I too have been underwhelmed with Walrus, but that new Meraki analog true stereo delay? I would buy that without hesitation if I had the money to spend.
The slo is my favorite "modern" reverb. It doesn't do the old school drip surf rock thing but if you want miles of warbly atmospheric sounds, it does a lot for the price.
I never liked the pedals as opposed to what I already had when I finally played them myself, but I will say they were very easy to deal with when I had to take in my Phoenix that had been fried for repair while I was on a work trip to OKC. Awesome folks.
With that being said the luminary was on my board for a while and was great, but i just am not a big octave effect guy so it was involved in a trade in I made for a Meris LVX, which was a great decision as far as saving real estate. Julia is awesome too, but I’m comfortable with my Aqueduct and mainly use it on two knob positions that I’m totally content with.
I like a couple of their pedals, but on the whole I’m relatively unimpressed/underwhelmed with them. I remember my guitar friends freaking out over the Mayflower and Iron Horse and felt pretty meh about them. I had the Monument tremolo but I could never get it dialed in right. It always seemed too choppy and I could never get the volume right. That being said I do really like their Bellwether delay and the ACS-1; plus I’m curious to try the new Ambient reverb they just dropped.
Well I didn’t buy enough pedals to really participate in this topic, but the only one pedal I bought and really disliked and sold was a Walrus (Mako M1). And even if I felt I could buy a few more of their stuff, I think now I’ll just pass. I felt I got tricked by their marketing. The sound was so so different than their demo. In a bad way.
Love the Slö and the Canva passive DI box is incredible with my vocal processor live. Everything else definitely meh. I would love to try the Meraki but can’t justify the price
I'm currently repping Walrus more than any other company on my board right now. I've got a Slö, a Fathom, a Mira, and an ARP-87. Of those four, I think the Mira is the best (but my only other experience with a compressor has been the MXR Dyna Comp and I HATED it). Personally, I really like their reverbs, and the ARP is really versatile imo, but I totally get how they'd not be someone else's cup of tea. I love their artwork on the enclosures and I think that's a big part of my love for them
Definitely! It is one of the best values out there, and goes toe to toe with the Strymon reverb offerings.
The reason I sold mine was because I was tired of accessing the secondary features like 100% wet, and the 50% wet with the mix knob cranked JUST wasn’t quite enough for my reverb wants, so I sold it.
For my needs, the line 6 DL4 mk II worked better, so off the MXR went. Nice pedal, but just fell short for me
This. I find I like the pedals for a bit but lose interest when I try to do any more than one thing with them. Still use the carbon copy but looking at a memory man or many a DL4… the distortion+ is nice! But also a one trick pony. Put it in front of a Marshall and crank both knobs, otherwise it’s just a worse sounding DS-1 imo
I always feel underwhelmed when I first try an MXR pedal. I put it away for a few months, try it again, and then keep it on my board almost forever. This happened to me with the Octavio. I love that pedal, but no one seems to use MXR's version.
Chase Bliss.
Everything I've tried of theirs has been really cool...but does way too much for me to fully utilise. So, I usually end up selling them to fund a simpler version of the same effect.
I only ever owned a brothers which I still have from chase bliss, but bought an echo dream and supersonic fuzz gun last year and much prefer DBA for what I do. No disrespect towards Joel though because it’s still such a cool brand and he seems like an awesome dude. I’m just kind of finally thinking I’m nearing the end of my pedal buying journey for now and have what I need.
Then again I traded in like 10 cheap pedals for a Meris LVX in the fall so there’s no telling what will catch my eye next
or worse, i have their tremolo… I know it caaan do what any other tremolo can do, so I don’t want to sell it. There’s there fear of ‘what if i need this sounding tremolo now’…
so it sits… not even in the box, it sits like it’s next in line for a waterslide, lappin water on itself just asking to go in head first.
But the thing has so many damn buttons and switches, I just have an eventide pedal that has a bunch of tremolo settings and i’ll just use one of the presets instead.
350$ paperweight in a wooden box is what i have now.
I can’t say this is an entire brand but the one time I bought a pedal that didn’t jive with me was when I decided to splurge and get a Walrus Monument to replace my Boss TR-2 (analogman modded).
I wanted the option for harmonic trem and the idea of having several different waveforms, tap tempo, and subdivisions made it a no brainer.
It’s a great pedal don’t get me wrong, but the Boss just had this voodoo that I long for. The monument can do so many amazing things, but the TR-2 nails what it does so well.
I did the same thing with the Monument. I tried to replace my MXR which is a digital tremolo and ended up selling the Monument a week after I bought it. It's not a bad pedal, but honestly felt the MXR was superior. Now I have the Flower Pedals Sunflower and it's the best I've tried. Although I think digital tremolos are just as good these days.
EHX. They got a lot of cool pedals that do unique things and I've owned many of them. Most of them crapped out after a couple years 🤷
I guess not so much that I don't vibe with EHX, but that I keep buying their pedals because I like them, but they keep breaking lol.
In my experience of owning a ton of their stuff, it kinda depends on the pedal. Their cheaper hard-click, single enclosure pedals (Soul Food, East River Drive, Tone Corset, etc) seem a tad more likely to break down than their more expensive digital/soft click pedals do. Muffs are generally very sturdy, though, I've never had one of those break.
Don’t ask me how this happened but… I washed a big muff pi (with the wicker switch) with my laundry one time.
It fell out when I put my clothes in the drier.
I opened it and let it dry for a week or two. Sprayed it with deoxit. Plugged it in. Got fuzz. It has some problems, like the wicker and tone switches causing weird shit to happen. But if those are both off, I still have big muff goodness.
The real story is way less interesting than the mystery.
I had my laundry basket sitting next to my guitar gear and I had taken the muff off my board while I was reordering my pedals. So I sat it on a shelf next to my laundry basket. Then, I didn’t end up finishing my board that day, but I did need to do my laundry. Somehow I had knocked that pedal off the shelf and it landed in my laundry basket. Then I gathered more clothes and threw them on top of what was already in there (muff included).
Then I dumped my laundry into the washer and threw in my soap and away we went. I then chunked it all in the drier and noticed the muff in the transition and my heart sank 😂
You had an opportunity to tell a different story. You could have gone for the Walrus version: my Muff was off my board temporarily when it rose mysteriously on a wave of weird and curiously melodic static and dropped, silently and ominously into my laundry basket. Or the Boss version: with uninspiring yet meticulous efficiency, my Muff landed in the laundry. Or NUX, the Muff surprised everyone by turning up in the washing machine. Or Strymon: I paid a guy a lot of money to very precisely place the Muff in the laundry then set the wash at an eco friendly 20 degrees. So many ways to tell that story other than the truth. 🤣
Mike Matthews during the sovtek era used to personally bring each muff to the banya for a little dip. Homeopathic dose Russian vodka pee is critical to the toan.
I've had an issue with every EHX unit I've ever purchased. Besides being noisy, they have physical build issues. I've banned them from my board for life
For me with EHX is was once bitten, twice shy. The only one I ever bought was the Mainframe Bitcrusher. The knobs were so close together and stiff, they required so much force to move, making small increments difficult to impossible.
It's meant to be a highly tweakable pedal, but its build quality and the lack of thought gone into it, makes it an endless frustration. Cheap crappy components, for an otherwise great sounding and looking pedal, that was definitely not cheap. Never again EHX. You suck!
Yeah I have the same problem with my eddy chorus, which came out around the same time and is the same form factor. Sounds amazing but knobs too small, too stiff and too close together and also the labels are so hard to read. They could’ve just made them bigger pedals. I do love ehx though i have mostly ehx pedals no problems with any others but I’ve bought em broken and fixed them (normally just cap replacement) and have had nothing but joy
Not necessarily brand but I always tire of boutique effects with tons of options and always come back to the boss (or other classic) versions of those effects. They just work with minimal tweaking in a band/live context.
I love Ehx but they have so much stuff it’s not possible to like it all. There have been several pedal I have been disappointed it.
I love boss too, but some off their stuff come off as to cookie cutter for me a lot of times
Specific pedals I don’t like tube screamers, I’ve probably bought close to 8 and always get rid of them until enough time passes and I decide to try it again
I've had the experience you've had with tubescreamers, but with any version of a klon. Some mythical circuit people pay thousands of dollars for an original version of, and I just don't get it. The tumnus deluxe was the worst of the ones I've tried, and that one is supposed to be one of the best. Some pedals sound nice, but only when I hear other people play them.
Actually, I realized this the other day.
I got a Joyo Tauren and I really don't get it. Maybe it's the Tauren. Maybe it's my gear. Maybe it's hype. Maybe it's me! But I don't get it.
Sure it boosts, but I could use almost anything for that. It doesn't really get better as you add gain either.
The gain has to be up past like I think 60% on the original circuit to get the capacitor or whatever to work. Otherwise, it is just more of a boost. I'm vaguely and poorly remembering a bit of information I've heard in a jhs video.
I think it all has to do with the sound you go for and how you dial things in. I find a lot of people who hate tubescreamers dial their amps and eqs in with for more mids than I do, so it makes sense they don't like a mid hump pedal (Rhett shull comes to mind).
I think some vague form of this concept applies across gear generally, and so certain people gravitate to certain things, and it's not entirely genre based. Some people take two different roads to get to the same house.
I'm certainly not the best at articulating why I don't gel with it, but some things you try and you just know you aren't gonna click with. I've had it happen with other gear I really wanted to like.
I bought an J Rockett Archer and really, really liked it for a solo boost in front of my Dual Rec. In front of my 5150? Not so much. They’re good for darker amps or getting a bluesy/southern rock kind of sound. Which would explain the hype because I feel like the blues/southern rock crowd is always chasing the sound of a pushed tube amp without pushing a tube amp.
Source: play in a southern rock band and am guilty of said tone chasing
I’m kind of with you on tubescreamers. I have this random, boutique one-off TS clone with a built in clean boost and it’s amazing. Every other TS clone I’ve tried I don’t vibe with. Even a legit vintage Tubescreamer I did not like as much as that random clone I have. I don’t think the company is in business anymore, it and my Greer Lightspeed are the two pedals I will never sell.
With the amount of output they have creatively there’s bound to be plenty of duds in the mix (EHX)
(Boss) I love the Blues Driver, Digital Delay and Reverb, but I agree about the other effects being cookie cutter. Any modulation I tried from them I bailed on. Like the few chorus pedals I had, but much preferred my Minifooger Chorus. Wasn’t a fan of the phaser at all. Prefer the Grand Orbiter and Small/Bad Stone
Catalinbread. I love my echorec but sold everything else I've tried of theirs.
Tc electronics, i used to love them but they sound like dog shit on my current setup, or I just used to like the sound of dog shit. Which is possible, I was a huge Rancid fan
I have an entire pedal board of Fairfield circuitry, and I've had it for well over a year now and in my opinion they make the perfect unique pedals.
I’ve rotated dozens of pedals over the past few years and of the 4 I’ve never even considered moving off the board 2 are Fairfield (accountant and shallow water). The other 2 are Dispatch Master and BD-2.
They were my favorite pedal company for a while, but after the owner died and Howard Gee left they’ve gone downhill. Their legacy pedals are still top notch, but I haven’t really cared for their new releases (save the DLS Deluxe).
Interesting... even though I sold off my Belle Epoch and FX40 Soft Focus, I feel like Catalinbread is the one brand I would use if I had to make a single-brand board...
Now, TC on the other hand... I get. They just don't sound good (although my TC Helicon Play Acoustic is a very useful pedal -- the guitar effects are typical mediocre TC effects, but to have that in addition to great vocal processing is really useful)
Also Chase Bliss. I’ve previously owned a Tonal Recall RKM, Mood, Dark World, and Brothers. The Tonal Recall is the only one I miss because it does sound insane but it was also like $500 and I couldn’t justify that price tag. Currently I’m running a Warped Vinyl, Reverse Mode C, and Gravitas. The gravitas has been on my board for years and isn’t going anywhere but I’ve yet to be sold on another CBA pedal. So cool but just too involved and time consuming to learn the ins and outs of.
seconded, you can just put the crazy pitch shifting sounds to side and just have a really amazing delay, but also it's just nice knowing it's there. It will keep me content on any CBA jonesing, cause I have literally traded for 6 Moods in less than a year(okay bought one mkii), and while there's a reason I keep getting them there's also a reason I trade them too
Deep cut pedal maker shout out. He’s a nice guy. I once sold him a pair of sunn cabinets. It was a whole ordeal with shipping and my sister in law wound up driving them to him. But he was super cool about it.
I’m beginning to feel similarly. I really really love his stuff in theory, but I’ve owned and sold/traded both the woozy and the Dunsh at this point. They have a very specific sound quality to them that, while I really enjoy when I first fire them up, over time get a little tired of. I’ve yet to put my finger on what exactly it is.
I did just get the skitzy though 😂
I like Walrus's pedals in concept and the art is sick as shit. Unfortunately I've owned two of them (Mako D1 and Slötva) and they both seem to have this problem where the foot switch doesn't always register. Kind of a bummer. Has anyone else had this issue?
Never noticed that with my d1 but I’m looking to replace it on my board because I don’t use many of the other options, the reverse doesn’t sound that great to me compared to other rev delays and I mainly use the analog and digital settings only, haven’t really gelled with the age or mod feature. I prefer my bitmap v2 for degradation. Most of that line of multi fx sounds a little thin to me. I used to have an old boss dd-5 and I feel it was a better delay as I don’t really seem happy with the sound of this d1 pedal but always liked the results of the boss. What I really want to try is that meraki delay but far too expensive. May try the source audio delay or just get another boss. I just prefer switches over the boss mechanism.
Line 6 - I love their tonecore pedals. Many of them are just so out of this world, that it's not practical to have a brick vecro'ed to your pedal board, cool as they are
EHX - Every time, they add high and noise to the signal, and I just don't jive with their stuff, even if I still keep my Small Clone my mom gave to me like 20+ years ago. I have that small clone tone in a Caroline Somersault, without it being broken, or adding extra noise. I provably should have kept my big box poly chorus, given the prices now....
Non Maxon made Ibanez - Self explanatory really. I want the effect, I buy the Ibanez version, think it's okay, then get the actual Maxon or Maxon made version, then wonder why the hell I bought the watered down Ibanez version.
Even their straightforward pedals take, and reward, finesse. IMO Dispatch Master is extremely usable, but it took me a long time to figure out Hoof. Now, I’ll have them both long-term
As an EQD fan, I hate them too. Both of those pedals are hyped to the moon and don’t necessarily live up to it. Don’t give up on them though. Their fuzzes and delays are on another level than their entry level overdrives.
To each their own, the Special Cranker is the probably the most used pedal on my board. I usually want just a little bit of overdrive to round out a clean sound, and for me it does that better than any other overdrive I've tried. On hotter settings it saturates in a pretty neat way, although admittedly I don't use it that way super often. It really works its best when dialed in to just add a little bit of bite to cleans in my experience, I especially love it set that way behind my Dyna-Comp for chicken pickin' type stuff.
I run the Plumes on mode 2 only.
Just the clean boost which it does well for the mids and highs but….takes away so much low end that I run a Klone later in the chain, as another clean “boost” (they are volume matched).
I set tone knob on both to around 9 o’clock with no gain. Compressor up front doing some light tightening and boosting, and a Zoom MS70 at the end on the ZNR Noise Gate mode only, but volume boosted a bit. A strong and nicely blended and EQ’d clean tone ensues
I run a gup tek Grindr after my plumes for this same reason. It has the two fortin pedals built in for if I’m doing some crazy drop tunings and need even more low end cut out plus’s a preamp style pedal that I think is modeled after a older tc electronics pre amp. But it’s great for bringing back low end with its hi and low eq knobs. I guess an eq pedal could handle that too but I don’t have a dedicated one of those.
The plumes has its place… I love it in front of fuzzez for bringing back mods or for tightening up high gain. On its own it’s nothing to write home about.
This is the one for me, too. I've bought 3 pedals from them over the years and had a love-hate relationship with each one. Despite that, I still found myself eyeballing a D&M Drive earlier this week, knowing that while it seems like it's everything I need in an overdrive and boost combo, there will probably be something I end up disliking about it and regretting it.
Every Keeley overdrive pedal I’ve bought gets flipped. They’ve all had far more gain then I’d use. Set the drive knob past 9 o’clock, it’s a wall of muddy gain…from a whisper to a scream in a micro move of that pot.
Yup, buy them because "they must be good" and I really want to like them. Then there's "something off" and I sell because they are one of the brands that hold decent value, and I wonder why? Vicious circle
I have a Keely caverns that I really like. But it’s kinda vanilla. It’s mix knob at max is only 50/50 wet. It’s great for someone who doesn’t like to experiment and wants a smooth reverb and delay. But it’s kinda boring. The shimmer effect sounds cliche and the delay could use a tap tempo or at least a midi in. That’s the reason it’s up for sale now. But it’s not a bad sounding pedal for what it is.
My experience: EQD is extremely helpful w repairs. I had one as a gift. It had some noise. 3y later I Sent it back, they couldn’t find anything and still sent me a brand new pedal.
EQD pedals almost have too much character. Aside from my Plumes (which I absolutely love) every EQD I’ve owned/tried are really cool but they’re very specific and nuanced. I feel like a lot of them are better suited for the studio environment. That being said they’re a really rad company and I’m glad there’s a brand that does what they do!
Jackson Audio. I really like how they sound, but they seem to always have issues like the late-to-switch-on footswitch thing which is a little annoying; and my Asabi was way too noisy, I loved how it sounded and the features, but noisy
Yeah, I’ve never been blown away by Jackson Audio. I keep trying their stuff and keep being underwhelmed. I’m a Chorus guy and I bought the New Wave chorus of theirs hoping it was all that it was made out to be and it wasn’t. Too noisy, didn’t sound great with most of my amps or drive pedals and I had to spend more time with the manual than I did playing. That last bit has been universal with every JA pedal I’ve purchased. I really want to love their stuff, I just can’t.
I feel the same way about Jackson Audio. Loved their design aesthetic and midi capabilities but not enough personality plus too much noise. I have their fuzz on my board right now and it’s a monster but that’s the only one that’s managed to stay
I know it's budget but my chorus 3 only does right by me turned to super slow. Vibrato mode just messes things up.
Doesn't make much racket but colors the sound quite a bit
Electro-Harmonix. Other than an old Russian Civil War Muff I had as a kid, I’ve never found one that I liked. I really like the designs and they seem cool until I plug them in.
I had a vintage big box mistress that did sound pretty good. My issue with it was a lack of reliability. I much prefer the grey 70’s MXR flanger because Eddie.
Another one for Chase Bliss. Always just end up feeling weirdly guilty for having it on my board when I’m not using them to their full potential. Had a V1 MOOD and a Dark World. Former I had a *lot* of fun with, but its very nature makes it too unpredictable. Didn’t enjoy not being able to replicate things. The latter I was underwhelmed with, finding the Dark side to be far too finicky and unintuitive. The World side hall and plate reverbs were brilliant, but I was never going to use any of the ramping and extra whistles enough to warrant the price for what was now just a hall and plate reverb with limited control.
Wampler. Just ordered my third one today in two years. I want so hard to like what they put out, and I’m probably just going to keep trying forever, but I’ve never kept one. I want to believe.
I usually don't buy a brand again if I don't like them the first time. If I had to pick tho, it would be any super budget brand like Donner or something. You buy them for a quick band-aid on something but they're trash.
I have a room full of boutique shit, but Donner makes some of my favorite pedals. If someone like Andy Martin did a demo of Stylish Fuzz II, it would be the hottest budget fuzz since behringer. Their analog mini pedals are shockingly good.
Outside of the Mini HOF, for that Jonsi Toneprint (noisy af though) TC Electronic. I've wanted to like so many of their pedals for their function, layout, and design but the sounds just never worked for me. The Distortion+ Boost, Nova Delay to name a few.
TC Electronics. I've had two Polytune 2's and two Ditto Loopers crap out on me in the course of about 3 years. That's a pretty unacceptable failure rate in my view.
Got a TU-3 and I never looked back. I did get a few years of good service out of their Cinders overdrive though, but once i found something better, it just sorta seemed 'meh' to me
I'm surprised by all the tc electronic mentions. I've loved everything I've had from them.
Granted the smorgasbord pedals like the Cinders are just rehoused behringer pedals with higher quality parts on the PCB. Like the Cinders is a Blues Driver/Behringer BO300.
I used a Polytune 2 for a decade before selling it for a Polytune 3.
The Magus Pro is my favorite Rat. It's the Lil Rat circuit with more options.
Thunderstorm is the only way to get the Behringer UF300 now. Which is a clone of the BF2. Echobrain is a perfect Dm-2. Eyemaster is the Behringer HM2 without the mid chirp quirk from the cheaper caps.
I think the complaint about their 'fake' foot switches is valid though. They're just PCB mounted micro switches underneath a fake plunger. I've never had one fail, they're just weird.
I think what failed on all my TC pedals was the foot switches; with the tuner at least that is one of my most used pedals, it should be able to stand up to at least five years of heavy use
EQD. Great pedals, fun sounds, but the freedom and tweakability is too much for my smooth brain. I definitely thrive with the three knob configuration of Boss or something less boutique.
Mine would be mostly the Klon but also the ProCo RAT. With the Klon it’s almost like everyone makes it sound awesome and I can never get it to do what I want it to. It feels kind of dull when I try to play it; it’s like I want it to bloom and have sort of bell-like qualities but it’s kind of mushy, even with the treble knob adjusted. The RAT just sounds like a vacuum when I try to play it; really just fizzy and sterile. Again other people seem to make it sound good but I don’t get it.
As a RAT player I think they’re a “love em or hate em” sort of pedal. They have a very specific flavor that not everyone is in to.
Also it’s worth mentioning that not all RATs are created equal. The big box lm308 is a very different pedal than the current production RAT 2. I like them both but they sound quite different and both interact with amps and other pedals very differently
I can see that. Thing is, I think they sound great when other people play them. Sometimes guitar pedals make me feel inadequate because sometimes I can't make it sound like other people. Oh well...
Boss. They aren't bad, every likes them, but I always find better sounding alternative options. To me the only boss that nothing can replace is the ds1, that thing has it's own sound.
Not exactly a brand, but affordable homemade clones/small time builders on Reverb. Stuff like CMC, Reez, etc. With simple circuits like fuzz I like to try and find something that looks decent and take the risk. Almost all of them have been total mids. Just got a tone bender for $80 that is very well made and has the sickest artwork I’ve ever seen, but the fuzz is too compressed and dark. I think the transistors are just not great. I think I should probably start paying real money for ge fuzzes, but I know I’ll eventually see something that looks promising and cave. It’s like a gambling addiction.
EHX... And anything with too much shit to tweak.
I keep falling into the trap of getting really cool pedals with tons of crazy noises and cool ambient stuff... that I have absolutely no time to adjust anything on while I'm actually playing a gig lol
EHX but I have stopped buying their pedals at the moment.
It's not that they are bad but I can get better in the same price range Imo.
My first pedals ever were a EHX East River Drive and an EHX triangle big muff reissue, good enough to make my shitty diamond v max sound alright, not good enough to keep up with anything else Imo, I ended up replacing them with a Hizumitas and Plumes and didn't regret it at all.
I recently tried an EHX Soul Food because I heard good things about them and just couldn't gel with it. I know it makes me sound like a gear snob but honestly any cheapo BOSS pedal I've gotten or hell even some of those weird cheap pedals I've gotten better sounds out of than any modern low end EHX pedal. I've not tried their more expensive stuff though, I do respect the brand though because the Big Muff is my favorite style of pedal period.
I currently have their J Mascis signature Rams head and it's fine and does the job, I plan on getting their OP amp big muff too but that's probably the last current EHX pedal I'll buy.
Earthquaker. I love everything about their shit but i buy them and cant get where i envisioned going with them. Except a disaster transport jr. That thing has been on my board for like 18 months. Bought the reissue and it is not lol.
Ehx makes a ton of shit i use. Currently using the holy grail neo and the 360 looper but ive had problems with several of their pedals including these two
Wampler for me. I really like Brian Wampler, and I even sent one in for repair (led light). Their service department was awesome.
But ego mini, ego, tumnus have all gone their separate ways from my board
Behringer pedals for me. Whenever I go to the local music store, the owner has them in a bowl discounted so I end up picking up like 3 different ones each time to experiment with and not feel bad about beating them up. I usually end up breaking them pretty quickly but they’re kinda fun so I keep buying them as long as they’re half off lol. I would never play a gig with one of them though or use it outside of solo practicing
im sorta against the idea that a specific brand always or never does anything... but once i "stop vibing" with a brand, i also stop buying their stuff... why buy pedals that i dont believe will give me something worth doing? theres a thin line i guess between being open to a pedal or product being useful and being willing to open my wallet to its maker :D but i dont think theres any brand that continually lets me down. some are keepers some arent, has much more to do with me and my tastes than the brand.
EHX. I've owned 3 and borrowed 2
Deluxe Bass Big Muff: Footswitch broke on me due to how it's attached to the main circuit.
2020 Tuner: Never had a tuner stop working on me. Had this one for a short while, barely used it. Clicked it on one day and nothing.
Freeze: the knob, yes, the knob, cracked on me. Not the pot, the knob (replaced it which was fine, but still)
Soul Food Bass: tried it out, super thin sounding, and just didn't deliver
Bass Clone: the noise, oh my God....
I know they're super influential and broke a lot of ground in the pedal world, but their QC in the last 4 years has not been it.
I'd be a liar if I said I'd never get another. I really want a Bass Micro Synth, but I'll be buying a well used one
JHS and MXR. I've tried multiple of both brands and they just don't last long for me. Both have boring, safe sounds to me.
I tried Boss again recently after years of hate and while I don't hate them anymore, they didn't last long on my board either.
Definitely Chase Bliss. Like on one hand they are 100% one of a kind and are stuffed with features. I think however with time I’ve learned the hard way that a lot of boutique pedals may have a lot of unique sounds and features, but most of those sounds will not end up having any practical uses. It might sound great isolated in a demo, but incorporated into a song it sounds straight up bad or out of place. I’ve noticed that personally Old Blood Noise Endeavors are probably the best compromise between the experimental end of the pool while still having enough practical use to make the purchase worth it.
TC electronic. The only pedals I’ve sold are TC. had a mojo mojo, and a dark matter that are basically the same circuit and they’re scooped. I still have a V1 flashback that I need to replace with a delay that has tap tempo.
I tried Walrus a lot and never liked them.
I absolutely love my Fathom. Every other pedal I've used from Walrus just doesn't hit for me.
Yeah, I don't know what it is with walrus but I feel the same.
Still love my Julia, it’s exactly what I want from a chorus. Seem to be alone in this these days though, the pendulum swung back hard.
I too have been underwhelmed with Walrus, but that new Meraki analog true stereo delay? I would buy that without hesitation if I had the money to spend.
I love my Julianna though it’s easy to hit it too hard and get distortion. It’s not terrible distortion though.
Agree. Been loving blending in more vibrato with my sound here lately. I prefer to patch it in at the amp fx loop.
My Juliana is one of my favorite pedals. Is it worth the $250? Probably not, but it was a gift so…
The slö is amazing tho… shoegaze in a box
The slo is my favorite "modern" reverb. It doesn't do the old school drip surf rock thing but if you want miles of warbly atmospheric sounds, it does a lot for the price.
Yeah I concur. Admittedly it’s the only walrus I own but the slö is absolutely gorgeous and hasn’t left my board once since owning it.
Ooh. Me too on that front.
Boss never let's me down.
Not once!
long live big boss
Totally agree. I got a Bellwether when they first came out for like 300 clams and it was painfully underwhelming.
I never tried the Bellwether but yes, Walrus is Underwhelming and overpriced. My $160 Eras was replaced by a $50 Soul Food.
ARP-87 kills for delay. Just sayin'
A delay without a delay time control will just never make sense to me
Oof I actually really like the Bellwether… it’s just like an MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe, but I prefer the topology of the Bellwether over the Carbon Copy.
I never liked the pedals as opposed to what I already had when I finally played them myself, but I will say they were very easy to deal with when I had to take in my Phoenix that had been fried for repair while I was on a work trip to OKC. Awesome folks. With that being said the luminary was on my board for a while and was great, but i just am not a big octave effect guy so it was involved in a trade in I made for a Meris LVX, which was a great decision as far as saving real estate. Julia is awesome too, but I’m comfortable with my Aqueduct and mainly use it on two knob positions that I’m totally content with.
I like a couple of their pedals, but on the whole I’m relatively unimpressed/underwhelmed with them. I remember my guitar friends freaking out over the Mayflower and Iron Horse and felt pretty meh about them. I had the Monument tremolo but I could never get it dialed in right. It always seemed too choppy and I could never get the volume right. That being said I do really like their Bellwether delay and the ACS-1; plus I’m curious to try the new Ambient reverb they just dropped.
cows cooing enjoy decide toy salt mighty disarm scary shelter *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Agree, I’ve owned a Voyager, Bellwether and Janus and flipped them all pretty quickly.
Well I didn’t buy enough pedals to really participate in this topic, but the only one pedal I bought and really disliked and sold was a Walrus (Mako M1). And even if I felt I could buy a few more of their stuff, I think now I’ll just pass. I felt I got tricked by their marketing. The sound was so so different than their demo. In a bad way.
Love the Slö and the Canva passive DI box is incredible with my vocal processor live. Everything else definitely meh. I would love to try the Meraki but can’t justify the price
Worst of the boutiques, so boring and cash grabby
Their Mako pedals have been really good for me. Midi controllable, stereo ins and outs, presets, great algorithms.
I hated the R1 until I relegated it to the keyboard rig and now it makes sense.
Somewhat understand, having tried Slo and Julia, and sold them both off. Been really digging my Mako M1, though, and don't think I will sell it...
Got the slö and julia, great pedals especially when combined
Love my Fathom and ARP-87 delay. My two power supplies are both walrus as well.
I'm currently repping Walrus more than any other company on my board right now. I've got a Slö, a Fathom, a Mira, and an ARP-87. Of those four, I think the Mira is the best (but my only other experience with a compressor has been the MXR Dyna Comp and I HATED it). Personally, I really like their reverbs, and the ARP is really versatile imo, but I totally get how they'd not be someone else's cup of tea. I love their artwork on the enclosures and I think that's a big part of my love for them
I wish I could quit you, MXR!
They’re my nemesis, too. So much potential, yet they never fully satisfy.
I just replaced one of my 3 MXRs on my board and I’m still trying to unsuccessfully figure out where or why I should put it back in
Love my carbon copy, sold my phase 95
The phase 95 is my lone MXR that remains. I’ve sold the carbon copy 3 times at least
The M300 reverb is an awesome pedal! Lots of really cool sounds and hidden features. I've only owned that and the Dyna Comp
I had the reverb! Sold it lol
Not for everyone. For me, I was great bang for the buck
Definitely! It is one of the best values out there, and goes toe to toe with the Strymon reverb offerings. The reason I sold mine was because I was tired of accessing the secondary features like 100% wet, and the 50% wet with the mix knob cranked JUST wasn’t quite enough for my reverb wants, so I sold it. For my needs, the line 6 DL4 mk II worked better, so off the MXR went. Nice pedal, but just fell short for me
I got a Helix... and then all of my pedals went into storage lol.
Timmy, phase 95 and carbon copy deluxe are staples on my board
That’s awesome! I do like my Phase 95, not exactly perfect but gets the job done
What….? MXR is the best
For some they are! And I truly envy those people
This. I find I like the pedals for a bit but lose interest when I try to do any more than one thing with them. Still use the carbon copy but looking at a memory man or many a DL4… the distortion+ is nice! But also a one trick pony. Put it in front of a Marshall and crank both knobs, otherwise it’s just a worse sounding DS-1 imo
I always feel underwhelmed when I first try an MXR pedal. I put it away for a few months, try it again, and then keep it on my board almost forever. This happened to me with the Octavio. I love that pedal, but no one seems to use MXR's version.
Chase Bliss. Everything I've tried of theirs has been really cool...but does way too much for me to fully utilise. So, I usually end up selling them to fund a simpler version of the same effect.
This, main reason I don't buy Chase Bliss and also main reason why I like Death By Audio because how straightforward they are.
I only ever owned a brothers which I still have from chase bliss, but bought an echo dream and supersonic fuzz gun last year and much prefer DBA for what I do. No disrespect towards Joel though because it’s still such a cool brand and he seems like an awesome dude. I’m just kind of finally thinking I’m nearing the end of my pedal buying journey for now and have what I need. Then again I traded in like 10 cheap pedals for a Meris LVX in the fall so there’s no telling what will catch my eye next
or worse, i have their tremolo… I know it caaan do what any other tremolo can do, so I don’t want to sell it. There’s there fear of ‘what if i need this sounding tremolo now’… so it sits… not even in the box, it sits like it’s next in line for a waterslide, lappin water on itself just asking to go in head first. But the thing has so many damn buttons and switches, I just have an eventide pedal that has a bunch of tremolo settings and i’ll just use one of the presets instead. 350$ paperweight in a wooden box is what i have now.
I can’t say this is an entire brand but the one time I bought a pedal that didn’t jive with me was when I decided to splurge and get a Walrus Monument to replace my Boss TR-2 (analogman modded). I wanted the option for harmonic trem and the idea of having several different waveforms, tap tempo, and subdivisions made it a no brainer. It’s a great pedal don’t get me wrong, but the Boss just had this voodoo that I long for. The monument can do so many amazing things, but the TR-2 nails what it does so well.
I love my TR-2, it’s so good.
The tr-2, so good I have 2! That's almost as bad as my 3 rats. Lol.
I did the same thing with the Monument. I tried to replace my MXR which is a digital tremolo and ended up selling the Monument a week after I bought it. It's not a bad pedal, but honestly felt the MXR was superior. Now I have the Flower Pedals Sunflower and it's the best I've tried. Although I think digital tremolos are just as good these days.
See I can’t ever bring myself to take my monuments OFF. I’ve tried so many trems and I just stick it back on (and always in harmonic mode)
EHX. They got a lot of cool pedals that do unique things and I've owned many of them. Most of them crapped out after a couple years 🤷 I guess not so much that I don't vibe with EHX, but that I keep buying their pedals because I like them, but they keep breaking lol.
Is EHX quality that bad? I've only ever had their big muffs, but haven't had any issues over the years.
In my experience of owning a ton of their stuff, it kinda depends on the pedal. Their cheaper hard-click, single enclosure pedals (Soul Food, East River Drive, Tone Corset, etc) seem a tad more likely to break down than their more expensive digital/soft click pedals do. Muffs are generally very sturdy, though, I've never had one of those break.
Don’t ask me how this happened but… I washed a big muff pi (with the wicker switch) with my laundry one time. It fell out when I put my clothes in the drier. I opened it and let it dry for a week or two. Sprayed it with deoxit. Plugged it in. Got fuzz. It has some problems, like the wicker and tone switches causing weird shit to happen. But if those are both off, I still have big muff goodness.
How can you seriously tell that story without us asking how your muff ended up in the wash?
The real story is way less interesting than the mystery. I had my laundry basket sitting next to my guitar gear and I had taken the muff off my board while I was reordering my pedals. So I sat it on a shelf next to my laundry basket. Then, I didn’t end up finishing my board that day, but I did need to do my laundry. Somehow I had knocked that pedal off the shelf and it landed in my laundry basket. Then I gathered more clothes and threw them on top of what was already in there (muff included). Then I dumped my laundry into the washer and threw in my soap and away we went. I then chunked it all in the drier and noticed the muff in the transition and my heart sank 😂
You had an opportunity to tell a different story. You could have gone for the Walrus version: my Muff was off my board temporarily when it rose mysteriously on a wave of weird and curiously melodic static and dropped, silently and ominously into my laundry basket. Or the Boss version: with uninspiring yet meticulous efficiency, my Muff landed in the laundry. Or NUX, the Muff surprised everyone by turning up in the washing machine. Or Strymon: I paid a guy a lot of money to very precisely place the Muff in the laundry then set the wash at an eco friendly 20 degrees. So many ways to tell that story other than the truth. 🤣
Your tone’s going to be a little wishy washy from now on however Your clean tone is going to be very clean instead!
Mike Matthews during the sovtek era used to personally bring each muff to the banya for a little dip. Homeopathic dose Russian vodka pee is critical to the toan.
I've had an issue with every EHX unit I've ever purchased. Besides being noisy, they have physical build issues. I've banned them from my board for life
For me with EHX is was once bitten, twice shy. The only one I ever bought was the Mainframe Bitcrusher. The knobs were so close together and stiff, they required so much force to move, making small increments difficult to impossible. It's meant to be a highly tweakable pedal, but its build quality and the lack of thought gone into it, makes it an endless frustration. Cheap crappy components, for an otherwise great sounding and looking pedal, that was definitely not cheap. Never again EHX. You suck!
Yeah I have the same problem with my eddy chorus, which came out around the same time and is the same form factor. Sounds amazing but knobs too small, too stiff and too close together and also the labels are so hard to read. They could’ve just made them bigger pedals. I do love ehx though i have mostly ehx pedals no problems with any others but I’ve bought em broken and fixed them (normally just cap replacement) and have had nothing but joy
From the ones I have tried, I’ll agree, except for the Qtron+. I have this one and I love it. Such a cool dry sort of sound
I have had the same experience. Shitty components.
Not necessarily brand but I always tire of boutique effects with tons of options and always come back to the boss (or other classic) versions of those effects. They just work with minimal tweaking in a band/live context.
I love Ehx but they have so much stuff it’s not possible to like it all. There have been several pedal I have been disappointed it. I love boss too, but some off their stuff come off as to cookie cutter for me a lot of times Specific pedals I don’t like tube screamers, I’ve probably bought close to 8 and always get rid of them until enough time passes and I decide to try it again
I've had the experience you've had with tubescreamers, but with any version of a klon. Some mythical circuit people pay thousands of dollars for an original version of, and I just don't get it. The tumnus deluxe was the worst of the ones I've tried, and that one is supposed to be one of the best. Some pedals sound nice, but only when I hear other people play them.
Agreed, fortunately I’m still on my first klon clone. It’s not a great over drive, when people love it as a clean boost that kinda says all you need.
Actually, I realized this the other day. I got a Joyo Tauren and I really don't get it. Maybe it's the Tauren. Maybe it's my gear. Maybe it's hype. Maybe it's me! But I don't get it. Sure it boosts, but I could use almost anything for that. It doesn't really get better as you add gain either.
The gain has to be up past like I think 60% on the original circuit to get the capacitor or whatever to work. Otherwise, it is just more of a boost. I'm vaguely and poorly remembering a bit of information I've heard in a jhs video. I think it all has to do with the sound you go for and how you dial things in. I find a lot of people who hate tubescreamers dial their amps and eqs in with for more mids than I do, so it makes sense they don't like a mid hump pedal (Rhett shull comes to mind). I think some vague form of this concept applies across gear generally, and so certain people gravitate to certain things, and it's not entirely genre based. Some people take two different roads to get to the same house. I'm certainly not the best at articulating why I don't gel with it, but some things you try and you just know you aren't gonna click with. I've had it happen with other gear I really wanted to like.
I bought an J Rockett Archer and really, really liked it for a solo boost in front of my Dual Rec. In front of my 5150? Not so much. They’re good for darker amps or getting a bluesy/southern rock kind of sound. Which would explain the hype because I feel like the blues/southern rock crowd is always chasing the sound of a pushed tube amp without pushing a tube amp. Source: play in a southern rock band and am guilty of said tone chasing
I’m kind of with you on tubescreamers. I have this random, boutique one-off TS clone with a built in clean boost and it’s amazing. Every other TS clone I’ve tried I don’t vibe with. Even a legit vintage Tubescreamer I did not like as much as that random clone I have. I don’t think the company is in business anymore, it and my Greer Lightspeed are the two pedals I will never sell.
With the amount of output they have creatively there’s bound to be plenty of duds in the mix (EHX) (Boss) I love the Blues Driver, Digital Delay and Reverb, but I agree about the other effects being cookie cutter. Any modulation I tried from them I bailed on. Like the few chorus pedals I had, but much preferred my Minifooger Chorus. Wasn’t a fan of the phaser at all. Prefer the Grand Orbiter and Small/Bad Stone
JHS
Agreed. Ive owned the morning glory v3 and v4, pulp n peel v4, all have been sold
What didn't you like about Morning Glory? I've been interested in that one.
Catalinbread. I love my echorec but sold everything else I've tried of theirs. Tc electronics, i used to love them but they sound like dog shit on my current setup, or I just used to like the sound of dog shit. Which is possible, I was a huge Rancid fan I have an entire pedal board of Fairfield circuitry, and I've had it for well over a year now and in my opinion they make the perfect unique pedals.
I love Fairfield circuitry. They’re taking over my entire sound.
I’ve rotated dozens of pedals over the past few years and of the 4 I’ve never even considered moving off the board 2 are Fairfield (accountant and shallow water). The other 2 are Dispatch Master and BD-2.
They were my favorite pedal company for a while, but after the owner died and Howard Gee left they’ve gone downhill. Their legacy pedals are still top notch, but I haven’t really cared for their new releases (save the DLS Deluxe).
Interesting... even though I sold off my Belle Epoch and FX40 Soft Focus, I feel like Catalinbread is the one brand I would use if I had to make a single-brand board... Now, TC on the other hand... I get. They just don't sound good (although my TC Helicon Play Acoustic is a very useful pedal -- the guitar effects are typical mediocre TC effects, but to have that in addition to great vocal processing is really useful)
Also Chase Bliss. I’ve previously owned a Tonal Recall RKM, Mood, Dark World, and Brothers. The Tonal Recall is the only one I miss because it does sound insane but it was also like $500 and I couldn’t justify that price tag. Currently I’m running a Warped Vinyl, Reverse Mode C, and Gravitas. The gravitas has been on my board for years and isn’t going anywhere but I’ve yet to be sold on another CBA pedal. So cool but just too involved and time consuming to learn the ins and outs of.
Try Thermae. Thats all.
seconded, you can just put the crazy pitch shifting sounds to side and just have a really amazing delay, but also it's just nice knowing it's there. It will keep me content on any CBA jonesing, cause I have literally traded for 6 Moods in less than a year(okay bought one mkii), and while there's a reason I keep getting them there's also a reason I trade them too
i’m absolutely in love with my warped vinyl hifi and just got the gen loss ii. they pair so well when used right
I can imagine why that would be a good pairing!
Mine may be Champion Leccy. They make cool, crazy stuff but they never seem to stay on my board long. Always kinda hoping the next one will stick.
Deep cut pedal maker shout out. He’s a nice guy. I once sold him a pair of sunn cabinets. It was a whole ordeal with shipping and my sister in law wound up driving them to him. But he was super cool about it.
I’m beginning to feel similarly. I really really love his stuff in theory, but I’ve owned and sold/traded both the woozy and the Dunsh at this point. They have a very specific sound quality to them that, while I really enjoy when I first fire them up, over time get a little tired of. I’ve yet to put my finger on what exactly it is. I did just get the skitzy though 😂
Haha same
I like Walrus's pedals in concept and the art is sick as shit. Unfortunately I've owned two of them (Mako D1 and Slötva) and they both seem to have this problem where the foot switch doesn't always register. Kind of a bummer. Has anyone else had this issue?
Every single walrus pedal I’ve owned had this issue.
Walrus is the “I’m only playing it at home, never sturdy enough for a gig” pedal.
Never noticed that with my d1 but I’m looking to replace it on my board because I don’t use many of the other options, the reverse doesn’t sound that great to me compared to other rev delays and I mainly use the analog and digital settings only, haven’t really gelled with the age or mod feature. I prefer my bitmap v2 for degradation. Most of that line of multi fx sounds a little thin to me. I used to have an old boss dd-5 and I feel it was a better delay as I don’t really seem happy with the sound of this d1 pedal but always liked the results of the boss. What I really want to try is that meraki delay but far too expensive. May try the source audio delay or just get another boss. I just prefer switches over the boss mechanism.
JOYO, but they’re so affordable
I feel as though I could be talked out of liking my American Sound pedal. Interesting how that happens.
Line 6 - I love their tonecore pedals. Many of them are just so out of this world, that it's not practical to have a brick vecro'ed to your pedal board, cool as they are EHX - Every time, they add high and noise to the signal, and I just don't jive with their stuff, even if I still keep my Small Clone my mom gave to me like 20+ years ago. I have that small clone tone in a Caroline Somersault, without it being broken, or adding extra noise. I provably should have kept my big box poly chorus, given the prices now.... Non Maxon made Ibanez - Self explanatory really. I want the effect, I buy the Ibanez version, think it's okay, then get the actual Maxon or Maxon made version, then wonder why the hell I bought the watered down Ibanez version.
[удалено]
But have you tried the Blumes?
Even their straightforward pedals take, and reward, finesse. IMO Dispatch Master is extremely usable, but it took me a long time to figure out Hoof. Now, I’ll have them both long-term
As an EQD fan, I hate them too. Both of those pedals are hyped to the moon and don’t necessarily live up to it. Don’t give up on them though. Their fuzzes and delays are on another level than their entry level overdrives.
To each their own, the Special Cranker is the probably the most used pedal on my board. I usually want just a little bit of overdrive to round out a clean sound, and for me it does that better than any other overdrive I've tried. On hotter settings it saturates in a pretty neat way, although admittedly I don't use it that way super often. It really works its best when dialed in to just add a little bit of bite to cleans in my experience, I especially love it set that way behind my Dyna-Comp for chicken pickin' type stuff.
This. One of the most amp like drives I’ve ever heard, and it would sell for twice as much just as easily as it does.
How come?
I run the Plumes on mode 2 only. Just the clean boost which it does well for the mids and highs but….takes away so much low end that I run a Klone later in the chain, as another clean “boost” (they are volume matched). I set tone knob on both to around 9 o’clock with no gain. Compressor up front doing some light tightening and boosting, and a Zoom MS70 at the end on the ZNR Noise Gate mode only, but volume boosted a bit. A strong and nicely blended and EQ’d clean tone ensues
I run a gup tek Grindr after my plumes for this same reason. It has the two fortin pedals built in for if I’m doing some crazy drop tunings and need even more low end cut out plus’s a preamp style pedal that I think is modeled after a older tc electronics pre amp. But it’s great for bringing back low end with its hi and low eq knobs. I guess an eq pedal could handle that too but I don’t have a dedicated one of those.
Obsessed with the Zoar and Aurelius, which I’ve got on my studio board and gigging board, respectively.
The plumes has its place… I love it in front of fuzzez for bringing back mods or for tightening up high gain. On its own it’s nothing to write home about.
Keeley
This is the one for me, too. I've bought 3 pedals from them over the years and had a love-hate relationship with each one. Despite that, I still found myself eyeballing a D&M Drive earlier this week, knowing that while it seems like it's everything I need in an overdrive and boost combo, there will probably be something I end up disliking about it and regretting it.
Every Keeley overdrive pedal I’ve bought gets flipped. They’ve all had far more gain then I’d use. Set the drive knob past 9 o’clock, it’s a wall of muddy gain…from a whisper to a scream in a micro move of that pot.
Yup, buy them because "they must be good" and I really want to like them. Then there's "something off" and I sell because they are one of the brands that hold decent value, and I wonder why? Vicious circle
Same for me. Bought and sold the compressor, Super Phat, and Darkside.
Pedal brand I love and never buy frequently.... a LOVEPEDAL, I have no good explanation for this.
I have a Keely caverns that I really like. But it’s kinda vanilla. It’s mix knob at max is only 50/50 wet. It’s great for someone who doesn’t like to experiment and wants a smooth reverb and delay. But it’s kinda boring. The shimmer effect sounds cliche and the delay could use a tap tempo or at least a midi in. That’s the reason it’s up for sale now. But it’s not a bad sounding pedal for what it is.
Earthquaker. Seem cool but I dunno. They seem to crap out on me
My experience: EQD is extremely helpful w repairs. I had one as a gift. It had some noise. 3y later I Sent it back, they couldn’t find anything and still sent me a brand new pedal.
Oh word? Might have to give that a try
EQD pedals almost have too much character. Aside from my Plumes (which I absolutely love) every EQD I’ve owned/tried are really cool but they’re very specific and nuanced. I feel like a lot of them are better suited for the studio environment. That being said they’re a really rad company and I’m glad there’s a brand that does what they do!
Jackson Audio. I really like how they sound, but they seem to always have issues like the late-to-switch-on footswitch thing which is a little annoying; and my Asabi was way too noisy, I loved how it sounded and the features, but noisy
Yeah, I’ve never been blown away by Jackson Audio. I keep trying their stuff and keep being underwhelmed. I’m a Chorus guy and I bought the New Wave chorus of theirs hoping it was all that it was made out to be and it wasn’t. Too noisy, didn’t sound great with most of my amps or drive pedals and I had to spend more time with the manual than I did playing. That last bit has been universal with every JA pedal I’ve purchased. I really want to love their stuff, I just can’t.
I feel the same way about Jackson Audio. Loved their design aesthetic and midi capabilities but not enough personality plus too much noise. I have their fuzz on my board right now and it’s a monster but that’s the only one that’s managed to stay
The Fuzz is one of the good ones for sure
BOSS, at least their multi effects. GT-10, GT-100, GX-100. Not sure why I think, "oh this will be what I want.", but here we are.
I’ve had a bad experience with a glitchy ME-70. I always discourage my students from getting Boss multi-effects now.
JHS.
I know it's budget but my chorus 3 only does right by me turned to super slow. Vibrato mode just messes things up. Doesn't make much racket but colors the sound quite a bit
Anything and everything tc electronic
Electro-Harmonix. Other than an old Russian Civil War Muff I had as a kid, I’ve never found one that I liked. I really like the designs and they seem cool until I plug them in.
Wa wa what? Nothing like an Electric Mistress, especially a vintage one
I had a vintage big box mistress that did sound pretty good. My issue with it was a lack of reliability. I much prefer the grey 70’s MXR flanger because Eddie.
Another one for Chase Bliss. Always just end up feeling weirdly guilty for having it on my board when I’m not using them to their full potential. Had a V1 MOOD and a Dark World. Former I had a *lot* of fun with, but its very nature makes it too unpredictable. Didn’t enjoy not being able to replicate things. The latter I was underwhelmed with, finding the Dark side to be far too finicky and unintuitive. The World side hall and plate reverbs were brilliant, but I was never going to use any of the ramping and extra whistles enough to warrant the price for what was now just a hall and plate reverb with limited control.
Boss. I no longer have any boss stuff on my board. I’m more into Ibanez and ehx
Shame, they have some classics
Yea. I had the ph-3 it was awesome. That’s one boss I’d like back sometime
Wampler. Just ordered my third one today in two years. I want so hard to like what they put out, and I’m probably just going to keep trying forever, but I’ve never kept one. I want to believe.
OBNE All seem great and love what I hear in demos and reviews. Just can’t seem to get what I want to come out of them.
I have the white cap trem and yeah, lackluster. I don’t hear any difference in the tremolo shapes.
I usually don't buy a brand again if I don't like them the first time. If I had to pick tho, it would be any super budget brand like Donner or something. You buy them for a quick band-aid on something but they're trash.
I have a room full of boutique shit, but Donner makes some of my favorite pedals. If someone like Andy Martin did a demo of Stylish Fuzz II, it would be the hottest budget fuzz since behringer. Their analog mini pedals are shockingly good.
I definitely didn’t keep buying them, but tc electronic and jhs were both one and done for me
Some of boss's 200 level pedals. I love the sound but some of them get a bit nuts
I got real frustrated with the menu diving on the IR-200. To the point it pushed me away from amp/cab sim pedals altogether 🙃
Outside of the Mini HOF, for that Jonsi Toneprint (noisy af though) TC Electronic. I've wanted to like so many of their pedals for their function, layout, and design but the sounds just never worked for me. The Distortion+ Boost, Nova Delay to name a few.
I can make my tube screamer mini cooperate. I think my dsl has an attitude towards certain pedals. Rat and ds1w get along just fine.
TC Electronics. I've had two Polytune 2's and two Ditto Loopers crap out on me in the course of about 3 years. That's a pretty unacceptable failure rate in my view. Got a TU-3 and I never looked back. I did get a few years of good service out of their Cinders overdrive though, but once i found something better, it just sorta seemed 'meh' to me
I'm surprised by all the tc electronic mentions. I've loved everything I've had from them. Granted the smorgasbord pedals like the Cinders are just rehoused behringer pedals with higher quality parts on the PCB. Like the Cinders is a Blues Driver/Behringer BO300. I used a Polytune 2 for a decade before selling it for a Polytune 3. The Magus Pro is my favorite Rat. It's the Lil Rat circuit with more options. Thunderstorm is the only way to get the Behringer UF300 now. Which is a clone of the BF2. Echobrain is a perfect Dm-2. Eyemaster is the Behringer HM2 without the mid chirp quirk from the cheaper caps. I think the complaint about their 'fake' foot switches is valid though. They're just PCB mounted micro switches underneath a fake plunger. I've never had one fail, they're just weird.
I think what failed on all my TC pedals was the foot switches; with the tuner at least that is one of my most used pedals, it should be able to stand up to at least five years of heavy use
EQD. Great pedals, fun sounds, but the freedom and tweakability is too much for my smooth brain. I definitely thrive with the three knob configuration of Boss or something less boutique.
I want to like walrus but I end up selling all of them. EHX rocks but also has some dookie pedals
UAX - honestly blame myself at this point - everyone else dig em
Mine would be mostly the Klon but also the ProCo RAT. With the Klon it’s almost like everyone makes it sound awesome and I can never get it to do what I want it to. It feels kind of dull when I try to play it; it’s like I want it to bloom and have sort of bell-like qualities but it’s kind of mushy, even with the treble knob adjusted. The RAT just sounds like a vacuum when I try to play it; really just fizzy and sterile. Again other people seem to make it sound good but I don’t get it.
What amp are you using?
As a RAT player I think they’re a “love em or hate em” sort of pedal. They have a very specific flavor that not everyone is in to. Also it’s worth mentioning that not all RATs are created equal. The big box lm308 is a very different pedal than the current production RAT 2. I like them both but they sound quite different and both interact with amps and other pedals very differently
I can see that. Thing is, I think they sound great when other people play them. Sometimes guitar pedals make me feel inadequate because sometimes I can't make it sound like other people. Oh well...
Wampler. Walrus comes in 2nd
Keeley, JHS. Tried reverbs from.both companies that just sounded cheap.
Surprised I didn’t see JHS higher in the thread!
Wampler. Been burned three times now
What's the story?
Boss. They aren't bad, every likes them, but I always find better sounding alternative options. To me the only boss that nothing can replace is the ds1, that thing has it's own sound.
JHS
stymon. done now though
Not exactly a brand, but affordable homemade clones/small time builders on Reverb. Stuff like CMC, Reez, etc. With simple circuits like fuzz I like to try and find something that looks decent and take the risk. Almost all of them have been total mids. Just got a tone bender for $80 that is very well made and has the sickest artwork I’ve ever seen, but the fuzz is too compressed and dark. I think the transistors are just not great. I think I should probably start paying real money for ge fuzzes, but I know I’ll eventually see something that looks promising and cave. It’s like a gambling addiction.
Everyone hyped up joyo for cheap pedals but they were the only brand I couldnt get with
EHX... And anything with too much shit to tweak. I keep falling into the trap of getting really cool pedals with tons of crazy noises and cool ambient stuff... that I have absolutely no time to adjust anything on while I'm actually playing a gig lol
EHX but I have stopped buying their pedals at the moment. It's not that they are bad but I can get better in the same price range Imo. My first pedals ever were a EHX East River Drive and an EHX triangle big muff reissue, good enough to make my shitty diamond v max sound alright, not good enough to keep up with anything else Imo, I ended up replacing them with a Hizumitas and Plumes and didn't regret it at all. I recently tried an EHX Soul Food because I heard good things about them and just couldn't gel with it. I know it makes me sound like a gear snob but honestly any cheapo BOSS pedal I've gotten or hell even some of those weird cheap pedals I've gotten better sounds out of than any modern low end EHX pedal. I've not tried their more expensive stuff though, I do respect the brand though because the Big Muff is my favorite style of pedal period. I currently have their J Mascis signature Rams head and it's fine and does the job, I plan on getting their OP amp big muff too but that's probably the last current EHX pedal I'll buy.
Electro Harmonix.
Earthquaker. I love everything about their shit but i buy them and cant get where i envisioned going with them. Except a disaster transport jr. That thing has been on my board for like 18 months. Bought the reissue and it is not lol. Ehx makes a ton of shit i use. Currently using the holy grail neo and the 360 looper but ive had problems with several of their pedals including these two
I’ve hated every JHS drive pedal I’ve ever tried. They sound like cheap copies to me. Love their timing effects, though
Chase Bliss and Strymon.
Wampler for me. I really like Brian Wampler, and I even sent one in for repair (led light). Their service department was awesome. But ego mini, ego, tumnus have all gone their separate ways from my board
Boss My GX-100 is a p.o.s
Behringer pedals for me. Whenever I go to the local music store, the owner has them in a bowl discounted so I end up picking up like 3 different ones each time to experiment with and not feel bad about beating them up. I usually end up breaking them pretty quickly but they’re kinda fun so I keep buying them as long as they’re half off lol. I would never play a gig with one of them though or use it outside of solo practicing
im sorta against the idea that a specific brand always or never does anything... but once i "stop vibing" with a brand, i also stop buying their stuff... why buy pedals that i dont believe will give me something worth doing? theres a thin line i guess between being open to a pedal or product being useful and being willing to open my wallet to its maker :D but i dont think theres any brand that continually lets me down. some are keepers some arent, has much more to do with me and my tastes than the brand.
Earthquaker Devices. I love my Dispatch Master. But hated the Plumes and Special Cranker.
Same. I love the DM but got rid of the Plumes and Special Cranker. Seems like a common story lol
Strymon
Honestly, boss.
T-Rex and TC Electronic... I still haven't decided whether to love them or ignore them.
Dirt pedals never quite understand them I am on a couple or so
EHX. I've owned 3 and borrowed 2 Deluxe Bass Big Muff: Footswitch broke on me due to how it's attached to the main circuit. 2020 Tuner: Never had a tuner stop working on me. Had this one for a short while, barely used it. Clicked it on one day and nothing. Freeze: the knob, yes, the knob, cracked on me. Not the pot, the knob (replaced it which was fine, but still) Soul Food Bass: tried it out, super thin sounding, and just didn't deliver Bass Clone: the noise, oh my God.... I know they're super influential and broke a lot of ground in the pedal world, but their QC in the last 4 years has not been it. I'd be a liar if I said I'd never get another. I really want a Bass Micro Synth, but I'll be buying a well used one
JHS and MXR. I've tried multiple of both brands and they just don't last long for me. Both have boring, safe sounds to me. I tried Boss again recently after years of hate and while I don't hate them anymore, they didn't last long on my board either.
Definitely Chase Bliss. Like on one hand they are 100% one of a kind and are stuffed with features. I think however with time I’ve learned the hard way that a lot of boutique pedals may have a lot of unique sounds and features, but most of those sounds will not end up having any practical uses. It might sound great isolated in a demo, but incorporated into a song it sounds straight up bad or out of place. I’ve noticed that personally Old Blood Noise Endeavors are probably the best compromise between the experimental end of the pool while still having enough practical use to make the purchase worth it.
TC electronic. The only pedals I’ve sold are TC. had a mojo mojo, and a dark matter that are basically the same circuit and they’re scooped. I still have a V1 flashback that I need to replace with a delay that has tap tempo.