Pedals I do not recommend

Branshen

I feel that my contributions to the forum have been mostly gushing reviews so I'm adding this to balance that out abit.

Boss BD-2: It was decent low gain, but if you turn the gain up, the infamous fizz really spoils the sound*. Also the tone knob is very very harsh* above 10 o'clock, and this is using a humbucker-loaded guitar on the neck position. The Keeley BD-2 solves all these problems.

Danelectro Fish and Chips: the pedal itself was decent but the construction was woeful. The switch had absolutely no feedback and felt like it could break at any time. I assume this is the same for all pedals of the same line. However, I do approve of the cool cat line.

MXR 6-Band EQ: Terrible terrible pedal. noisiest one I've ever had. The danelectro fish and chips worked better. And the Source Audio EQ blows the above 2 pedals out of the water.

Jim Dunlop 535Q (18V): Could not get this to work for me. The travel was too narrow* and didn't allow for any sort of expressive* playing.

Boss VB-2: I don't use vibrato, so this is not a real non-recommendation. I just have to ask the question: why is there a bypass mode that doesn't do anything? I cannot comprehend the logic.

TC Spark Booster: Again, not a real non-recommendation. Good* sounds but awful* switch, the most unsatisfying click ever (bar the danelectro fish and chips).

*YMMV

frankus

I don't care for the Fulltone Fulldrive 2 ... it insists upon itself...

The Guyatone ST2 - I hate that compressor -- it's the worst compressor ever... just hate it if you have one put it on eBay for a really low buy it now... as I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.

Dod FX57 - just dire.

ThePrettyDamned

I really liked the 535Q 18V - I always had it running at 18V and set for quite an aggressive sound.

But as you said, YMMV...

Pedals I don't like - 

boss eq (noisy, can be fixed easily but still...) 

MXR Phase 90 - it's great, but doesn't have much headroom so clips.  

Boss PH3 - traded phase 90 for one of these, and it's really bad.  It's the only pedal that's not a wah that I found genuinely tone sucking, whether on or off.  More so when on - the effect itself wasn't much cop, either.

ICBM

I don't much like Fulltones either - overhyped and with crap switches. I owned four Fulltones with a total of eight switches between them, and three switches broke. That's a really poor rate. Worse, the way one of them in particular was fitted made replacing it extremely difficult - it was actually easier to dismantle the broken switch and another one, and repair the switch without unsoldering it... a massive pain in the backside.

Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive - it didn't sound like a Tube Screamer which you could blend clean signal with, it sounded like a broken overdrive pedal with the clean sound completely separate from the drive, and not in a good way. The TS part sounded as middy and nasal as they usually do. Probably the worst overdrive pedal I've ever had.

Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Wah - bought on Ebay when slightly drunk and missing my old Sound City FuzzWah. The Dunlop isn't a fuzzwah, it's a wah and a distortion in the same casing, neither of which really sound anything like any sound Jimi ever used. I have avoided anything with the words 'Jimi Hendrix' on it ever since.

Line6 DL4 - it was actually pretty good until it had some kind of glitch at a gig, and started playing the loop sample from the previous song - no amount of button pressing or knob turning would stop it until I finally pulled the power plug out. After that I lost confidence in it and replaced it with a couple of Boss delays, at which point I was suddenly aware how much tone the Line6 had been sucking.

Roger Linn AdrenaLinn - it's probably a great tool in the right hands, but not mine. The first one wasn't too bad, but I found it made me play "same different" stuff all the time, very much a one-trick pony for me, and it was very hard to integrate into a standard live guitar setup. When they brought out the III I wondered if they'd changed enough to make it worth giving it another go, and foolishly bought another direct from the US to take advantage of a special offer - but after being ripped off by UK Customs and Parcel Farce it actually cost *more* than buying one at retail here... and I still didn't like it.

But none of that comes close to my Roland GR-09. Probably the single worst gear purchase I've ever made financially and because of what I did to my favourite old guitar to fit the GK-2A controller... which seemed like a good idea at the time. Just don't go there.

not_the_dj

Wampler Dual Fusion. Very overpriced, gutless "vintage side". Nice paint job though.

timmysoft

Mine would be the Suhr Riot, i've never owned a flatter sounded distortion pedal. I had a BBE Am64 that had more life and better tones than the Suhr, so disappointing considering the price.

Another would be pretty much any clone of the Rat2. Seriously, the original is that cheap just buy one of those! Hated the Black Secret and Akai/Biyang did one too that was equally nasty. At low volumes they sound quite convincing but as you ramp up the volume they start behaving in a different way completely, they lost the abrasive edge and ultimate power of the Rat2.

Dave_Mc

Biyang. They sounded pretty good when they worked, but the failure rate (including some of the replacements, and out of the box) was abysmal. I might have got unlucky or maybe there was a bad batch, but yeah.

thecolourbox

For me an obvious but true one:

Pretty much any of the plastic Behringers, I bought a load of them when i first got into fx and while they sounded good ( the boost and the octaver in particular) every single one of them broke for no apparent reason, or was noisy as hell with a psu.the metal box ones were a totally different story though

xSkarloey

Morley Classic Wah.

I'm sure it's great in the right hands but the name is misleading. It's only 'classic' in that it's Morley's own standard years-old design. In terms of classic wah tones (White Room/ Jimi/ Shaft/ Slash/ John Squire) it will probably disappoint.

It sounds more like a filter to me and the top end is clinically proven to split eardrums. The CIA probably use it as a torture device.

Weighs a ton.

Seriously, try before you buy. More of a 'oo-ohhh-ahhh' pedal than a 'wah'.

monquixote

It really shows that one mans meat is another mans poison. 

For example I love the Riot and the Black Secret, both of which are mentioned on here.

Zen Drive - Other people get great sounds out of them. I've had one on two separate occasions and both times I could get nothing but very bland overdrive which didn't stack well and it only worked into a clean amp.

MXR Dyna Comp / Super Comp - Sounds fine in a squishy sort of way, but it's noisy, overdrives when fed a hot signal and tends to either be too subtle or robbing you of dynamics. 

You Dirty RAT - Sounds great at home. Got completely lost in a band mix and has no dynamics. 

Anything Roger Mayer - Had a Rocket Mongoose sounded good, but was massive, no LED, no DC input, and broke down. Was in a band with a bloke with a Page 1. Again sounded good, but was needlessly big and broke down three times in 18 months. 

TC Nova Mod - Sounded good but was very user unfriendly and not overly reliable and also needs epic amounts of juice.

Fulltone OCD - Sounded horrible into my Pro Reverb, but amazing into my bandmates Blackstar.

Zvex Fuzz Factory - Sounded great, but the form factor is idiotic. The PSU input gets in the way of the jack sockets it takes up vast amounts of pedalboard real estate and it's really easy to knock the knobs with your foot meaning when you kick it on it goes into a huge burst of uncontrollable shreeking which can completely ruin a gig. 

Germanium Fuzz Face - Too spongy and not enough definition. I think I prefer the silicon. 

meltedbuzzbox

I like the danger factor of the fuzz factory and with the exception of the first time I pressed the switch on it and kicked the knobs its not been an issue.

Bad Pedals

Morley classic wah - it has no sweep. 

Boss - HM2,CS2,CS3,FZ(latest fuzz pedal)DS1,DS2, err the choruses I found all of them characterless

Vox Satchurator - just meh

TC Electronics Nova Modulator - not practical for stage use, too fiddly.

Marshall regenerator - terrible

boss gt series

DOD Milkbox - crap

Line 6 tri chorus - blerrrrrrrrrgh

JohnPerry

ICBM said:

Roger Linn AdrenaLinn - it's probably a great tool in the right hands, but not mine. The first one wasn't too bad, but I found it made me play "same different" stuff all the time, very much a one-trick pony for me, and it was very hard to integrate into a standard live guitar setup. When they brought out the III I wondered if they'd changed enough to make it worth giving it another go, and foolishly bought another direct from the US to take advantage of a special offer - but after being ripped off by UK Customs and Parcel Farce it actually cost *more* than buying one at retail here... and I still didn't like it.

I love mine but it has taken years to get my head round it. Some fantastic sounds in it. One of the tricks is to turn the A3's hissy reverb off at all times. And upping the Comp Drive a touch seems to eliminate tone suckage. Mine sounds fab now and the behringer fcb1010 works great with it with the EurekaProm chip. But it's a fiddly bastard, no question. Pedals i have hated? Blackstar HT Dual. Nasty. Also the Mooer Shimverb, horrible digital noise

crunchman

Blue Fulldrive 2 Mosfet.  Too bright and far too big with the useless boost function.  I had an early 10th Anniversay Custom Shop one which was voiced more like the older ones and sounded ok.  The overdrive side was good but the boost was useless and made it huge.

Marshall Bluesbreaker 2.  Awful.

Boss DD6.  Tap tempo was horrible to use - had hold the pedal down for 2s.  When you wanted to turn the pedal off again you had to hold the switch down for another 2s to get out of tap tempo mode and back into normal switch mode.  DD7 is ok as you can plug in an external tap tempo switch.  Don't know why they didn't have that on DD6.

TC Nova Delay.  Had two of them go wrong on me.

Planet Waves Pedal Tuner (can't remember model name).  Made high pitched hum when turned on.  Maybe partly a power supply issue though.  Velcro wouldn't stick to bottom.

Korg Pedal Tuner (long time ago not sure what model).  Sucked tone.

MXR Microamp.  Sucked tone.  Had to put it in a TB loop.  Have now built myself one with proper true bypass.

guitarcookie1

TS9 - meh

POG2 - nasty metallic overtones to everything

GT8 - what a pita to program

Nova System - pedals should turn on when you press the switch not when you take your foot off it..

Crybaby - instant tone suck

ThePrettyDamned

meltedbuzzbox;242052" said:

I like the danger factor of the fuzz factory and with the exception of the first time I pressed the switch on it and kicked the knobs its not been an issue.

Bad Pedals

Morley classic wah - it has no sweep. 

Boss - HM2,CS2,CS3,FZ(latest fuzz pedal)DS1,DS2, err the choruses I found all of them characterless

Vox Satchurator - just meh

TC Electronics Nova Modulator - not practical for stage use, too fiddly.

Marshall regenerator - terrible

boss gt series

DOD Milkbox - crap

Line 6 tri chorus - blerrrrrrrrrgh

Wow, I like the hm2, ce3, fz, ds1, ds2 (one of my favourite sounds ever is John frusciante opening slane castle - it's a ds2 on turbo, I'm sure!), satchurator was good...

I feel we might be quite different people

Wazmeister

Eventide H9 - sounded as cheap and as digital as ive heard.

GuyBoden

Any single gain stage transistor clipping pedal.

timmysoft

I love the conflicting opinions on this thread, really goes to show we are all different !

d8m

A wah wah. 

 When it's under Hammet's foot

57Deluxe

Digitech Eric Clapton Crossroads pedal - is the shittiest bunch of sounds that sound absolutely nothing like what they s'posed too...

I have some good Digitechs though so makes it doubly disappoint...Glad I didn't get lumbered with one...

(is not me reviewing!)

thomasw88

Lazy j. cruiser was a truly awful pedal that I could not get to sound good. Also really didn't like the full drive fulltone 2 pedal I had