Frontline pedals

Cookiemonster

Does anyone remember these from the 80s, were they all junk, nostalgia has me wondering about buying them

joeyowen

I had a frontline volume pedal for a few years.

The housing was metal, but the rocker action wobbly in a way that made me think it could break under pressure. 

Did the job though!  Think I paid £20 for it

Philtre

Yes. I had the Flanger (which ate batteries):

 

the Compressor:

and the Graphic EQ.

Not so good by today's standards. In fact they were pretty shit.

(pics are not mine, I found them on t'internet)

John_P

Awful.   Even back then they were noisy and cheap sounding.    

Cookiemonster

It was the flanger I remember liking was it a Boss clone

ICBM

No, they're not junk. They may be a bit cheaply-made and in some cases noisy, but no worse than a lot of other old analogue effects, and they have a bit of character.

I recently repaired a Frontline Stereo Chorus like this



which had been run on the wrong power supply, and it was not only a very nice-sounding chorus, to my surprise it had much better reverse-voltage and over-voltage protection than a Boss (a series diode and a Zener, rather than just a crude parallel diode), which had saved it from being more seriously damaged - the BBD chip would probably have been destroyed, if it hadn't been.

pintspiller

I might have had a Series II mono chorus. Bit lush for me at the time. I remember getting a Series II overdrive shortly after getting a practise amp, but didn't use it when I preferred the OD on the amp.

Funkfingers

Cookiemonster said:

Does anyone remember these from the 80s?

Yes. Tried out a few but never purchased any of them. 

Somebody should take bets on how many of these pedals have gravitated to the warehouses of HarrySeven. 

impmann

I had the red distortion box from the same range as @icbm one above.

My nostalgic head tells me it was fantastic, sadly I have tapes of a 17 year old me making noises like a jar of angry wasps being shaken vigorously...

Sassafras

Tried one of their overdrive pedals years ago. It couldn't have been much good because I didn't buy it.

tekbow

Frontline were a line made for one of the UK distributors by Coron (more famously known as Locobox) I think. MIJ.

I have the Frontline Distortion which is supposed to be a clone of an MXR Dist +.

A lot of the line are circuit clones of more famous stuff.

menamestom

Cookiemonster said:

Does anyone remember these from the 80s, were they all junk, nostalgia has me wondering about buying them

You’ve just jogged a memory I have that had completely gone.  A google search later and it turns out my best ever pedal was a Frontline Heavy Overdrive.  At about 17 I thought it sounded amazing, but the switch broke and it ended up discarded.
I’ve always wanted one of those mystery pedals so now I know what it was, thanks!

Cookiemonster

menamestom said:

Cookiemonster said:

Does anyone remember these from the 80s, were they all junk, nostalgia has me wondering about buying them

You’ve just jogged a memory I have that had completely gone.  A google search later and it turns out my best ever pedal was a Frontline Heavy Overdrive.  At about 17 I thought it sounded amazing, but the switch broke and it ended up discarded.
I’ve always wanted one of those mystery pedals so now I know what it was, thanks!

Happy to help, just need to keep an eye out for one now. If you see any cheap pedals let me know.

dogload

ICBM said:

No, they're not junk. They may be a bit cheaply-made and in some cases noisy, but no worse than a lot of other old analogue effects, and they have a bit of character.

I recently repaired a Frontline Stereo Chorus like this

I have what I think is a 'Heavy Metal' pedal or similar of this design - I can't remember and the battery cover with the name on is long-since lost  I got it almost 30 years ago and seem to recall paying peanuts secondhand, when I wanted a bit more distortion than my Boss SD-1 kicked out on its own. Can't honestly remember much about it other than it did the job admirably. 

markv

Yeah, I had one, a FD1200 digital delay (I had to look up the model number just now). I must have bought it in the mid-80s. I can't remember why I bought it but it wasn't cheap - unless my memory is deceiving me, it was over £100. It did feel a bit plasticky, even to me at the time, when I knew very little about pedals.

But it worked very well, and inspired several songs. I've tried reproducing what I remember of the sound on supposedly better modern pedals and I can't really get the same sounds, even on a DIG which is meant to model some of that 80s digital delay.

bluechargeboy

I had the Heavy Metal pedal. A very angry device. I made much racket with that and my Columbus chorus pedal!

Cookiemonster

markv said:

Yeah, I had one, a FD1200 digital delay (I had to look up the model number just now). I must have bought it in the mid-80s. I can't remember why I bought it but it wasn't cheap - unless my memory is deceiving me, it was over £100. It did feel a bit plasticky, even to me at the time, when I knew very little about pedals.

But it worked very well, and inspired several songs. I've tried reproducing what I remember of the sound on supposedly better modern pedals and I can't really get the same sounds, even on a DIG which is meant to model some of that 80s digital delay.

I find the same, all these modern variations and somehow the pedals I had sound different to the recreations but not always for the better. That old frontline flanger was really good, I am not sure what the model was. 

dogload

Cookiemonster said:

markv said:

Yeah, I had one, a FD1200 digital delay (I had to look up the model number just now). I must have bought it in the mid-80s. I can't remember why I bought it but it wasn't cheap - unless my memory is deceiving me, it was over £100. It did feel a bit plasticky, even to me at the time, when I knew very little about pedals.

But it worked very well, and inspired several songs. I've tried reproducing what I remember of the sound on supposedly better modern pedals and I can't really get the same sounds, even on a DIG which is meant to model some of that 80s digital delay.

I find the same, all these modern variations and somehow the pedals I had sound different to the recreations but not always for the better. That old frontline flanger was really good, I am not sure what the model was. 

Well I'm of the opinion that for the most part back then, we just used what we could find or afford and there was much less choice anyway. Plus it was usually a case of one pedal doing just one thing; in these days of programability and multiple options, it's easy to lose sight of what you actually do want the damn pedal to do!

Mind you, I still have several of my old 80's pedals on my board, doing the thing they do well. Sadly, my Frontline Heavy Metal pedal doesn't make the team these days.

ICBM

Sometimes old things aren't very good, and sometimes they're just a bit too quirky and don't fit in with the current trends. Look at the number of old cheap late 60s-70s fuzz pedals that you literally could barely give away in the 80s, which are now revered vintage rarities and the subject of boutique repros that are the height of fashion and sell for big money.

I'm not saying an 80s distortion pedal is a likely candidate though . But a chorus or flanger that's a bit different from the usual Boss/Ibanez etc might be.