pedals that miss the point

midiglitch

Bit of fun this one. ..

A couple of pedals I have or have owned that I really like but seem to miss the point (for me anyway), and just curious if there are others out there.

1. Memory box deluxe. An analogue delay with tap tempo. The great character of this pedal is due to its blurry analogue repeats. Yet typically when tap tempo is called for you want pristine crisp repeats, which it doesn't deliver-particular at longer delay times.

2. Fulldrive 2. Awesome sounding tubescreamer/sd1 style pedal when used to add focus and edge to an already driven amp. Ie as a boost or to tighten things up. So why then make the pedal twice as big and add an extra boost stage?! I don't want to boost my boost!

I know others will use these pedals differently and so have different opinions....

Drew_TNBD

Tap tempo is functionality, and doesn't have an inherent sound of its own. I really fail to see your logic Also using a TS to boost an already driven amp is only one way to use them, and thus I also don't see your logic there either.

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randomhandclaps

For me it's any digital drive pedal - they are just all shit. (I put the wink because it seemed to be customary )

Cirrus

Yeah I kind of agree with Drew here... Ok, here's one; any Proco Rat clone/boutique rip off of said Rat. The whole point of it is an aggressive dirty distortion with loads of attitude, and they're not expensive new. Why bother cloning them or trying to make a higher quality dirty distortion?

handsomerik

random tone generator by EHX. I watched the you tube video and it seems like a random tone generator. ...oh.....wait it's supposed to do that then!

Best comment on the youtube vid was "just what I need to spice up my blues solo's"

ICBM

Boss Fender Deluxe Reverb pedal.

I *so* wanted to like it. I really did.

But aside from the fact that it didn't sound very much like a Deluxe Reverb - although having a pretty decent chunky overdrive sound of its own - what use is an amp simulator pedal that you can't DI, because it has no speaker emulation? Or which has tremolo, but which you can't turn off without turning off the whole amp emulation (not without manually turning the depth control to zero, anyway)?

And not only that but which puts the controls you're likely to need often and to adjust finely - gain, volume, tremolo depth, reverb - on fiddly little stacked knobs but leaves the ones you aren't so much - treble and bass - on normal-sized single knobs…

So much fail in one small pedal. A real shame, it did actually sound good, but it's almost completely useless in a live situation.

Catthan

The DLSIII.. Didn't hear any Marshalls from it.. But it's probably me as others seem to be very fond of it..

Tex Mexico

I think most boutique overdrives that cost over £150. Firstly there's like four thousand of them so really what's your hand-painted variant of a three-dial 808 circuit really bringing to the table that's fresh? Secondly those overdrives only actually sound "wow" with a custom-shop tele into a low-watt handwired amp, but then that kind of rig also makes a £40 Bad Monkey sound "wow", and even then only if the guy playing it is any good, so who gives a shit.

Tex Mexico

I'd make the same comment about all of Dunlop's laughably overpriced signature wah pedals. I'm not paying an extra £200 for a paint job and a different tone cap.

daveyh

Everything that I don't own, or couldn't make work for me.

Tex Mexico

But crucially, and I'd include a large number of pedal makers here but Visual Sound are a good example, there's no excuse for making a pedal with two switches that are really close together. Is it that these manufacturers kind of know deep down that really most of these pedals are bought by tone nerds who will only ever switch them on and off by hand in their bedrooms?

ThePrettyDamned

Tex Mexico;74172" said:

But crucially, and I'd include a large number of pedal makers here but Visual Sound are a good example, there's no excuse for making a pedal with two switches that are really close together. Is it that these manufacturers kind of know deep down that really most of these pedals are bought by tone nerds who will only ever switch them on and off by hand in their bedrooms?

I've never found them too close together, even when stomping. Close enough to do both at once, far enough that you can easily do one.

I'd go with anything that uses a boggo switch for true bypass. They break. Use the same ones as visual sound, digitech or boss and I won't need to factor in how easy it is to remove the pcb, snip wires and strip them to solder to a new switch.

Obviously, the pedals with these switches are typically boutique because they're easy to wire.

Mooer shimverb. I hate shimmer reverb because it stops me feeling like a rock guitarist and makes me feel like an overly pretentious twat, but mooer had the opportunity to do something bargaintastic and ballsed it up by using 5ths instead of octaves.

digitalscream

midiglitch said:

2. Fulldrive 2. Awesome sounding tubescreamer/sd1 style pedal when used to add focus and edge to an already driven amp. Ie as a boost or to tighten things up. So why then make the pedal twice as big and add an extra boost stage?! I don't want to boost my boost! 

Adding level to a boost is very useful - people often want more than one level of boost. It works particularly well if arranged like the Valvesporker 2, where the secondary boost is only active when the main boost is (ie the footswitches don't work independently).

dogload

ThePrettyDamned said:

Mooer shimverb. I hate shimmer reverb because it stops me feeling like a rock guitarist and makes me feel like an overly pretentious twat, but mooer had the opportunity to do something bargaintastic and ballsed it up by using 5ths instead of octaves.

I rather like the shimmer effect of the ShimVerb. I suppose in the sonic melange of what I refer to as 'my sound' the fact that it is 5ths doesn't make a difference. As long as it shimmers!

My biggest gripe with the ShimVerb is that the reverb doesn't last long enough, which is why I'm selling it!

Another pedal I don't get is the Tube Screamer. Maybe it's coz I onl;y use tranny amps, but it just doesn't do it for me. Always sounds a little tame. Am I allowed to say that?

daveyh

digitalscream said:

midiglitch said:

2. Fulldrive 2. Awesome sounding tubescreamer/sd1 style pedal when used to add focus and edge to an already driven amp. Ie as a boost or to tighten things up. So why then make the pedal twice as big and add an extra boost stage?! I don't want to boost my boost! 

Adding level to a boost is very useful - people often want more than one level of boost. It works particularly well if arranged like the Valvesporker 2, where the secondary boost is only active when the main boost is (ie the footswitches don't work independently).

This.

I like single channel amps, I'll set the amp with a nice rhythm drive and the gtr vol full so I can easily back off for clean. The FD2 allows me to set two further levels, which I use for lead/fills etc and 'in yer face'.

PolarityMan

the metal muff was a huge dissapointment for me, not fuzzy enough to really qualify as a fuzz but not meaty enough to be a metal distortion.

guitarfishbay

Tex Mexico said:

I'd make the same comment about all of Dunlop's laughably overpriced signature wah pedals. I'm not paying an extra £200 for a paint job and a different tone cap.

The Dime Wah is worth it over the 535Q, I A/B'd the two and the Dime won on sound and design IMO.

It has status lights for on/off and boost on/off, an extra top frequency control, skateboard grip (great upgrade) and can be wired to go right in -> left out or even left in -> left out.  All pretty decent upgrades IMO.

The camo paintjob does look a bit stupid though!

Dave_Mc

Tex Mexico said:

I think most boutique overdrives that cost over £150. Firstly there's like four thousand of them so really what's your hand-painted variant of a three-dial 808 circuit really bringing to the table that's fresh? Secondly those overdrives only actually sound "wow" with a custom-shop tele into a low-watt handwired amp, but then that kind of rig also makes a £40 Bad Monkey sound "wow", and even then only if the guy playing it is any good, so who gives a shit.

Agreed. The TGP brigade (somewhat superciliously, if you ask me) say stuff like, "Ah, you have to try it into a good amp to really appreciate it", but as you said, even cheap od pedals sound really good into those kinds of amps. EDIT: the cynic in me says they sound pretty good into even cheaper valve amps, too. )

The other thing that annoys me is sticking religiously to vintage-accurate spec even when there's no point. For example, no DC jack or LED status indicator, or sticking to half-assed bypass for vintage accuracy reasons (rather than just cheaping out, which sucks, but at least is sort of rational on a cheaper pedal).

Maxi

The Boss EQ-20 

Its a 9 user patch double stomp (2 foot switches) EQ pedal but you cant scroll through the patches using your foot :>

Also the JamMan solo xt is totally powerful a brilliant looper but such a small footprint means it takes up twice as much space once youve bought the remote patch switch . The bigger one has smaller footprint .

ICBM

Dave_Mc said:

The other thing that annoys me is sticking religiously to vintage-accurate spec even when there's no point. For example, no DC jack or LED status indicator, or sticking to half-assed bypass for vintage accuracy reasons (rather than just cheaping out, which sucks, but at least is sort of rational on a cheaper pedal).

This is very prevalent on a lot of gear, not just pedals.

For example, why do modern Strats have two tone controls? Do you know anyone who uses even one of them, let alone sets them differently?

Axe_meister

Depends I use the TBX control and the tone knob quite a bit on my US standard.
My bitsa strat has been reworded so one tone knob works on the bridge the other on the neck so they do get used