be true about this pedal.

But here’s what’s been rattling around in my head:

“Lost” implies hidden value waiting to be discovered.

“Passed over” implies a business decision was made.

Both can be true. But the pedal industry, understandably, prefers the first framing.

A “lost” circuit sounds like buried treasure. A “rejected” circuit sounds like… well, a reject.

And once I noticed that, I started noticing something else:

This isn’t a new trick.

The archaeology of hype

The pedal industry loves a discovery narrative. We’ve been telling ourselves these stories for decades.

The Klon Centaur might be the ultimate example. Bill Finnegan encased his circuit in epoxy “goop” and let rumors spread about rare, out-of-production germanium diodes that were supposedly impossible to find. The mythology grew for years: no clone could ever sound identical because the parts simply didn’t exist anymore.

Then, in 2008, someone finally reverse-engineered the circuit. The “mystery” evaporated. It was a well-executed design, but not mystical. Finnegan himself later acknowledged: “The ridiculous hype that offends so many is not of my making.”

Jext Telez took a different approach with their Dizzy Tone in 2015. They physically de-soldered an original 1966-67 Elka unit and measured how the components had drifted over 50 years of aging. Then they sourced original germanium transistors to recreate not just the schematic, but how that specific vintage unit actually sounded. The framing? “Archaeology, not cloning.” Legitimate work, wrapped in a discovery narrative.

And then there’s the Lizard Queen. The most meta example of all. Josh Scott and Daniel Danger designed a “lost 1970s EHX pedal” as an art project in 2022. Period-correct fonts. Screen-printed logos. The whole 1970s EHX aesthetic.

It was a fictional discovery. Until EHX saw it and actually put it into production in 2023. Then it got discontinued in 2025, adding actual scarcity to its manufactured mythology.

They knowingly created the “lost” narrative, then willed it into existence.

The pattern is clear: most of these circuits were never truly lost. They were poorly documented, inconsistently produced, or abandoned when companies moved on.

The business behind the buzz

Let’s talk about how the Big Muff Pi 2 is actually being sold.

There are three ways to buy this circuit:

1. The JHS limited edition: $249, limited to 5,700 units. Big box enclosure, fancy graphics by Daniel Danger, and the satisfaction of owning a numbered piece of pedal history.
2. The EHX Nano version: $122, widely available. Same circuit in a smaller enclosure. No mythology tax.
3. The book bundle: Somewhere between $55 and $250 depending on what you want.

Josh Scott spent six years researching that book. That’s real work. Genuinely impressive work.

But it’s also a textbook modern pedal release. Story creates value. Scarcity creates urgency. Companion products multiply touchpoints. The limited edition sells out, which validates the hype, which drives demand for the mass-market version.

Good products still need to be sold. And if you’re going to sell a Big Muff variant, a circuit that already exists in approximately 47,000 different versions, you need a reason for people to care about this one specifically.

The Reddit problem

I should mention the controversy. Because it’s been bubbling up in the usual places.

Some folks on Reddit noticed that the JHS demo video didn’t appear to match volume levels when comparing the Pi 2 to other Big Muffs.

This matters because louder almost always sounds “better” in A/B comparisons. It’s a known phenomenon. If you don’t match levels, the louder pedal wins, even if the actual tonal difference is minimal.

One user put it pretty directly: “The test was unfair, even if the Big Muff 2 circuit is louder, or perceived louder due to more pronounced mids, there’s still a volume knob on the pedal to compensate for that.”

Look, I’m not going to pile on Josh Scott here. He’s done more to document pedal history than almost anyone in the industry. The book he’s releasing is a genuine contribution.

But the criticism isn’t unfair either. Demo videos from manufacturers are marketing. Always have been. The solution is to watch multiple demos from different sources before you buy anything.

So should you actually buy this thing?

Here’s my verdict:

1. The circuit is real. Bob Myer designed it. It sat unused for 50 years. That’s genuinely interesting, even if “lost” is a stretch.
2. The $122 Nano is the smart buy. Same circuit, smaller enclosure, no mythology tax. If you want to hear what Myer’s alternate-timeline Muff sounds like, this is the way to do it.
3. The JHS limited edition is for collectors and people who genuinely value the story. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some of my favorite pedals are ones I bought partly because of their history. Just know what you’re paying for.

The real question isn’t “is this pedal worth buying?”

It’s “what am I actually buying?”

If you want a mean, aggressive Big Muff variant at a fair price, the Nano delivers.

If you want to own a piece of pedal folklore, and you understand that’s part of what you’re paying for, the limited version might scratch that itch.

Just don’t convince yourself the circuit sounds better because of the story.

That’s not how circuits work.

Why we keep falling for this

We love “lost” pedals for the same reason we love any discovery story.

It makes us feel like participants in something bigger than a transaction.

Buying a pedal is just commerce.

Buying a recovered artifact is adventure.

The pedal industry knows this. And honestly, I don’t blame them for leaning into it.

I’m still a sucker for a treasure hunt story. Probably always will be. But these days, I try to separate the story I’m being sold from the circuit I’m actually playing.

“Sometimes the best creations are the ones that don’t follow the rules.”

Mike Matthews said that about this pedal.

He might also have been talking about how you decide to spend your money.

Cheers,