Pedal deceptions old and new

deano

raulduke said:

See my post above. And aren't all industries 'incestuous' in some form or other? How is a VW Golf that different vs a Vauxhall Corsa? They all have an engine, 4 wheels and a chassis.

I don't think its really fair to tar all pedal companies with the same brush.

... but I get the impression from this thread and the 'every pedal only has a few £ worth of parts' you have your mind made up... fair does. They must all be crooks.... out to swindle, scam and make their fortune anyway they can in the lucrative world of... that's right... guitar fx pedals

Now you are putting words in my mouth. I don't think everyone involved in making pedals are crooks at all. That's as facile a comments as I have ever read.

I think you want to continue the debate from the other thread in here don't you. Sorry I'm not going to play your game. I will debate the cost of pedals in the other thread, not in this one.

I do think some pedal makers take existing designs, make as small a change as practicable, and sell them for inflated prices using industry-standard buzzwords. All fur coat and no knickers. Not every pedal maker, but a significant number.

Anacharsis

deano said:

Anacharsis said:

To me, cloning isn't the thing to which I object. It's misrepresentation. When Peter Rutter of VFE took a range of dirt circuits and "opened them up" with mods and additional controls, he couldn't have been more open about it unless he used trademarked names without permission. He didn't lie and claim to have tuned it side by side an amp he didn't even have, or over the course of years of golden-eared tone study. The Mooer people even use fonts that tell you exactly what they're cloning. No violation of the law, no lie. Now some people still object to cloning that undercuts the original circuit maker, and that's they're prerogative. 

If I bought a kit from Fuzz Dog Pedal Parts for a King of Tone clone (I don't know if they sell one or not, I've just picked a pedal at random) for say £40.00 and built the pedal using the kit, then sold the pedal with my label on it as a "Deano Sovereign of Tone" for £250, and gave it plenty of snake oil/buzzwords in the advert, would you see that as okay, or not okay?

After all, I haven't given any indication I bought the kit from someone, they have been given no credit. But it was built by me from a kit. I have added value by building the pedal. Nobody will know that it is from a kit, and I am claiming it to be my work - which it is to a degree because I turned the pile of parts into a pedal. Is that deception?

Where does the line get drawn in all this?

The whole industry is a little bit incestuous to my mind. A pedal maker will take the original Tube Screamer design, and create a derivative of it, saying it was "inspired" by the original design. What a weasel word "inspired" is. If a slightly tweaked version is "inspired by", then an out-and-out clone ought to be a "tribute to" the original design. But it doesn't matter because they will soon be ripped off themselves as someone else is "inspired" by the design that was "inspired" by the original Tube Screamer!

Perhaps it is evolutionary! The Tube Screamer was the original self-replicating pedal. It got cloned but with a tiny modification. That clone got cloned with another tiny modification. The good ones got bought and cloned with more tiny modifications, the bad ones die off, shoved at the back of a cupboard. Eventually we will end up with an super-evolved Tube Screamer that sounds perfect. A Klon perhaps?

If you were open about what it was, ok by my book. If by snake oil/buzzwords you mean to say you claimed it as your own design, then you'd be lying. I'd personally also call the failure to disclose it being a kit assembly a lie of omission, intended to deceive.

If instead you talk about how this classic circuit (you can't use Analogman's or Marshall's trademarks, naturally) has haunting mids and complex harmonics that the pros know cut through the mix, you'd be merely annoying. Mind you, Analogman admits the KoT is based on a Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal.

I think it is indeed evolutionary. Jim Marshall didn't lie about the JTM45 being based on a Bassman, which itself was not patented.

To me, the litmus test is whether or not there is lying going on - and it gets worse when the lie persists despite clear evidence of its falseness. Beyond that, yes, the business is derivative and evolutionary. That doesn't make it all rotten, or mean that fraud and lies have no meaning in this context.

crunchman

deano said:

 

If I bought a kit from Fuzz Dog Pedal Parts for a King of Tone clone (I don't know if they sell one or not, I've just picked a pedal at random) for say £40.00 and built the pedal using the kit, then sold the pedal with my label on it as a "Deano Sovereign of Tone" for £250, and gave it plenty of snake oil/buzzwords in the advert, would you see that as okay, or not okay?

Isn't that essentially why people give JHS stick.  Weren't some of his early pedals built on a circuit board he bought from MadBean?  Or was that someone else.  I definitely remember reading about someone who did that.

Anacharsis

crunchman said:

deano said:

 

If I bought a kit from Fuzz Dog Pedal Parts for a King of Tone clone (I don't know if they sell one or not, I've just picked a pedal at random) for say £40.00 and built the pedal using the kit, then sold the pedal with my label on it as a "Deano Sovereign of Tone" for £250, and gave it plenty of snake oil/buzzwords in the advert, would you see that as okay, or not okay?

Isn't that essentially why people give JHS stick.  Weren't some of his early pedals built on a circuit board he bought from MadBean?  Or was that someone else.  I definitely remember reading about someone who did that.

Yes, that was the beef with JHS early on. I personally felt it was a legitimate complaint.

ICBM

It's not just pedals either, much the same is true of things like Fender 5E3 amp copies. Some are 'tweaked', some are 'evolved', some are 'inspired by', some are little more than ready-assembled kits.

Teetonetal

deano said:

raulduke said:

The reason why a lot of these circuits look similar... is because there are only so many ways of using the components available to get a desired result that conforms to what people expect an overdrive/fuzz/clean boost etc. to sound like. Look how many valve amplifiers preamp/power amp stages look similar.

I think the better approach is for customers to spend a little more, and support small manufacturers who are coming up with unique/different designs, have great customer service/support and a cool overall brand/image, rather than going for the cheapest available, knockoff, ten a penny clones.

So these small manufacturers who are coming up with unique/different designs, are they using a design that isn't original because there are only so many ways of using the components after all.

It can't be both. If there is nothing new under the sun because all the basic designs have been used already, any small boutique pedal make must be using one of those basic designs to come up with their circuit. So if they aren't coming up with unique designs after all, but are in reality only producing a Tube Screamer clone, then why should they be supported and companies like Joyo rebuffed?

I must admit - although it will not come as a surprise - that I am wary of paying for a "cool overall brand/image".

there are very few companies doing anything really original in terms of concept, but they are there.

i have a lot time for rainger, empress, chase bliss, moog (moogerfooger) meris, pigtronix, mwfx to name a few.

all these build pedals that are more than just copy cat.. basically I think I like to avoid any company that knocks out ods, fuzz and muff, claiming each is the guitar equivalent of the 2nd coming. 

gringopig

.

deano

gringopig said:

The only way you could produce something able to be patented would be to make something unique and new. You can't patent a circuit design used in a fuzz box unless you invented some new component - like a Nu-tube and even then, it would be the component which was patent-able not its implementation in a circuit. So you could buy the NuTube and use it any old design and you have paid the manufacturer the fee for using it already.

The circuits are so simple and basic that they cannot be protected by law - just covered in goop and the part numbers sanded off the components.

It seems as if pedal builders are expected to do little more than build a standard circuit and put it into an enclosure with an original paint scheme. As long as someone has bought the bits and pieces separately and not in a single pack  of parts then everyone is happy.

Teetontal said:
all these build pedals that are more than just copy cat.. basically I think I like to avoid any company that knocks out ods, fuzz and muff, claiming each is the guitar equivalent of the 2nd coming. 

Surely some overdrive, fuzz or distortion pedal builders out there can lay claim to be doing original work, and who don't rely on rehashing some standard circuit that has been around for decades?

fftc

A lot of this comes down to the point that companies aren't really selling a pedal or an amp or even a guitar. They are selling a dream, a feeling, an idea that just happens to come in a pedal/amp/guitar shaped package.
As long as people are aware of what they are spending their money on then it's no harm no foul in my book. The problem is so many folk don't seem to realise this, but whose fault is that?

Matt_McG

@deano ;

Not that many, in the drive pedal arena, I don't think.

It'd be really interesting to compile a list of original designs.

Handsome_Chris

Off the top of my head, I believe that the first Marshalls were based on the Fender Bassman, but the design tweaked so that Jim could use locally available components.  Deizel started off by modding JCM800s then basically using that as the blueprint for their own amps.  These designs can all be traced back to Leo Fender, but I'm not sure that he "invented" the guitar amp, he may have just take a valve amp design and stuck the relavent tone circuit on it for guitar and bass. 

By the way, @Danny1969 , I think op amps are flippin' awesome.  It's like building an amp for dummies.  I remember building amps with transistors, when I was being trained in electronics,  then learning about op amps .  It was a revelation.

ThorpyFX

There are some depressing comments and general opinions in this thread but i can understand why entirely. I own, manage, and run what would classically be called a boutique pedal company. The company as it stands has 3 full time members (me, my wife and a new employee) and 3 part time members.

From the very outset I wanted to produce pedals that have not been released into the marketplace before, If i was going to do it I would do it properly...but this presents  problem in that guitarists are notoriously conservative on the whole and as such new circuits are often eyed with suspicion.

so to ensure we could sell product, the pedals have a sonic footprint, space, influence in mind that I can refer to... i.e. it sounds a bit like a big muff.... etc etc.

The reality is though, that description is just the beginning, with every one of my circuits they go further than stuff that's already out there, they do things that others don't and they are done to meet my needs.... i.e. I'm a really fussy bugger.

For example the Fallout Cloud was designed to meet a sonic goal... but its a new circuit. The peacekeeper was designed to cover 3-4 low gainers output from one pedal..... and as such its a new circuit... and i could go on.

the reason our modulation stuff is taking so long is because i wanted to start from the ground up...... R&D takes time... indeed I'm working on a NEW heavy metal pedal and I'm finally happy with it after 5 full design changes and 4 years of tweaking it.....

so not all companies are scammers, cloners or rip off artists... some companies are trying to innovate in a saturated market and competing against people with 20-30x the annual budget.

just bare that in mind when you place a derogatory label on all small companies....

DanR

@ThorpyFX new metal pedal sounds intriguing.

Danny1969

Handsome_Chris said:

Off the top of my head, I believe that the first Marshalls were based on the Fender Bassman, but the design tweaked so that Jim could use locally available components.  Deizel started off by modding JCM800s then basically using that as the blueprint for their own amps.  These designs can all be traced back to Leo Fender, but I'm not sure that he "invented" the guitar amp, he may have just take a valve amp design and stuck the relavent tone circuit on it for guitar and bass. 

By the way, @Danny1969 , I think op amps are flippin' awesome.  It's like building an amp for dummies.  I remember building amps with transistors, when I was being trained in electronics,  then learning about op amps .  It was a revelation.

Indeed, the game changer was the NE5532 for me, as good as TLO7X and 8X were once that chip was cheap enough designing mixer stages, EQ and even headphone outputs became a piece of cake. Still using them in most of my designs now despite the new breed of BB and similar super opamps

@ThorpyFX having spent 4 years developing one particular product I know exactly how time consuming it can be and how the R&D runs into thousands even if you only value your labour at minimum wage. I have boxes of veroboard prototypes that soaked the money up and pads full of re drawn schematics. 

joeyowen

ThorpyFX said:

There are some depressing comments and general opinions in this thread but i can understand why entirely. I own, manage, and run what would classically be called a boutique pedal company. The company as it stands has 3 full time members (me, my wife and a new employee) and 3 part time members.

From the very outset I wanted to produce pedals that have not been released into the marketplace before, If i was going to do it I would do it properly...but this presents  problem in that guitarists are notoriously conservative on the whole and as such new circuits are often eyed with suspicion.

so to ensure we could sell product, the pedals have a sonic footprint, space, influence in mind that I can refer to... i.e. it sounds a bit like a big muff.... etc etc.

The reality is though, that description is just the beginning, with every one of my circuits they go further than stuff that's already out there, they do things that others don't and they are done to meet my needs.... i.e. I'm a really fussy bugger.

For example the Fallout Cloud was designed to meet a sonic goal... but its a new circuit. The peacekeeper was designed to cover 3-4 low gainers output from one pedal..... and as such its a new circuit... and i could go on.

the reason our modulation stuff is taking so long is because i wanted to start from the ground up...... R&D takes time... indeed I'm working on a NEW heavy metal pedal and I'm finally happy with it after 5 full design changes and 4 years of tweaking it.....

so not all companies are scammers, cloners or rip off artists... some companies are trying to innovate in a saturated market and competing against people with 20-30x the annual budget.

just bare that in mind when you place a derogatory label on all small companies....

This post epitomises why scammers are dicks.

No small builder should have to explain themselves, but sometimes they have to, because other people are dishonest. 

ICBM

Handsome_Chris said:

Off the top of my head, I believe that the first Marshalls were based on the Fender Bassman, but the design tweaked so that Jim could use locally available components.

Not really. It was a straight-up copy, which used different components - in particular the OT - because that's what was available. The circuit was not 'tweaked' at all - every other component value is identical - and so the change in sound can be best described as a happy accident.

The only thing he did really differently was to make it a head and cab, and to create the first closed-back 4x12" - which *was* a true innovation, so it's fitting that it's still what Marshall is probably best known for.

Handsome_Chris said:
These designs can all be traced back to Leo Fender, but I'm not sure that he "invented" the guitar amp, he may have just take a valve amp design and stuck the relavent tone circuit on it for guitar and bass.

Originally Leo simply lifted the circuits from RCA and other valve manufacturer's guidebooks, but pretty soon he evolved them to get better performance, and the results were unique to Fender.

joeyowen said:

This post epitomises why scammers are dicks.

No small builder should have to explain themselves, but sometimes they have to, because other people are dishonest. 

Exactly.

newi123

It`s almost like the people who build and sell boutique pedals are after making money out of it, rather than just about being after the holy grail of tone............

Whitecat

Some of these pedal "frauds" are about pretty minute details... check out this recent and now closed TGP thread...

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/morgan-nkt275-fuzz-proven-to-be-fake.1993605/

Adam_MD

Whitecat said:

Some of these pedal "frauds" are about pretty minute details... check out this recent and now closed TGP thread...

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/morgan-nkt275-fuzz-proven-to-be-fake.1993605/

That was a pretty legitimate complaint imo he was selling those as nkt275 fuzz pedals which didn’t use nkt275.  If he’d just called it the Morgan germanium fuzz it would have been fine but he marketed them based on parts they didn’t have.  

Whitecat

Adam_MD said:

Whitecat said:

Some of these pedal "frauds" are about pretty minute details... check out this recent and now closed TGP thread...

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/morgan-nkt275-fuzz-proven-to-be-fake.1993605/

That was a pretty legitimate complaint imo he was selling those as nkt275 fuzz pedals which didn’t use nkt275.  If he’d just called it the Morgan germanium fuzz it would have been fine but he marketed them based on parts they didn’t have.  

Yup, I don't disagree, I'm just the sort of person who doesn't give an F about what specific kind of transistors or whatever are in the pedals... tell me they are NOS and I'll probably just believe you and pay a little extra even if they aren't the exact right kind of NOS.