The Wren and Cuff Tri Pie 70′ is their take on the famous Muff "triangle knob" fuzz from around 1970. What W&C did is make what they consider the best-sounding tri-knob replication you can find.

Compared to the modern-day BM, the Tri Pie 70′ has less saturation, a bit less mid-scoop and more snarl, while at the same time possessing a smoothness that sweetens things in a very musical way. Its range is more useful, responds well to your guitar’s volume knob, and even gets into the overdrive zone at lower settings.

Here is one thing that sets the Wren and Cuff Tri-Pie 70’ apart from many of the other Muff recreations: Rather than chasing down magical part #’s and sexy looking transistors, the designers blind-tested a plethora of different types and transistor combos to come up with the sweetest mix of high- and lower-gain transistors that will yield beautifully rich and complex saturation full of color, bloom and sustain.

Contrary to popular belief, vintage “NOS” transistors aren’t that hard to find. Anyone that has a few good suppliers and is willing buy in bulk can get most silicon NOS transistors with a little homework. Problem is, the inconsistencies from muff to muff and gain variances between transistors with the same part numbers makes the search for the “right” transistors a bit pointless.

When someone is chasing after a sweet-sounding year/version of a muff they’ve heard or heard-of, they may not know it, but what they’re really chasing after is one of the really good ones within that version. The ones that randomly got the transistors that had the characteristics needed to produce a pedal that had “that sound”. Truth is, there was a much greater amount of consistency from pedal to pedal than germanium transistor based Fuzz Faces for example. But silicon transistors (which all the muffs had) were still “new” at the time and not nearly as consistent as they are now. So the inconsistency factor is definitely a valid point. And I’d bet my booty that most of the big names in music at that time sorted through more than a few pedals before finding the one that they liked.