Electro-Harmonix Worm- Any Good?

Dave_Mc

Hi everyone,

Came across this recently on the EHX site as I was giving myself needless GAS for bass pedals- not sure how I missed it before. Seems to be an analogue tremolo/phaser/autowah/vibrato in the one pedal- I thought it looked cool because I don't really use any of those effects enough to take up space on my pedalboard as separate pedals, but having them all in the one pedal I could maybe justify.

Any thoughts? Decent? Terrible? Good? I'm just looking at the bog standard, currently-available (new) version.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Dave.

stickyfiddle

Not awful, just a bit meh. And huge, unless they now do a modern nano type version

impmann

Deffo no. I had one and it was noisy and sounded 'meh'.

ICBM

impmann said:

Deffo no. I had one and it was noisy and sounded 'meh'.

+1

Crap. I think the noisiest pedal I've ever tried, and the effects weren't as good as I expected.

ThePrettyDamned

Newer ones are less noisy, but there is still a bit of a hiss going on... I had one and sent it back as faulty. It wasn't. I got my money back.

Fazer

heh, i tried it and didnt like it either.
all i can remember is it clipping the signal and being a bit too loud

Dave_Mc

Well that's unanimous )

GAS averted. Thanks everyone!

guitarcookie1

Actually, I liked the one I had but found the effects too subtle in use.

Headphones

Wise to avoid, it really is very noisy and barely does as it's supposed to, while demanding its own PSU.

Better with a trio of cheapos than one of these.

Dave_Mc

^^ Thanks. Yeah if they're a bit subtle (in addition to what everyone else is saying), then there's not much point.

^ Thanks. Yeah, I'm off the idea, don't worry. )

kelvinburn

Same from me. Owned the old and the new and neither will be getting back in the house.

Get a 2nd hand boss me50

Dave_Mc

Thanks.

Yeah odds are I'll just do without. I have the pedals separately, I was just hoping I could kill a couple of birds with one stone and save a bit of space, since I don't use those effects all that much. Apparently not, I guess there's no such thing as a free lunch )

ICBM

Try a Marshall Regenerator. In fact, you could get one *and* a Vibra-Trem in less board space than a Worm, and from memory for less money too.

Dave_Mc

Thanks

I might have miscalculated the size of the Worm... ) I was just assuming it was a fairly normal-sized pedal. In my defence, EHX doesn't have dimensions on its site (or if it does I couldn't find them).

Those Marshall pedals are digital, are they? EDIT: I'm guessing the regenerator is, current draw is 80mA. The vibratrem's current draw is 16mA so :-S

The Regenerator seems to be a bit dearer than the worm- ~£75 versus ~£55 for the Worm. The Vibratrem is a little less (£49). Not sure there's much point in the vibratrem, I never use vibrato and I already have a boss tremolo. The regenerator looks interesting, though, but if it's digital (and sounds like it) that'd be less useful... I'd rather have fewer effects that sound better (or at least more vintage, as this'd be for the pedalboard I use with my lower gain amps).

Also if someone could explain to me why Thomann has about a billion pictures of the vibratrem from every conceivable angle except for the one which lets me read what the knobs are and what features the pedal has, I'd love to hear it. ) Even the marshall site doesn't show the labels clearly, I had to download the handbook... )

ICBM

I didn't know the Worm was as cheap as £55… although that's still about £50 too much . Pretty sure the one I tried was much more, but it was a while ago.

I think the Regenerator probably is digital, although it sounds OK. The Vibra-Trem is definitely analogue.

shady

I wasn't blown away by the Regenerator, I bought it from digitalscream a while back knowing it was a bit meh...but it was an all in one itch I had to scratch and soon flicked it on. 

From what I remember, the step phase was the most interesting effect it did.  The vibe and vintage chorus was alright, but the flange and phase lacked summat and were just a bit poo really.

kelvinburn

There was an interesting pedal build on the classifieds based on an old magnatone amp IIRC. Pretty sure it was a bargain. Can't remember whos it was though

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

I didn't know the Worm was as cheap as £55… although that's still about £50 too much . Pretty sure the one I tried was much more, but it was a while ago.

I think the Regenerator probably is digital, although it sounds OK. The Vibra-Trem is definitely analogue.

I think it's actually £51 on thomann now... though that ~3% CC charge would probably bring it up to the guts of £55 anyway. And LOL )

Yeah I imagine the regenerator is digital with a current draw like that. But that might just be me getting the wrong end of the stick. Thanks for the info about the VT- I figured it might be with the lower current draw.

Are there any other decent mult-type pedals like this (without going full-blown multi-fx, as they're too big apart from anything else)?

shady said:

I wasn't blown away by the Regenerator, I bought it from digitalscream a while back knowing it was a bit meh...but it was an all in one itch I had to scratch and soon flicked it on. 

From what I remember, the step phase was the most interesting effect it did.  The vibe and vintage chorus was alright, but the flange and phase lacked summat and were just a bit poo really.

Thanks. Yeah I don't really want something which has a bunch of effects which are mediocre- I already have separate pedals for most of those effects so if the multiple one is poor I'll kind of notice. The marshall one may well be a good bit better than the EHX, but if it's still kind of "meh", it probably wouldn't be worth it. Just I was kind of hoping something might exist which might do what I want. )

kelvinburn said:

There was an interesting pedal build on the classifieds based on an old magnatone amp IIRC. Pretty sure it was a bargain. Can't remember whos it was though

Thanks, I'll take a look.

ICBM

I agree with shady - the Marshall is definitely one for if you want some or all of those effects, but aren't a big fan of any of them in particular and might only use them a couple of times in a set, and hence can't justify the cost or space of dedicated pedals. None of the sounds are outstanding, I only suggested it because it's much smaller and less noisy than the Worm while actually doing slightly more.

I don't actually know of anything that does these effects and isn't either huge, crap, digital, expensive or a combination of more than one of the above...

monquixote

I've tried a Worm. It was noisy and crap.

I can't really think of anything that does what you want while being analogue. 

The Hardwire Trem/Rotary does Vibe, Rotary and Trem. It's digital, but it's very good. 

The EBS Uni Chorus is small, analog, sounds very good and does chorus, vibe and flanger, but it's expensive.

Nux Mod Core is cheap, but digital.

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

I agree with shady - the Marshall is definitely one for if you want some or all of those effects, but aren't a big fan of any of them in particular and might only use them a couple of times in a set, and hence can't justify the cost or space of dedicated pedals. None of the sounds are outstanding, I only suggested it because it's much smaller and less noisy than the Worm while actually doing slightly more.

I don't actually know of anything that does these effects and isn't either huge, crap, digital, expensive or a combination of more than one of the above...

Thanks. Yeah that's kind of what I suspected once it became apparent the worm just wasn't that great- and I suppose being honest with myself even before that ), since if there were such a thing as an amazing-sounding phaser/trem/vibe/wah in the one small pedal everyone would own it...

monquixote said:

I've tried a Worm. It was noisy and crap.

I can't really think of anything that does what you want while being analogue. 

The Hardwire Trem/Rotary does Vibe, Rotary and Trem. It's digital, but it's very good. 

The EBS Uni Chorus is small, analog, sounds very good and does chorus, vibe and flanger, but it's expensive.

Nux Mod Core is cheap, but digital.

Thanks.

Yeah, that's what I'm hearing about the Worm. Don't worry, I'm not going to get one.

Yeah me neither

Yeah I've heard good things about the hardwires but never actually got round to trying one. Much like with the Marshall Vibratrem, though, the only one I'd need out of those 3 effects is the tremolo unfortunately.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that one. Knowing how cheap I am when it comes to pedals I imagine it'll be too dear, but I'll take a look for sure. If it did everything I wanted (and maybe a few other things besides) it might be worth it. EDIT: Yeah... it's about £160 on Thomann. If it did everything I wanted (phaser, tremolo and maybe chorus and flanger too in a perfect world), and everything well, it'd be worth it. It only does chorus and flanger, though. I think I want too much )

Yeah. I'd just be concerned, much like with the other cheaper options, it'd be a ton of mediocre-sounding things, and that's not really what I'd want. I think Beta-Aivin does a similar thing, a mult-fx in a Boss-sized pedal, but again if it doesn't sound good there's not much point.

Thanks for all the help, though, everyone, if nothing else you've saved me some money and from some pointless GAS, and that's always good. )