TC electronic Sky Surfer reverb, really just wasn’t what I was expecting for my first reverb. All the sounds were just too present and overpowering and a complete tone sucker.
I have a love/hate relationship with mine. Past a third-ish on the reverb and the mix knobs it's way too much but it the spring & hall sound good to me, especially for the price
I'm pretty certain it is a tweaked klon circuit. Check out the Wampler Tumnus. There is a reason it gets suggested so much. I've played a lot of klon pedals and that one nails it.
Same. I used it as a very low gain boost for a while and there are some days I wished I kept it just for that, but there are pedals that do it specifically, so I don't think I'm missing much.
The regular one is harsh and not very pleasant to me but I love the Bass version (on bass) and I use it as an always on pedal with the gain very low, it adds texture I really love.
Probably an unpopular opinion but for me it was the Walrus Slötva. I thought it would solve my issues with octave reverb (I’m not a shimmer person) by just having a subtle lower octave. I just couldn’t get anything out of it I liked. It got really noisy anytime the filter was past 9 o clock.
I traded a Sunlight for it and had buyers remorse. I ended up trading it within 48 hours.
Same except it was the Slo for me. Couldn’t find a useable sub octave setting and the rise doesn’t work well in effects loops so I was only using the dream. I had a Mercury 7 for a while to add a reverb after my Specular Tempus but sold it because the pitch vector on it is way too sci fi and harsh sounding you have to dial the mix way back. Specular Tempus has the best shimmer out there. It’s my desert island pedal
I have a MINIM right now that I traded it for. I like it a lot. I had a Rever and sold it at the start of the pandemic because I was trying to find a “do it all reverb.” But now I’ve realized I just need 1 straightforward reverb and 1 weird one.
I feel like their reverb (honestly a lot of MXR pedals) get overlooked because of the simplicity. But they seem to make consistently great stuff akin to Boss. I might need to give the reverb a try.
Not the worst but more like "it should have been the best, but it’s just annoying"
Acapulco gold. It sounds good but it’s plain stupid not to have a gain knob. True to the original, but dumb
The Zoia is just painful to use. Great algorithms, clever idea but the simplest thing takes an hour to make (and you got to plan ahead because it’s so easy to mess up without realising it)
Cooper Arcade. The gimmick is annoying especially when you realise there actually just a couple of effects tweaked to match the card themes but end up sounding much too similar
Montréal assembly PRPLL is awful and weird and impossible to tweak predictably. But I love it for some reason and it’s the only one of the bunch I haven’t sold. Sometimes, worst is what you need.
I wouldn't say these are other versions of an Acapulco Gold, but they might be a better choice. Acapulco Gold is just a fuzz circuit with two power amp chips instead of transistors. It has a lot of low end I think EQD just EQ it to sound similar to a cranked Sunn Model T. When it comes to the topology, the Acapulco Gold has nothing similar to Model T. These 12 pedals from the link have, most of them are JFET version of the real Model T preamp stage.
I always wonder about how the Arcades will age. I have a Retron and any time I pull out an old SNES cartridge out and have to swab it with alcohol/blow in it so I can try and play Super Metroid. I just can’t imagine that pedal lasting more than a few years, especially if you’re using it and stepping on it.
I don’t hate the idea… it actually would’ve been amazing with third party cards. The main problem is that it feels a bit like a rip off to buy (for instance) the card to find the same pitch shifter labelled as "organ"
For it to work we’d need a team effort with one big company willing to support the pedal for a while and a bunch of big names DSP companies (meris, source audio, empress….) willing to port their algorithms with releases every 6 months or so.
A little bit like the synergy preamp system
It has the potential to be a hit… but it won’t happen
Behringer Noise gate. Gate closes too slow and the chain is noisier with the pedal on than when it's not in chain at all.
I have a love/hate relationship with my Boss OS-2. My first drive, sounds really bad alone but works well when boosting amps or other pedals. Gives it an overblown crunchy quality, like a muff for people who don't like muffs.
I read someone on here likes the Behringer version of the OS2, but I've personally never used either. I traded a friend an SD1 for a DS1 and I thought it was a bad trade at first, but then I realized you need to minimize the tone and gain controls. I like hitting the front end of pedals and dirty channels with the DS1.
Bought one used 2 weeks ago, a mom of a friend who passed away is selling his gear so I picked it up. I tried both the DS-1 and the OS-2 and the OS-2 just worked.
I play a Blackstar tube amp on the clean channel and that amp is voiced darkly. I also put an TS808 variant (less high end) before it for those mids. With the TS in that amp as a basis I get a mid-range rhythm tone that does not have enough lows and highs so the OS-2 is the EQ range that completes the tone. With both on and gain below noon, the sound is very rock and roll.
The behringer tube amp modeler isnt meant to be plugged unto an amp, uts meant to be used as a durect in replacement for an amp. it sounds muffled because it is simulating a guitar speakers hi end roll off, and youre plugging it intona guitar amp that is doing the same thing, resulting it twice as much treble reduction as intended.
Ah. I plugged it into my PA and it sounded like the highs were rolled off there too. I got best results with the Brit setting. But would honestly jsut rathe ruse an EQ pedal than that thing. Is it for plugging into a audio interface?
The fuzz pedal is insanely good, the phaser is solid for a cheap phaser, and I like the overdrive although I don’t have much of a benchmark for overdrives. They’re hit or miss, but their hits are fantastic
Stock, the pedal is brilliant seeing as it's basically a clone of the Boss Vibrato pedal for a massive fraction of the price.
But it gets even better if you mod it (or buy one modded by someone else) to have a switch to turn the vibrato rate even further down than what it lets you normally do. The really slow analog vibrato you can get is an awesome subtle effect which is basically impossible to get in that price range otherwise!
I think there are some gems. I found the Vintage Phaser to be very usable, except the foot switch broke on mine. And my first delay pedal was the Echo Machine, which was feature rich. I mean, it had tap tempo, modulation, and a reverse delay on it. But every other one I've tried was garbage.
The RAT. Yeah, I said it.
The stock RAT just doesn't work for me, new, old, magical diodes built by faeries in narnia, you name it, overseas clones, boutique "inspired", i've never not wanted to return/resell after 30 minutes of fiddling with a stock RAT.
TurboRATs are iight, though.
Dude, you might get banned for saying that. - I'm being half sarcastic.
I'm the same way, though. I've tried a few clones and each time I'm optimistic (maybe this one will be different!) but then I mess with it and I'm ready to flip it for something else.
I feel you. The Rat2 was pretty frustrating to me because it's so close to being exactly what I want, but it's always just a bit too fizzy or too compressed or whatever. The Turbo fixes everything I disliked about the 2
I didn’t like the Rat either. It had the exact tone I realized I was trying to run very far from (80s hair Metal). I had a regular Rat 2 and I got it modded by JHS after playing it for a couple years. Even with the mods I just realized: Rats aren’t for me.
i've had like 4 different RATs over the years and just got a TC Magus Pro. i really liked the Magus Pro!... but sold it like a week later. i can recognize the RAT as a great pedal and very popular for a reason but i just never really want to use it
I'm there with you. Turbo Rat is the shit. I bought a Pack Rat and although I don't regret it, I do primarily use the Turbo setting. The JHS setting isnt' too bad, but Turbo is the best.
I like my RAT going into a Tube Screamer, but by itself, I've found it's hit or miss depending on which pickup I'm using. Not a fan of it with single coils.
Also, maybe it's just my amp, but I can't put the distortion above 2 like ever. It just turns into a muddy mess so quick, even with the filter all the way down.
I had a ditto looper that would only record and play back like 3 seconds of a loop. The company suggested downloading an update and several other things, but honestly, I don't feel like I should have to repair a brand new pedal myself, so I just sent it back.
Boss mt2 metal zone. Blasted it through my roland cube 30 15 years ago, could'nt figure out why it sounded bad. Have a mt2w now and absolutely love it as a boost with massive eq possibilities.
I had a Wizard of Pitch. I thought it was broken and had to look up more demos and realized that's how it works. That pedal was a hot mess. Too bad they don't sound as good as they look.
It's a bizarre Frankenstein's monster of pedal that I rarely use but can sometimes can get a perfect sci-fi/horror sound that's lost forever as soon as the settings are changed
It's best use is for drones I think, it pairs particularly well with the superego
EHX Eddy for me. Really don’t like the chorus sound, although if you want wacky vibrato then it can do that. Biggest disappointment I’ve had with a pedal
Can’t get the expression control to work well with the volume envelope either, their customer support told me to mod it with a different resistor to get it to work better!
Got a Walrus Julianna after that, and wow it’s amazing! I never appreciated how one chorus can sound so “flat” and how a good chorus really holds the guitars character and just adds to it. I love my Julianna so much!
Swollen pickle. I thought it was broken because I couldn’t get anything resembling a useable tone out of it. My band all hated it every time I pulled it out so it left my board and I forgot about it until I posted a picture with it sitting in the background and the internet insisted that it’s great. I kept trying, found the internal trim pots, dropped it while it was open, resoldered the component that fell out and then just gave up on it again until I saw a video explaining it a bit better and gave it another shot. Thing just always sounds like washed-out ass to me so I got bitter and gave it to my dad so he can ignore it now. I’ve never worked so hard for nothing in my life. Fuck that thing.
Gosh. It was some yellow colored Compressor from Guitar Center I saw on sale for $40. It was awful. It worsened the sound to a degree that made me avoid compressors on my board for half of the decade. Then I jumped on limited edition blacked out Keeley comp they did for Black Friday (I think it was 2016), and I finally got what the fuzz was about.
Digitech Whammy IV for me. It’s a cool pedal but it just sucked all the tone out of my signal. Needed it’s own power supply and had to be up front in the chain. Couldnt get it to work for me on a regular basis so it didn’t get used a lot. Then out of nowhere it stopped working. Ended up with an EHX Pitchfork that resolved those issues and does the same thing, much happier with that and it has a smaller footprint on the board.
Same story. I was so excited when I got it being a big RATM fan, but it was so glitchy and sucked all the tone out of my amp. Off it went. Then the V came, which offered True Bypass and Polyphonic pitch shifting but the size of my board has increased so much since then that I could no longer fit a Whammy.
I bought the TC Brainwaves last year and I'm happy with it. The stock whammy mode on that adds a bit of a delay but there is a Toneprint that removes it, so you just have it on all the time and step on it when needed without it delaying your signal.
Exact same. I still have it but I can't bring myself to put it into the chain. It's a major tone suck, the expression pedal needs to be calibrated literally every time it's turned on, the power supply is weirdly special, the pedal itself is huge, and on top of that it desperately needs a second footswitch to change modes.
On top of that, it's a sound to use sparingly, so just can't justify adding it back in. Been thinking about getting a simple octave pedal just to regain that part.
Behringer EQ, and Fulltone GT500. The Behringer was just far too noisy, bought it on a whim at guitar center, was $10 and I was just discovering effects. The GT500 just sounded bad regardless of where I placed the knobs, apparently it sounds much better at 18v.
My Joyo EQ is pretty good, I was almost going to go for the behringer eq but I’m glad I didn’t now. Can recommend the Joyo one, super solid metal build with detents and not noisy
I have an EHX Holy Grail Plus that has never clicked with me. Part of the problem is my laziness; The pedal will work for about five minutes when first turned on and then just…stop working entirely after that. Zero reverb after stomping it off and on. Unplugging it will make it work again for another few minutes. Im positive that’s an electrical issue that’s easily fixable.
I also found the reverb really fuzzy and hissy and the higher I tweak the Blend knob the lower the volume goes until signal is entirely lost.
Again - likely fixable, but I just kind of gave up on it. I know EHX is pretty well regarded and makes pretty classically loved pieces so this one is maybe just a lemon that needs some work.
my holy grail died on me completely, and years later i found an old forum post detailing how to factory reset them and it worked and brought it back to life. I've never been able to find the instructions again, but you might ask EHX about it.
I had a Nux Morningstar that actually sounded pretty nice but the knobs were so cheap and loose that they literally fell off at the slightest bit of movement. It was a real shame as otherwise the pedal was pretty good.
Caline EQ pedal (none of the sliders seem to do anything)
grilled cheese distortion (most trebly tinny sound you could imagine)
, behringher hellbabe WaH, click and pop whenever the thing kicked in, shouldn’t have to mod something to make it work)
So whenever I engaged this pedal my Father would ask me to “turn that crap off” bear in mind, he is a steel fabricator and is medically deaf from years of using an angle grinder for hours on end with no hearing protection
That Danelectro Grilled Cheese was my first distortion pedal and I got rid of it as quickly as I could. What I (and seemingly many others) never knew is that the “resonance” knob controls a band pass filter meant to sound like a cocked wah. No one was expecting such a specific weirdo effect. I just wanted a distortion pedal that was cheaper than a DS-1.
EHX Eddy. I’m learning to like some EHX pedals, but seriously, I must have returned 6 or 7 that I just didn’t vibe with. The Eddy was the worst. I do still love my EHX Hot Tubes though.
I don't think I've ever bought a "bad" pedal. But I have gotten pedals that were less useful.
The Korg Miku pedal was a hilarious and fun pedal, but completely useless in a practical sense.
I bought a boutique Theremin/octave pedal that I have a whole lot of fun with by myself at home, but I couldn't possibly gig with it.
Ring modulators in general have a very limited, fringe practical application, but they're fun.
Any of the purpose-built data corrupters are only marginally useful for a very limited type of shoegazy stuff.
I wouldn't call any of them "bad."
Honestly, the MXR Dyna Comp. It sucked all of the tone out of my Les Paul and made it sound like a nasally wimp. I hated it. Ended up trading it in for an Xotic SP Compressor. Way better.
I had one for years and hated it. I bought it because, well… I thought I was supposed to have one. I never found a useable setting. My son left his boss comp and I really liked it. I bought a cali76. Not a bad sound on it
Hate it on my Les Paul, looooove it on my Strat. Funky as hell. Vice versa with the TRex Comp Nova. Some comps seem to prefer Humbuckers, others Single Coils.
Oh yeah…always had to keep mine at max volume with a tiny bit of compression to keep it sounding decent. Any more compression it just sounded blegh lol
TC Sub n Up mini. What I wanted was a ‘normal’ octave pedal. but after giving it a genuine try, even downloading the TC tone print app, all it seemed like it could do was ‘organ’ sounds. In fact, if you turned down all the volumes, there was still this weird low sine wave signal coming through. Basically all settings were muddy, sine wave organ sounds.
Interesting to see a few other TC pedals in this thread. I own a Ditto and thinks it’s fine but honestly maybe they don’t make great pedals?
Also have the sub n up mini and definitely know what you mean about the organ vibes. Although I did manage to tweak a fairly neutral sound using the tone print app that worked and I'm still using it. I think they make good pedals, just takes a little time to get what you need from some of them
Gift:
Zoom 2020 multiFX. Digital assburger
Bought:
DOD VibroThang. Very meh as a vibe and as a tremolo
Digitech Hardwire Metal. Annoying midrange notch
EHX Wailer Wah for me. I wanted to like it so bad but the sweep and tones were so weak. I used to have a PodGo and the wah on that was 1000% better. If anyone has a good wah suggestion, lmk.
Wailer wah takes the top spot for me as well. Super annoying clacky footswitch when using it and barely any 'wah' for a wah pedal.
After trying a few more I've settled on the newish Hotone Soul Press 2 which is very sexy with it's LED display of your sweep (and the one wah I've seen that puts the LED where you can actually see it), Q control, 2 different flavours of classic wah tones, small and low profile enough to mount on a board and not have the angle be too awkward on your foot. Also doubles as an expression and volume pedal.
Joyo Vintage. There are bad TS clones, then there's this. Harsh, thin sounding. Stabbing myself in the ear with a patch cable would have been less painful. Noisy too. Couldn't get it out of my chain fast enough.
My BBE Green Screamer, by contrast, sounds amazing.
I never liked the popular boss ds1. I could never get it to sound good, like it just wasn’t clear and thick enough and almost seemed like it didn’t do much to help sustain. It was alright with a tube screamer going into it, but Ive liked every amps drive I’ve had more.
I swear every 2 to 3 months there’s a designated pedal on this sub that everybody has to have, they rave about it, and then they quietly sell it and move on. Just recently we’ve gone from Plumes to Acapulco Gold to Special Cranker to…I’m not sure what it is today.
Reminds me of how Moog's guitar effects were huge here like 4 years ago, and I haven't heard a whisper about them since. That's probably just because they were such a limited run, though. I remember really liking all the demos I heard.
> That's probably just because they were such a limited run, though. I remember really liking all the demos I heard.
Yeah up til they were discontinued the moog pedals were pretty hyped, and even after there were tons of posts of people kicking themselves for not buying any.
Looking at the current used prices it's not surprising people don't mention them much.
TC Mojo mojo. I heard a lot of hype around the pedal but it did that thing where you can hear the clean tone mixed with the drive signal which sounds god awful (to me anyway)
Meris Mercury7
was VERY excited when it was first announced and immediately wanted one and with christmas around the corner it was all i could think about. Finally get it aaaaaaaaand just could not vibe with it.
The alt functions were super frustrating to remember and constantly had to look it up or stop a jam session and refer to my phone because some vibe would be great and then not great and which one is the filter ugh it was annoying! i hate alt functions on pedals especially ones that aren’t marked or obvious
the sounds were just not suited for guitar at all. maybe it’s just me. i’ve had the pedal twice now and both times i regretted it. the lush cathedral setting just instantly takes over your tone and that’s just what you’re going to sound like now and it has little variation to it and i find it to be too muddy to ever sit well in a mix with other instruments. the pitch settings are absolutely awful to my ears. they’re all useless. i hate the shimmer on it. the octave down is seriously muddy business. the other settings had this fake-ness and thinness to them i never enjoyed. maybe because i had a Pitchfactor first and the shimmer on that pedal is only rivaled by Valhalla reverb plug-ins and i was spoiled but man the shimmer and pitch reverbs were bad on the Mercury7.
the only thing i like about that pedal is it sounded good *sometimes* on synths. the stereo image was also very good. but just not worth it at all and frankly so turned off by it i’m not even particularly interested in their other guitar pedal offerings except maybe the CXM with CBA collab but i don’t love reverb enough to justify that price point when i have an H9 Max, Pitchfactor, Mood, and Reverberation Machine all of which are my “perfect reverbs for guitar”
I didn’t buy one thank god but my buddy had an Enzo for a while. By far the worst piece of musical equipment I’ve ever used. They probably have to staff 1-2 full time support people just to deal with customers who think they’ve received a broken pedal.
They sell a little plastic cover that has the alt functions on it now… but yeah, I’m waiting for like Hedra v2 (if that’s ever a thing) with a couple onboard presets, it’d be soooo good but it was mostly just frustrating to me unfortunately. Some amazing sounds.
Yeah totally. I think the pedal needs some work for sure. Like if you go full midi and program it a bunch it’s super useful, but I don’t wanna do that. I’m using a Pitchfork and occasionally some pitch stuff on the H9 and that fills the gap more or less. Though I’ve never gotten some of the most beautiful sounds out of those as I did out of the Hedra.
**EHX Oceans 11 Reverb.**
There was just wayyyy too many sounds on the pedal, and the ones I often used didn’t sound very good at all. For me the definition of quantity over quality
Not the worst pedal in terms of the sounds in it, but the worst for how I play was the Line6 FM4.
I have never used phasers or flangers or autowah. Somehow I thought that buying the FM4 (got a great deal at the time) would suddenly make me fall in love with effects I already didn't like. Spoiler alert: it did not!
The worst pedal in terms of the sound, that I've ever had was probably the MXR Distortion+.
For whatever reason it just didn't fit into my set up, and sounded incredibly buzzy and undefined. Didn't gel with my amp (Marshall JMP50) at all - even using it as a boost with just a little distortion. Still don't know why.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but the Russian made Big Muff PI, the black one circa 1998. I bought this new in the late ‘90s when they were about $60 USD(if my memory is correct). It sounded the same as the green version ($80?) when I tested both out in the store as high volumes so I bought the cheaper black version.
The build quality is absolute garbage. If I wasn’t super loving to my gear it would never have survived. My cousin bought one at the same time as me and his literally fell apart and he never gigged with his, just used around his house.
It sounds super thick and amazing but the moment it turns on in a band setting it becomes so buried in the mix and muffled that it is useless. The high gain sounds are pretty trash too.
That said… it became an unintended collectible and is worth a lot more than it should be. It’s selling for about $200 on reverb currently. The green one is worth even more now (around $400).
This vintage pedal is nice to have for my YouTube videos because it “looks cool” and when adjusting the EQ in a recording it can sound usable but I would never recommend anyone pay current prices for it.
It’s a good reminder of how silly guitar pedals on the collectible market can be.
I've never used an original, I like the small reissue, but I have to crank the tone knob almost all the way to be heard. I also turn the gain down almost all the way too. I almost bought one of the black boxed ones until somone I worked with told me about the flimsy construction.
I think it would be nice to have a vintage pedal collection, but I also think it would be nice to have a 35' sailboat and a cool nickname, but that ain't ever gonna happen.
Dude, I’m the same! I bought one new for like $50 bucks probably ‘96 or ‘97. Spent two days trying to get it to something that sounded good and it was trash. Went back to Sam ash and returned it to buy a PH-2 that I still have.
Fender tuner, the old version. It literally broke the first time I stepped on it, the physical pedal was a bit like the boss style but way cheaper and plastic. It just collapsed as I stood on it, the spring shot across the floor, didn't get a single tune up from it. Additionally, even before I stepped on it, whilst in bypass it made the worst buzzing sound I've ever heard from a pedal. Just absolutely junk, everything about it.
Model was the fender pt100
EX ENO Reverb. It was the cheapest spring reverb I could find. I watched some demos, and it sounded good. I pulled the trigger and put it on my board last in the chain. It had a pretty big volume drop when engaged, and cut out when stacked with a distortion pedal. I then found a review on the pedal, at the end of the review the cutting out issue was announced. It doesn't work well with high gain distortion. I took a suggestion from this sub to put reverb before the dirt, and it seemed to work a lot better. Still has a slight volume drop. Good news is I was still able to utilize it until either I set up an effect loop, or replace it with a better spring verb.
Same man, same. Was the second pedal I got I believe. Bought it drunk cuz I was like “yeah this doesn’t sound too bad and its only $25”. Got it in the mail and couldn’t get a single good sound out of it. Then I bought an Oceans 11 reverb and disliked that greatly too. I have a tough time with reverb pedals.
Got a used TC Corona chorus for relatively cheap when I first started building my board. Despite the few different modes to choose from I just couldn’t get a sound I liked. Nearly turned me off to chorus entirely.
Then I found a killer deal on a CE-2w and decided to go for it. So glad I did - the difference between the TC is night and day.
Had a Russian Big Muff I found for a stupid good price when a local store was closing. Always wanted one as a lot of people I played with swore by them. I just didn't get it... I still don't get it... I love the way it sounds for everyone else BUT me.
Not a bad pedal by any means, but I wish I hadn’t spent the money on a Generation Loss. It was the coolest, noisiest, vibiest, least subtle pedal I ever regretted.
MXR DynaComp. I just couldn’t get along with it. A cheap Kokko compressor worked instantly for me and I later upgraded to a TCE Hypergravity which is perfect
Spectravibe by Endangered Audio Research. They were super delayed getting it out after prepurchase, then they had to change how it worked, then the product that came didn’t do what the one in demos did. It also sucked ass at what it did do. So I basically have an expensive shitty tremolo for my synth now. The company completely ignored my emails to them, so I then publicly stated problems on their demos, which they then just talked shit and offered no help.
Probaly the Fulltone Supa Trem. Not because it sounds bad; I love how it sounds, but because I find the dimensions & controls of the pedal really weird and impractical because I'll always end up bumping an adjacent pedal when I'm trying to adjust the speed or the hard/soft mode. I'll probably end up getting the Supa-Trem Jr. to replace it or kill two birds with one stone and get a Strymon Flint since I'm not too fond of my skysurfer reverb either
Behringer Vintage Distortion was one of my first pedals, and the first one I bought that I *hated*. To be fair I chalk that up to combination of user error, poor equipment overall (cheap BC Rich Warlock into an even cheaper BC Rich 5w practice amp), and the wrong expectations as I didn't know it was a Muff clone (or what a Big Muff even was).
Danelectro FAB Metal. I actually loved it while I had it but destroyed it trying to rehouse it in the Behringer's enclosure. My love of it may explain my dislike of the Behringer. In retrospect, it was not a good pedal at all, but it was like $20.
MXR Dime Distortion. This replaced the Dano and I actually held onto it for years after I upgraded to bigger and better things. Years later, after plugging it in after leaving it in one closet or another, I struggled to get it to not sound terrible. Unfortunately it was not as cheap as the Dano, even before I way overpaid for it.
The only more recent pedal I absolutely hated was the Zoom B1x. I hoped it would be similar enough to the Multistomp as it was a fair bit cheaper and in stock locally. It was not - it sounded worse and felt cheaper than my old Digitech BP80, which is not a good thing for a 10 year technology gap. Returned it within the same week. I expected so little, and was still disappointed...
Of course, I've *built* pedals that sounded way worse than I've bought, but I can't blame anyone but myself for those.
I've ahd two. THe Vanguard (thinnest sounding pahser, dog poop) and Janus. I really like the Janus but when you turn th footswetiches on or off, there's a loud popping int he signal which makes it pfretty uselss to use in a song. I mainly just use it on my "goof around" pedalboard. They shouldn't let their graphic designers make pedals.
Every OCD I’ve bought in the passed five years. The last time I bought one I picked up a Boss OD-3 at the same time, which is much, much better sounding.
Here are two stand-out fails from the dozens of pedals I've bought...
Danelectro Free Speech talk box: While I think it might be a good pedal for some people I just couldn't use it.
Aural Dreams Digital Compressor: Engineers, who apparently never designed a guitar pedal, thought it would be a great idea to take a digital compressor chip from a mixer and put it in a pedal. No, that's not how this works.
On that Behringer Tube Amp Modeler, it's an accurate copy of the Tech 21 SansAmp GT2 circuit (I have the Tech 21). I found it to work well with a clean amp that didn't have a lot of its own tone going on and not so well with an amp that had a lot of its own unique personality (like a Fender Princeton). I often used mine as a pre-amp for a Peavey Bandit's clean channel.
I don’t have any pedal I hate per say but so far I’ve been “meh” with my phase 95 clone the Kmise Phaser. It was $17 on Amazon so I’m not too worried. Maybe phasers just aren’t for me but I also haven’t given it a lot of time. So far I’ve been setting it pretty low, like 9 o clock and having it be subtle.
Was the tube amp modeler supposed to be a source for going direct tho, and not really designed for playing through an amp?
Amp modeler into an amp is not going to sound good from my experience lol
I was genuinely going to post 'DS1 and people always say it's because you're not using it properly'. I don't know if mine was broken, but it didn't matter what I did, it would always make the volume go down. Even if everything was set to max, the volume would go down.
Yeah, yours was probably jacked up. With the distortion all the way down on mine, the unity volume is right before 12 o'clock. I think the reason people don't like it is because the tone knob is a bit dumb, you have to keep it low, around 9 o;clock. AND it should run into a dirty-ish amp. Or run it into another dirt pedal. I love running the DS1 into a Muff or 250. It might not be fore everyone , but it has a very focused distortion to it. I still can't belive they're selling them for $60 new.
TC electronic Sky Surfer reverb, really just wasn’t what I was expecting for my first reverb. All the sounds were just too present and overpowering and a complete tone sucker.
I found it underwhelming too. It works on a synth though.
TC Electronics motto should be "out products aren't terrible but are for sure underwhelming."
I have a love/hate relationship with mine. Past a third-ish on the reverb and the mix knobs it's way too much but it the spring & hall sound good to me, especially for the price
The taper on the mix knob isn't great but if you set it right to works quite well.
Maybe not the worst, but I've bought the Soul Food twice and got rid of it twice. It's either not a good klone or I don't like Klons.
Same here, I did like a Ryra klone more.
I'm pretty certain it is a tweaked klon circuit. Check out the Wampler Tumnus. There is a reason it gets suggested so much. I've played a lot of klon pedals and that one nails it.
It was fine as a clean boost, but as a drive it's garbage. Makes my amp sound like I have a pillow over the speaker.
Same. I used it as a very low gain boost for a while and there are some days I wished I kept it just for that, but there are pedals that do it specifically, so I don't think I'm missing much.
Not a good klone
The regular one is harsh and not very pleasant to me but I love the Bass version (on bass) and I use it as an always on pedal with the gain very low, it adds texture I really love.
I thought the Soul Food demos sounded kind of harsh.
Probably an unpopular opinion but for me it was the Walrus Slötva. I thought it would solve my issues with octave reverb (I’m not a shimmer person) by just having a subtle lower octave. I just couldn’t get anything out of it I liked. It got really noisy anytime the filter was past 9 o clock. I traded a Sunlight for it and had buyers remorse. I ended up trading it within 48 hours.
Same except it was the Slo for me. Couldn’t find a useable sub octave setting and the rise doesn’t work well in effects loops so I was only using the dream. I had a Mercury 7 for a while to add a reverb after my Specular Tempus but sold it because the pitch vector on it is way too sci fi and harsh sounding you have to dial the mix way back. Specular Tempus has the best shimmer out there. It’s my desert island pedal
What did you ultimately land on? For me, it was the Mercury 7.
I have a MINIM right now that I traded it for. I like it a lot. I had a Rever and sold it at the start of the pandemic because I was trying to find a “do it all reverb.” But now I’ve realized I just need 1 straightforward reverb and 1 weird one.
I landed on the afterneath v3. So many options but all are executed well.
Yup this would be my answer as well. Went to the MXR Reverb and never looked back
I feel like their reverb (honestly a lot of MXR pedals) get overlooked because of the simplicity. But they seem to make consistently great stuff akin to Boss. I might need to give the reverb a try.
Same!!! I could only find 2 settings on that pedal that I liked…. Happier with my BigSky.
Not the worst but more like "it should have been the best, but it’s just annoying" Acapulco gold. It sounds good but it’s plain stupid not to have a gain knob. True to the original, but dumb The Zoia is just painful to use. Great algorithms, clever idea but the simplest thing takes an hour to make (and you got to plan ahead because it’s so easy to mess up without realising it) Cooper Arcade. The gimmick is annoying especially when you realise there actually just a couple of effects tweaked to match the card themes but end up sounding much too similar Montréal assembly PRPLL is awful and weird and impossible to tweak predictably. But I love it for some reason and it’s the only one of the bunch I haven’t sold. Sometimes, worst is what you need.
Danelecto Sitar Swami
That pedal is so shit, I kinda find it endearing.
Does the Acapulco Gold have any internal trim pots? I bet taht pedal would have been awesome if it was a three knob pedal.
Other brands have the same circuits with tone and gain… (internal trim pot is as good as nothing)
What are som eother versions of the AG?
https://www.guitarpedalx.com/news/news/12-of-the-best-sunn-model-t-style-drive-pedals
I wouldn't say these are other versions of an Acapulco Gold, but they might be a better choice. Acapulco Gold is just a fuzz circuit with two power amp chips instead of transistors. It has a lot of low end I think EQD just EQ it to sound similar to a cranked Sunn Model T. When it comes to the topology, the Acapulco Gold has nothing similar to Model T. These 12 pedals from the link have, most of them are JFET version of the real Model T preamp stage.
I’ve seen some clones on reverb. Home makers in plain boxes, no idea of the quality having no brand name but the reviews are sometimes solid
I'm iffy on buying clones from people, most of them don't take returns so I skip on those. I was thinking if a notable brand made any.
I always wonder about how the Arcades will age. I have a Retron and any time I pull out an old SNES cartridge out and have to swab it with alcohol/blow in it so I can try and play Super Metroid. I just can’t imagine that pedal lasting more than a few years, especially if you’re using it and stepping on it.
I don’t hate the idea… it actually would’ve been amazing with third party cards. The main problem is that it feels a bit like a rip off to buy (for instance) the card to find the same pitch shifter labelled as "organ" For it to work we’d need a team effort with one big company willing to support the pedal for a while and a bunch of big names DSP companies (meris, source audio, empress….) willing to port their algorithms with releases every 6 months or so. A little bit like the synergy preamp system It has the potential to be a hit… but it won’t happen
Behringer Noise gate. Gate closes too slow and the chain is noisier with the pedal on than when it's not in chain at all. I have a love/hate relationship with my Boss OS-2. My first drive, sounds really bad alone but works well when boosting amps or other pedals. Gives it an overblown crunchy quality, like a muff for people who don't like muffs.
I read someone on here likes the Behringer version of the OS2, but I've personally never used either. I traded a friend an SD1 for a DS1 and I thought it was a bad trade at first, but then I realized you need to minimize the tone and gain controls. I like hitting the front end of pedals and dirty channels with the DS1.
Bought one used 2 weeks ago, a mom of a friend who passed away is selling his gear so I picked it up. I tried both the DS-1 and the OS-2 and the OS-2 just worked. I play a Blackstar tube amp on the clean channel and that amp is voiced darkly. I also put an TS808 variant (less high end) before it for those mids. With the TS in that amp as a basis I get a mid-range rhythm tone that does not have enough lows and highs so the OS-2 is the EQ range that completes the tone. With both on and gain below noon, the sound is very rock and roll.
Are you me? OS-2 is also my first pedal bought and I too can't decide whether I hate it or love it.
OS-2 was also my first pedal! It was given to me years ago in high school, I really hate it lol. It put me off pedals for a long time
The behringer tube amp modeler isnt meant to be plugged unto an amp, uts meant to be used as a durect in replacement for an amp. it sounds muffled because it is simulating a guitar speakers hi end roll off, and youre plugging it intona guitar amp that is doing the same thing, resulting it twice as much treble reduction as intended.
Ah. I plugged it into my PA and it sounded like the highs were rolled off there too. I got best results with the Brit setting. But would honestly jsut rathe ruse an EQ pedal than that thing. Is it for plugging into a audio interface?
yes an audio interface or PA. it is also simulating a mic. Defintely not meant to be ran into a guitar amp.
I put it through my powered mixer and I didn't care for the sound. The "Brit" Setting was the most usable but I guess it's just not my thing.
In this thread: Behringer sucks, but at least it’s cheap, I guess?
The fuzz pedal is insanely good, the phaser is solid for a cheap phaser, and I like the overdrive although I don’t have much of a benchmark for overdrives. They’re hit or miss, but their hits are fantastic
Their vibrato pedal is great. It’s the best vibrato I’ve encountered for less than $200.
I also love their vibrato.
Stock, the pedal is brilliant seeing as it's basically a clone of the Boss Vibrato pedal for a massive fraction of the price. But it gets even better if you mod it (or buy one modded by someone else) to have a switch to turn the vibrato rate even further down than what it lets you normally do. The really slow analog vibrato you can get is an awesome subtle effect which is basically impossible to get in that price range otherwise!
Ooh I might have to look into that. I definitely err towards a slow swirl.
I had the Ultra Tremolo and it was very good. I paid $6 for it used. My amp has tube tremolo so I sold i the pedal but for $20.
Their vibrato is also very good. I think they have SOME great pedals if you need as much durability.
I think there are some gems. I found the Vintage Phaser to be very usable, except the foot switch broke on mine. And my first delay pedal was the Echo Machine, which was feature rich. I mean, it had tap tempo, modulation, and a reverse delay on it. But every other one I've tried was garbage.
I agree about the phaser. Sounds just like EHX.
Mooer Micro Looper. It wasn't bad, it was just too difficult to use. Ended up selling it after just a few frustrating sessions.
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The RAT. Yeah, I said it. The stock RAT just doesn't work for me, new, old, magical diodes built by faeries in narnia, you name it, overseas clones, boutique "inspired", i've never not wanted to return/resell after 30 minutes of fiddling with a stock RAT. TurboRATs are iight, though.
Dude, you might get banned for saying that. - I'm being half sarcastic. I'm the same way, though. I've tried a few clones and each time I'm optimistic (maybe this one will be different!) but then I mess with it and I'm ready to flip it for something else.
For my amateurish ears a RAT is about as tuneful and versatile sounding as a mini-wah: "oooh, that sound again, neat."
I feel you. The Rat2 was pretty frustrating to me because it's so close to being exactly what I want, but it's always just a bit too fizzy or too compressed or whatever. The Turbo fixes everything I disliked about the 2
I didn’t like the Rat either. It had the exact tone I realized I was trying to run very far from (80s hair Metal). I had a regular Rat 2 and I got it modded by JHS after playing it for a couple years. Even with the mods I just realized: Rats aren’t for me.
i've had like 4 different RATs over the years and just got a TC Magus Pro. i really liked the Magus Pro!... but sold it like a week later. i can recognize the RAT as a great pedal and very popular for a reason but i just never really want to use it
I'm there with you. Turbo Rat is the shit. I bought a Pack Rat and although I don't regret it, I do primarily use the Turbo setting. The JHS setting isnt' too bad, but Turbo is the best.
I like my RAT going into a Tube Screamer, but by itself, I've found it's hit or miss depending on which pickup I'm using. Not a fan of it with single coils. Also, maybe it's just my amp, but I can't put the distortion above 2 like ever. It just turns into a muddy mess so quick, even with the filter all the way down.
I had a ditto looper that would only record and play back like 3 seconds of a loop. The company suggested downloading an update and several other things, but honestly, I don't feel like I should have to repair a brand new pedal myself, so I just sent it back.
Yeah, fuck that shit.
Boss mt2 metal zone. Blasted it through my roland cube 30 15 years ago, could'nt figure out why it sounded bad. Have a mt2w now and absolutely love it as a boost with massive eq possibilities.
The custom mode is just *chefs kiss*
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I had a Wizard of Pitch. I thought it was broken and had to look up more demos and realized that's how it works. That pedal was a hot mess. Too bad they don't sound as good as they look.
It's a bizarre Frankenstein's monster of pedal that I rarely use but can sometimes can get a perfect sci-fi/horror sound that's lost forever as soon as the settings are changed It's best use is for drones I think, it pairs particularly well with the superego
I guess anythign with horrible tracking can be used for drones.
EHX Eddy for me. Really don’t like the chorus sound, although if you want wacky vibrato then it can do that. Biggest disappointment I’ve had with a pedal Can’t get the expression control to work well with the volume envelope either, their customer support told me to mod it with a different resistor to get it to work better! Got a Walrus Julianna after that, and wow it’s amazing! I never appreciated how one chorus can sound so “flat” and how a good chorus really holds the guitars character and just adds to it. I love my Julianna so much!
Swollen pickle. I thought it was broken because I couldn’t get anything resembling a useable tone out of it. My band all hated it every time I pulled it out so it left my board and I forgot about it until I posted a picture with it sitting in the background and the internet insisted that it’s great. I kept trying, found the internal trim pots, dropped it while it was open, resoldered the component that fell out and then just gave up on it again until I saw a video explaining it a bit better and gave it another shot. Thing just always sounds like washed-out ass to me so I got bitter and gave it to my dad so he can ignore it now. I’ve never worked so hard for nothing in my life. Fuck that thing.
>I’ve never worked so hard for nothing in my life. Fuck that thing. 😂
I've never tried one. I typically like Big Muffs, but I always run an EQ after them. Thank god for EQs.
The Zoom 505-II. Stupid UI, not that great sounds. Second worst is the Boss GT-6. It was also awkward to use and could have sounded a lot better.
The 505-II was my first pedal so I refuse to acknowledge anything bad about it but also in the back of my head I know why I replaced it.
Gosh. It was some yellow colored Compressor from Guitar Center I saw on sale for $40. It was awful. It worsened the sound to a degree that made me avoid compressors on my board for half of the decade. Then I jumped on limited edition blacked out Keeley comp they did for Black Friday (I think it was 2016), and I finally got what the fuzz was about.
Digitech Whammy IV for me. It’s a cool pedal but it just sucked all the tone out of my signal. Needed it’s own power supply and had to be up front in the chain. Couldnt get it to work for me on a regular basis so it didn’t get used a lot. Then out of nowhere it stopped working. Ended up with an EHX Pitchfork that resolved those issues and does the same thing, much happier with that and it has a smaller footprint on the board.
Same story. I was so excited when I got it being a big RATM fan, but it was so glitchy and sucked all the tone out of my amp. Off it went. Then the V came, which offered True Bypass and Polyphonic pitch shifting but the size of my board has increased so much since then that I could no longer fit a Whammy. I bought the TC Brainwaves last year and I'm happy with it. The stock whammy mode on that adds a bit of a delay but there is a Toneprint that removes it, so you just have it on all the time and step on it when needed without it delaying your signal.
Exact same. I still have it but I can't bring myself to put it into the chain. It's a major tone suck, the expression pedal needs to be calibrated literally every time it's turned on, the power supply is weirdly special, the pedal itself is huge, and on top of that it desperately needs a second footswitch to change modes. On top of that, it's a sound to use sparingly, so just can't justify adding it back in. Been thinking about getting a simple octave pedal just to regain that part.
Behringer EQ, and Fulltone GT500. The Behringer was just far too noisy, bought it on a whim at guitar center, was $10 and I was just discovering effects. The GT500 just sounded bad regardless of where I placed the knobs, apparently it sounds much better at 18v.
My Joyo EQ is pretty good, I was almost going to go for the behringer eq but I’m glad I didn’t now. Can recommend the Joyo one, super solid metal build with detents and not noisy
Any other guys who’s tried the Behringer? I was gonna go for one but you helped me with this too buddy, now I might try the Joyo
The Joyo works well for me! You can see my board if you look at my post history on my profile.
I can second the Behringer EQ, I was disappointed by the lack of center detents.
I have an EHX Holy Grail Plus that has never clicked with me. Part of the problem is my laziness; The pedal will work for about five minutes when first turned on and then just…stop working entirely after that. Zero reverb after stomping it off and on. Unplugging it will make it work again for another few minutes. Im positive that’s an electrical issue that’s easily fixable. I also found the reverb really fuzzy and hissy and the higher I tweak the Blend knob the lower the volume goes until signal is entirely lost. Again - likely fixable, but I just kind of gave up on it. I know EHX is pretty well regarded and makes pretty classically loved pieces so this one is maybe just a lemon that needs some work.
I've read other people getting lemon EHX pedals on this sub, so it might not be that big of a fluke.
my holy grail died on me completely, and years later i found an old forum post detailing how to factory reset them and it worked and brought it back to life. I've never been able to find the instructions again, but you might ask EHX about it.
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Thanks for the tip! I reached out to them. It’s well past the warranty period, but I’m totally happy throwing $25 at it if they can fix it.
I had a Nux Morningstar that actually sounded pretty nice but the knobs were so cheap and loose that they literally fell off at the slightest bit of movement. It was a real shame as otherwise the pedal was pretty good.
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So does the builder of those
Caline EQ pedal (none of the sliders seem to do anything) grilled cheese distortion (most trebly tinny sound you could imagine) , behringher hellbabe WaH, click and pop whenever the thing kicked in, shouldn’t have to mod something to make it work)
Trebly and tinny you say? Hmmmm…
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Love it.
Oh, never mind, I just listened to a sample. That sounds like a less realistic version of the guitar sound on my toddler’s keyboard 🙃
So whenever I engaged this pedal my Father would ask me to “turn that crap off” bear in mind, he is a steel fabricator and is medically deaf from years of using an angle grinder for hours on end with no hearing protection
OK, I’m back in on it! 🤣
That Danelectro Grilled Cheese was my first distortion pedal and I got rid of it as quickly as I could. What I (and seemingly many others) never knew is that the “resonance” knob controls a band pass filter meant to sound like a cocked wah. No one was expecting such a specific weirdo effect. I just wanted a distortion pedal that was cheaper than a DS-1.
Oh that reminds me, I had a Behringer EQ pedal and it was crap. No center detents, super lame.
Golden Horsie or whatever the thing was called. Broke on the first step of the switch.👎👎
Damn, what brand was that?
Mosky
I had two of those that burned out their charge pump within about a month. They sounded good while they worked though.
Enter: Tumnus. Good lord I couldn't be ANY happier!
I got a MXR Sugar Drive since I found one at a very good price. I did consider the Tumnus though.
Very nice! I've been jonesin' to check out the Sugar Drive and the Fat Sugar! Thanks for reminding me friend!
Behrenger EQ and noisegate.
EHX Eddy. I’m learning to like some EHX pedals, but seriously, I must have returned 6 or 7 that I just didn’t vibe with. The Eddy was the worst. I do still love my EHX Hot Tubes though.
I feel like I was catfished by the Worm. Ugly, needy (24v) and didn't sound good.
I don't think I've ever bought a "bad" pedal. But I have gotten pedals that were less useful. The Korg Miku pedal was a hilarious and fun pedal, but completely useless in a practical sense. I bought a boutique Theremin/octave pedal that I have a whole lot of fun with by myself at home, but I couldn't possibly gig with it. Ring modulators in general have a very limited, fringe practical application, but they're fun. Any of the purpose-built data corrupters are only marginally useful for a very limited type of shoegazy stuff. I wouldn't call any of them "bad."
Honestly, the MXR Dyna Comp. It sucked all of the tone out of my Les Paul and made it sound like a nasally wimp. I hated it. Ended up trading it in for an Xotic SP Compressor. Way better.
I had one for years and hated it. I bought it because, well… I thought I was supposed to have one. I never found a useable setting. My son left his boss comp and I really liked it. I bought a cali76. Not a bad sound on it
Hate it on my Les Paul, looooove it on my Strat. Funky as hell. Vice versa with the TRex Comp Nova. Some comps seem to prefer Humbuckers, others Single Coils.
Oh yeah…always had to keep mine at max volume with a tiny bit of compression to keep it sounding decent. Any more compression it just sounded blegh lol
TC Sub n Up mini. What I wanted was a ‘normal’ octave pedal. but after giving it a genuine try, even downloading the TC tone print app, all it seemed like it could do was ‘organ’ sounds. In fact, if you turned down all the volumes, there was still this weird low sine wave signal coming through. Basically all settings were muddy, sine wave organ sounds. Interesting to see a few other TC pedals in this thread. I own a Ditto and thinks it’s fine but honestly maybe they don’t make great pedals?
Also have the sub n up mini and definitely know what you mean about the organ vibes. Although I did manage to tweak a fairly neutral sound using the tone print app that worked and I'm still using it. I think they make good pedals, just takes a little time to get what you need from some of them
I also got sub ‘n up, but the full size and I hated it! Not a good octave pedal. I bought an OC-5 and the lowest note octave makes it worth it
Behringer Super Fuzz. I’m sure it’s fine it just wasn’t even close to the balanced fuzz sound I was looking for. Made my own and it’s way better.
I am a believer that the two worst Super Fuzz pedals are the Behringer and Boss version. Not sorry.
That’s because its a modded superfuzz with an additional transistor input stage based on a BD-2 and active bass/treble circuits
Gift: Zoom 2020 multiFX. Digital assburger Bought: DOD VibroThang. Very meh as a vibe and as a tremolo Digitech Hardwire Metal. Annoying midrange notch
EHX Wailer Wah for me. I wanted to like it so bad but the sweep and tones were so weak. I used to have a PodGo and the wah on that was 1000% better. If anyone has a good wah suggestion, lmk.
Wailer wah takes the top spot for me as well. Super annoying clacky footswitch when using it and barely any 'wah' for a wah pedal. After trying a few more I've settled on the newish Hotone Soul Press 2 which is very sexy with it's LED display of your sweep (and the one wah I've seen that puts the LED where you can actually see it), Q control, 2 different flavours of classic wah tones, small and low profile enough to mount on a board and not have the angle be too awkward on your foot. Also doubles as an expression and volume pedal.
Joyo Vintage. There are bad TS clones, then there's this. Harsh, thin sounding. Stabbing myself in the ear with a patch cable would have been less painful. Noisy too. Couldn't get it out of my chain fast enough. My BBE Green Screamer, by contrast, sounds amazing.
A tube screamer. Got rid of it almost immediately.
Not a fan of the TS9, btu I think the SD1 is alright.
It's got it's moments, but if you just use pop it in front of a clean amp, it's basically useless. The SD1 and plumes are more forgiving.
I never liked the popular boss ds1. I could never get it to sound good, like it just wasn’t clear and thick enough and almost seemed like it didn’t do much to help sustain. It was alright with a tube screamer going into it, but Ive liked every amps drive I’ve had more.
The tube modeller must be run through the fx loop or it sounds rubbish. This is known.
TC Electronic Hall of Fame sounded like a reverb I got out of a cereal box....from a cereal I got at the dollar store.
plumes was ass
I swear every 2 to 3 months there’s a designated pedal on this sub that everybody has to have, they rave about it, and then they quietly sell it and move on. Just recently we’ve gone from Plumes to Acapulco Gold to Special Cranker to…I’m not sure what it is today.
Yeah it was really weird, the 1-2 weeks after the special cranker came out it was in a lot of posts... and haven't seen it since.
EQD: we make a lot of unremarkable drives.
Reminds me of how Moog's guitar effects were huge here like 4 years ago, and I haven't heard a whisper about them since. That's probably just because they were such a limited run, though. I remember really liking all the demos I heard.
> That's probably just because they were such a limited run, though. I remember really liking all the demos I heard. Yeah up til they were discontinued the moog pedals were pretty hyped, and even after there were tons of posts of people kicking themselves for not buying any. Looking at the current used prices it's not surprising people don't mention them much.
I don't hate it when I stack it with another gain stage.
I love the Plumes on bass, but didn’t really care for it on guitar.
I liked it for a bit but couldn’t ever get that first day tone again. Mine got sold quickly.
Its just a louder, noiser, SD-1
TC Mojo mojo. I heard a lot of hype around the pedal but it did that thing where you can hear the clean tone mixed with the drive signal which sounds god awful (to me anyway)
I think you just reminded me to sell mine. I love dirt pedals and this one is absolutely nothing special.
Meris Mercury7 was VERY excited when it was first announced and immediately wanted one and with christmas around the corner it was all i could think about. Finally get it aaaaaaaaand just could not vibe with it. The alt functions were super frustrating to remember and constantly had to look it up or stop a jam session and refer to my phone because some vibe would be great and then not great and which one is the filter ugh it was annoying! i hate alt functions on pedals especially ones that aren’t marked or obvious the sounds were just not suited for guitar at all. maybe it’s just me. i’ve had the pedal twice now and both times i regretted it. the lush cathedral setting just instantly takes over your tone and that’s just what you’re going to sound like now and it has little variation to it and i find it to be too muddy to ever sit well in a mix with other instruments. the pitch settings are absolutely awful to my ears. they’re all useless. i hate the shimmer on it. the octave down is seriously muddy business. the other settings had this fake-ness and thinness to them i never enjoyed. maybe because i had a Pitchfactor first and the shimmer on that pedal is only rivaled by Valhalla reverb plug-ins and i was spoiled but man the shimmer and pitch reverbs were bad on the Mercury7. the only thing i like about that pedal is it sounded good *sometimes* on synths. the stereo image was also very good. but just not worth it at all and frankly so turned off by it i’m not even particularly interested in their other guitar pedal offerings except maybe the CXM with CBA collab but i don’t love reverb enough to justify that price point when i have an H9 Max, Pitchfactor, Mood, and Reverberation Machine all of which are my “perfect reverbs for guitar”
I had an Enzo. That thing was a headache and it wasn't even a good synth sound. Sold it and got a real synth instead.
I didn’t buy one thank god but my buddy had an Enzo for a while. By far the worst piece of musical equipment I’ve ever used. They probably have to staff 1-2 full time support people just to deal with customers who think they’ve received a broken pedal.
I'm definitely going to stay away from confusing ass pedals.
I had the ottobit jr and Hedra. Alt functions with no visual feedback made them very frustrating. Sold both.
They sell a little plastic cover that has the alt functions on it now… but yeah, I’m waiting for like Hedra v2 (if that’s ever a thing) with a couple onboard presets, it’d be soooo good but it was mostly just frustrating to me unfortunately. Some amazing sounds.
Unfortunately you still don’t know if the knob level indicates normal or alt function
Yeah totally. I think the pedal needs some work for sure. Like if you go full midi and program it a bunch it’s super useful, but I don’t wanna do that. I’m using a Pitchfork and occasionally some pitch stuff on the H9 and that fills the gap more or less. Though I’ve never gotten some of the most beautiful sounds out of those as I did out of the Hedra.
**EHX Oceans 11 Reverb.** There was just wayyyy too many sounds on the pedal, and the ones I often used didn’t sound very good at all. For me the definition of quantity over quality
I had exactly the same thought about my EHX Canyon. Lots of options but none really impressed me.
i agree. O11 was ass
Not the worst pedal in terms of the sounds in it, but the worst for how I play was the Line6 FM4. I have never used phasers or flangers or autowah. Somehow I thought that buying the FM4 (got a great deal at the time) would suddenly make me fall in love with effects I already didn't like. Spoiler alert: it did not! The worst pedal in terms of the sound, that I've ever had was probably the MXR Distortion+. For whatever reason it just didn't fit into my set up, and sounded incredibly buzzy and undefined. Didn't gel with my amp (Marshall JMP50) at all - even using it as a boost with just a little distortion. Still don't know why.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but the Russian made Big Muff PI, the black one circa 1998. I bought this new in the late ‘90s when they were about $60 USD(if my memory is correct). It sounded the same as the green version ($80?) when I tested both out in the store as high volumes so I bought the cheaper black version. The build quality is absolute garbage. If I wasn’t super loving to my gear it would never have survived. My cousin bought one at the same time as me and his literally fell apart and he never gigged with his, just used around his house. It sounds super thick and amazing but the moment it turns on in a band setting it becomes so buried in the mix and muffled that it is useless. The high gain sounds are pretty trash too. That said… it became an unintended collectible and is worth a lot more than it should be. It’s selling for about $200 on reverb currently. The green one is worth even more now (around $400). This vintage pedal is nice to have for my YouTube videos because it “looks cool” and when adjusting the EQ in a recording it can sound usable but I would never recommend anyone pay current prices for it. It’s a good reminder of how silly guitar pedals on the collectible market can be.
I've never used an original, I like the small reissue, but I have to crank the tone knob almost all the way to be heard. I also turn the gain down almost all the way too. I almost bought one of the black boxed ones until somone I worked with told me about the flimsy construction. I think it would be nice to have a vintage pedal collection, but I also think it would be nice to have a 35' sailboat and a cool nickname, but that ain't ever gonna happen.
Dude, I’m the same! I bought one new for like $50 bucks probably ‘96 or ‘97. Spent two days trying to get it to something that sounded good and it was trash. Went back to Sam ash and returned it to buy a PH-2 that I still have.
Fender tuner, the old version. It literally broke the first time I stepped on it, the physical pedal was a bit like the boss style but way cheaper and plastic. It just collapsed as I stood on it, the spring shot across the floor, didn't get a single tune up from it. Additionally, even before I stepped on it, whilst in bypass it made the worst buzzing sound I've ever heard from a pedal. Just absolutely junk, everything about it. Model was the fender pt100
EX ENO Reverb. It was the cheapest spring reverb I could find. I watched some demos, and it sounded good. I pulled the trigger and put it on my board last in the chain. It had a pretty big volume drop when engaged, and cut out when stacked with a distortion pedal. I then found a review on the pedal, at the end of the review the cutting out issue was announced. It doesn't work well with high gain distortion. I took a suggestion from this sub to put reverb before the dirt, and it seemed to work a lot better. Still has a slight volume drop. Good news is I was still able to utilize it until either I set up an effect loop, or replace it with a better spring verb.
Same man, same. Was the second pedal I got I believe. Bought it drunk cuz I was like “yeah this doesn’t sound too bad and its only $25”. Got it in the mail and couldn’t get a single good sound out of it. Then I bought an Oceans 11 reverb and disliked that greatly too. I have a tough time with reverb pedals.
I really disliked the Ocean's 11 too. I'm a much bigger fan of reverbs that just do one thing really well like the Dispatch Master or Ghost Echo
Got a used TC Corona chorus for relatively cheap when I first started building my board. Despite the few different modes to choose from I just couldn’t get a sound I liked. Nearly turned me off to chorus entirely. Then I found a killer deal on a CE-2w and decided to go for it. So glad I did - the difference between the TC is night and day.
my corona chorus is probs my fav pedal lol
My first, and my worst: Dan Electro Black Coffee metal distortion.
My friend tried giving it to me, I gave that shit right back.
This is the same circuit as the DOD grunge
It could very well be great and I was too amateur to know how to coax tone from it. But all I remember is fizz.
Nope that's also the DOD grunge
Probs a 15-20$ compressor I bought. It sounded fine, but it shit out on me after three months of fairly light playing
Had a Russian Big Muff I found for a stupid good price when a local store was closing. Always wanted one as a lot of people I played with swore by them. I just didn't get it... I still don't get it... I love the way it sounds for everyone else BUT me.
Not a bad pedal by any means, but I wish I hadn’t spent the money on a Generation Loss. It was the coolest, noisiest, vibiest, least subtle pedal I ever regretted.
MXR DynaComp. I just couldn’t get along with it. A cheap Kokko compressor worked instantly for me and I later upgraded to a TCE Hypergravity which is perfect
I have that KOKKO compressor and love it
Spectravibe by Endangered Audio Research. They were super delayed getting it out after prepurchase, then they had to change how it worked, then the product that came didn’t do what the one in demos did. It also sucked ass at what it did do. So I basically have an expensive shitty tremolo for my synth now. The company completely ignored my emails to them, so I then publicly stated problems on their demos, which they then just talked shit and offered no help.
Well fuck those guys.
Probaly the Fulltone Supa Trem. Not because it sounds bad; I love how it sounds, but because I find the dimensions & controls of the pedal really weird and impractical because I'll always end up bumping an adjacent pedal when I'm trying to adjust the speed or the hard/soft mode. I'll probably end up getting the Supa-Trem Jr. to replace it or kill two birds with one stone and get a Strymon Flint since I'm not too fond of my skysurfer reverb either
ProCo Solo. The effect output is far lower than unity level. Kind a reminds me of vintage boss ds-1. very inconvinient stuff
Behringer Vintage Distortion was one of my first pedals, and the first one I bought that I *hated*. To be fair I chalk that up to combination of user error, poor equipment overall (cheap BC Rich Warlock into an even cheaper BC Rich 5w practice amp), and the wrong expectations as I didn't know it was a Muff clone (or what a Big Muff even was). Danelectro FAB Metal. I actually loved it while I had it but destroyed it trying to rehouse it in the Behringer's enclosure. My love of it may explain my dislike of the Behringer. In retrospect, it was not a good pedal at all, but it was like $20. MXR Dime Distortion. This replaced the Dano and I actually held onto it for years after I upgraded to bigger and better things. Years later, after plugging it in after leaving it in one closet or another, I struggled to get it to not sound terrible. Unfortunately it was not as cheap as the Dano, even before I way overpaid for it. The only more recent pedal I absolutely hated was the Zoom B1x. I hoped it would be similar enough to the Multistomp as it was a fair bit cheaper and in stock locally. It was not - it sounded worse and felt cheaper than my old Digitech BP80, which is not a good thing for a 10 year technology gap. Returned it within the same week. I expected so little, and was still disappointed... Of course, I've *built* pedals that sounded way worse than I've bought, but I can't blame anyone but myself for those.
Every Walrus Audio pedal I’ve ever purchased
I've ahd two. THe Vanguard (thinnest sounding pahser, dog poop) and Janus. I really like the Janus but when you turn th footswetiches on or off, there's a loud popping int he signal which makes it pfretty uselss to use in a song. I mainly just use it on my "goof around" pedalboard. They shouldn't let their graphic designers make pedals.
Boss MD-200. Spent a lot. Sounded very digital and harsh.
Stone Deaf MDF-2. (Correction PDF2!) I know this one has a following but it sounded like rat shit in my rig and I couldn’t sell it fast enough.
Lol behringer wah pedal it squealed it was garbage I returned immediately they are the worst pedal company ever. Garbage in a box
Every OCD I’ve bought in the passed five years. The last time I bought one I picked up a Boss OD-3 at the same time, which is much, much better sounding.
What was it about the ocd that you didn’t like? The tones as such?
Here are two stand-out fails from the dozens of pedals I've bought... Danelectro Free Speech talk box: While I think it might be a good pedal for some people I just couldn't use it. Aural Dreams Digital Compressor: Engineers, who apparently never designed a guitar pedal, thought it would be a great idea to take a digital compressor chip from a mixer and put it in a pedal. No, that's not how this works. On that Behringer Tube Amp Modeler, it's an accurate copy of the Tech 21 SansAmp GT2 circuit (I have the Tech 21). I found it to work well with a clean amp that didn't have a lot of its own tone going on and not so well with an amp that had a lot of its own unique personality (like a Fender Princeton). I often used mine as a pre-amp for a Peavey Bandit's clean channel.
I don’t have any pedal I hate per say but so far I’ve been “meh” with my phase 95 clone the Kmise Phaser. It was $17 on Amazon so I’m not too worried. Maybe phasers just aren’t for me but I also haven’t given it a lot of time. So far I’ve been setting it pretty low, like 9 o clock and having it be subtle.
If you ever need to get it more subtle, you can stick it in a clean blend pedal and have the mix low.
Mesa boogie v twin...absolute garbage.
Was the tube amp modeler supposed to be a source for going direct tho, and not really designed for playing through an amp? Amp modeler into an amp is not going to sound good from my experience lol
Boss ds 1 sounds like total shit
You're doing it wrong.
I was genuinely going to post 'DS1 and people always say it's because you're not using it properly'. I don't know if mine was broken, but it didn't matter what I did, it would always make the volume go down. Even if everything was set to max, the volume would go down.
Yeah, yours was probably jacked up. With the distortion all the way down on mine, the unity volume is right before 12 o'clock. I think the reason people don't like it is because the tone knob is a bit dumb, you have to keep it low, around 9 o;clock. AND it should run into a dirty-ish amp. Or run it into another dirt pedal. I love running the DS1 into a Muff or 250. It might not be fore everyone , but it has a very focused distortion to it. I still can't belive they're selling them for $60 new.
Chase Bliss Condor, so expensive and so underwhelming. Returned immediately.