Cornish Pedals?

Alnico

meltedbuzzbox said:

oh its massively subjective. 

If this was a moogerfooger thread I would be giving my support for justifying the cost of those. 
And my CS Jazzmaster etc 

Those big, full-fat Moog's are another one i would get a huge buzz out of buying. The 12 stage phaser looks and sounds as good as i''m sure it is.
That's just a phaser in terms of an effect but i know it's so much more and i so would !

Teetonetal

Threads about cornish pedals always make me feel uncomfortable about my own fx and guitar spending habit. 

500+ for a fuzz is loopy. No question.

But then so is a boutique amp a mb tele and most of my pedals... where is the line?

Deep down I know that if I only owned my mim tele the cub 12 and some cheaper pedals I'd be having as much fun sound more or less the same and about Hmmm 8 grand better off.

Which is why I think this hobby pisses my wife off no end.

mgaw

having owned a few Cornish pedals, i came to te conclusion that they have a sound that wasnt for me....certainly made me sound a bit like Gilmour and gave a "processed" sound.....i rarely use any pedals now TBH 

wayneirie

Surely a big part of gilmours tone is Studio 2 at abbey road, Alan Parsons, Precision engineered german Microphones, 24 track tape, god knows how many stages of compression plus splices, takes, edits years of playing with the same guys day in day out. etc and dave himself. 

Gadget

ruoma said:

... and the OC1 is super transparent indeed!

Especially until you realise that the 'blend' knob works the opposite to what you'd expect!

Sassafras

If you've got the money and it gives you pleasure then go for it.
If it was me and I had the money, I'd still feel like I'd been raped.

Wazmeister

Ive owned quite a few, and they are an experience to own; beautifully packaged and strong as tanks. My faves were the G2, and the  CC1 (still THE best eq ive ever heard on amp or pedal).

The SS3 was average imho, and all of them could be duplicated - in my case Bearfoot/BJFE knocked em off the board... ive played a P1 but hever owned one and Id like to... 

http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q493/Warren3333/Pete Cornish/P1030169.jpg

Jonathanthomas83

@Wazmeister what OD do you think could sound like the SS-3? The only one I really miss to be honest (except the P-2 sometimes).

simonk

I've never owned any but will admit to being intrigued. I do blanch at the price though and I'm not averse to splashing a bit of cash on such things. 
My question is, do people actually gig them? As I was wiping spilt beer off my Memory Lane Jr last Friday I definitely remember making a mental note to use the Boss board on NYE.

Wazmeister

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@Wazmeister what OD do you think could sound like the SS-3? The only one I really miss to be honest (except the P-2 sometimes).

I cant remember now mate, but I thought it was bang average. I probably had a LGW and Barber back then, or maybe a MHP 72 degrees (corking)... Not so the G2 &CC1 though...

Jonathanthomas83

To each his own mate. It was definitely a one thing wonder and I only used it sparingly on a couple of tunes, so I can definitely see where you're coming from.

I have to say, I've enjoyed some other pedals so much more than I ever did my Cornish pedals, and that sounds harsh as fuck, but it's true.

Sassafras

I must say, before this thread, I was mildly interested in Cornish pedals but the impression I'm getting now is that they're not that special.

Jonathanthomas83

@Sassafras They're worth trying just because they're considered the Holy Grail. And I can see why. Love Pete's work. I've had my fix and happy I did, I don't feel the need to own them again.

There's no special wizardry going on despite the hype, they're just exceptionally well built units, built for professionals and heavy duty gigging.

Brad

ruoma said:

The three Cornish pedals I own CC1, BD1 and OC1 all have a certain Cornish sound to them that I'm still now sure I really truly like. It's a sort of polished sound with a magical sheen, but at the same time it makes them feel not as direct and connected to my amp as my other pedals. I think it has to due with the bass knob on them, it goes really really low, I think 50hz, which makes them very very juicy, but a bit slow. The BD1 is a fair bit tighter than the CC1 though and the OC1 is super transparent indeed!

I'm also beginning to suspect that pete's pedals are pretty much all based on muff pedals? To my ears there's a certain mid scoopedness to the ones I have, even the CC1. 

Hmmm this sounds incredibly similar to my experience with the Van Weelden Royal OD actually. A nice pedal and all but too
hi-fi/slick in my opinion and if the Cornish stuff is anything like that, then I'm probably best swerving for the time being.

Thanks for all the input chaps, been an interesting read :-) 

NeilYoungFan

Gassage said:

Just re the prices...

A few years back Pete's son joined the biz and added extra soldering hands and help. Pete also got very fed up of people stagging on the pedals- so he started making them on a 2 week order, not a 2 year one!

Also, there's less need now for his uber rigs as gear has moved on. Even getting him to agree to making an all in one floor board is impossible.


As an example- I waited 3 yrs for my first P1 (number 35) - now you'll wait 3 days

Simple supply and demand.

Well said. Back in '09 when I purchased my first Cornish pedal, there was very limited info on them around, pretty much no demos at all and a myth that they were unobtainable. During the last few years supply has vastly increased, you see them frequently on folks' pedalboards and used prices have been lowered significantly.

colourofsound

I can't honestly see how any pedal can justify that cost. Recently I've been selling off the expensive pedals I have to replace them with pedals that sound just as good but don't cost the earth.

Cornish demands the price because of his history - it is coloured and unique and unlike any other single gear maker.

Having said that, there are pedal makers who design unique pedals from the ground up, are one man bands, and create products that are nice to look at, conveniently sized and built like tanks. @Magnetic_Effects immediately come to mind.

I've never heard a Cornish pedal, so bear that in mind - but I cannot see how the parts or labour or design is justifiably 5 times better than other pedals that do similar things. And I will never find out, because I for one won't ever spend that much on a pedal. £200 on the Bitquest made my skin crawl - thats as far as I'll go.

Gassage

I have just taken delivery of a 3Q-1.

It is quite astonishingly wonderous. It's basically a CC1 after taking valium- it's the EQ section. WOW is all I can say. First impressions are it is his best yet.

Moe_Zambeek

I had a G2/SS3 duplex for a while. It arrived (new) with one of the warranty seals broken At the time that was a big issue. Anyway I returned it for a refund, mainly because it wasn't really particularly impressive sounding - I was left somewhat baffled with the hype around them.

On the other hand, before buying the duplex I had a TB83 extra that I got used at a good price and that was a good sounding boost. Almost as good as my Pedalworx McBoost, which had cost me less than half what the PC did and took up a third less space.

I do have some of his cables which have lasted pretty much a decade with no problems, for me those were worth the asking price and then some simply for the durability (rather than their haunting mids).

Teetonetal

Talking of cables. In 1994 I bought 4 whirlwind cables. I've never used any other and in 2017 they are still going strong.

Moe_Zambeek

I still have a mid90s Whirlwind too, had a minor solder issue at the plug that was fixed by ICBM and still going strong. It's 20ft though so can be a tad long for some gigs.