Your most disappointing pedal experience versus your most pleasing pedal experience

Gulliver

Most Disappointing:   
Neunaber WET/Expanse series  -  incredible idea, but I found it really mediocre.
Silicon Fuzz Face Mini - just a really bland fuzz.
D&M Drive.  it was perfectly reasonable - I just wish it could be battery powered.

Most Pleasing:   
Paul C Tim - still my favourite overdrive
Henretta Engineering Purple Octopus - octave up fuzz with internal trimmers so it's set-and-forget. 
Danelectro Rocky Road Rotating Speaker - really cool Leslie-ish pedal.  Once modded to remove the gain/volume boost it was unreal.

Gassage

Most disappointing:

Strymon Timeline - sterile, weedy and a triumph of looks over performance.

Most pleasing:

Bang for buck, Phase 95.

Sleeper; Skreddy Echo- still gassing for another.

Otherwise, Cornish G2. It remains my go to for virtually everything.

billzabozo

Same pedal 2 different days.

Analogman peppermint fuzz;

Day 1 excited plugged it into a clean princeton sounded terrible I assumed it was faulty (this was my first fuzz pedal) unplugged it and carried on with my session.

Day 2 plugged it into a cranked princeton, wow has been my favourite fuzz pedal ever since.

portobear_65

Most Pleasing
Ramble FX Twinbender
MXR Superbadass Fuzz

Two great sounding fuzzes in my opinion, both do the classic British rock sound I like.

Most Disappointing
Digitech Whammy, amazing bit of gear but just not for me at all.

I probably just lack the musical imagination to do anything creative with it if truth be told, but I still find it a bit meh every time I try it.

Catalinbread RAH, Sound wise OK but I expected it to be more substantially built, feels a bit lightweight, I was quite underwhelmed when I unboxed it. 

english_bob

portobear_65 said:

Most Disappointing
Digitech Whammy, amazing bit of gear but just not for me at all.

I probably just lack the musical imagination to do anything creative with it if truth be told, but I still find it a bit meh every time I try it.
 

I usually like Gearmanndude's demos on Youtube, but his Whammy pedal demo is, by his own admission, the worst demo ever. He clearly doesn't "get" the pedal and as a consequence the demo is terrible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6dGQF8dGoo

He is at least self-aware enough, as are you, to realise that there's a difference between "this pedal is bad at its job" and "I don't understand this pedal".

steer

Disappointing: Marshall Supervibe 
I brought this because I wanted to to replace a setting that I sometimes used on an old cheap Behringer multi effects pedal. Not only did the Supervibe sound significantly worse, it also developed a fault where it would not work off a power supply and needed batteries. I finally sold it to a friend and it actually died on him completely mid-gig, so it was a pedal that let at least two people down!

Most Pleasing: Zoom Multistomp MS100bt
A huge amount of fun. Tons of great effects. Not very much money. I have spent countless hours experimenting with different sounds from this pedal. To stop it getting stale, Zoom even gave away a load more pedals on this for free a couple of years back. I'm still finding new sounds and settings now after owning it for years. 

Keefy

Neurone said:

Most disappointing: danelectro spring king. It had everything on paper, a real spring, the dano good looks AND you can kick the pedal as much as you want. But not a single useable tone (it sounds more like a delay chip that it does sound like a spring).

...

There is actually a delay chip in there as well as the spring. You can't turn it off but you can do mods to minimise the delay time.

Most disappointing: Malekko 616 Analog Delay - the delay sound was just so dry and crispy somehow!

Most pleasing: EHX Deluxe Memory Man 1100TT - perfect combination of lush analog delay (with modulation) and pedalboard practicality, albeit with 2 'satellite' pedals to get the best from it.

theflyisback

Most disappointing:
EQD Avalanche Run - Looks great, on paper sounds amazing, in reality near impossible to dial in a pleasant useable sound without it oscillating into a noisy pulp.  

Bonus choice: Thorpy Dane.  Adrian's pedals are generally amazing.  The boost side in this is stunning.  The OD isn't necessarily bad but a bit vanilla.  But I couldn't for the life of me get the two sides to stack in any way shape or form together and i would be tempted to say its built the wrong way round, or at least should have option for running the alternative way. 


Most pleasing:
EHX POG 2 - These type of pedals are generally very annoying and glitchy and don't respond well.  This just works brilliantly however you set it.  

Bonus choice: Red Panda Context.  Just amazing.  Doesn't try to be OTT or 'out there' which a lot of reverb pedals tend to veer towards.  It just does everything really really well. Feels like it was made by a guitarist for a guitarist.   

Brian_Johnston

Digitech Cabdryvr was horrible... every setting sounded like you were playing through an 8-inch speaker... boxy and lifeless.  Plenty of good pedals recently... Horse Breaker by Ceriatone and EP-PRE by ClinchFX come to mind, but also kudos to FR100 overdrive and Micro Vent 16.

Jonathanthomas83

Most disappointing - Strymon Timeline

Most pleasing - Cornish SS-3, CC-1, G-2 and OC-1 in equal measure.

Haych

Most disappointing:

Dean Markley Overlord - sounded like a fart in a bubble bath.
TC Mojo Mojo - bland and uninteresting.
Digitech RP20 Valve - too complicated and all the ODs sounded harsh.

Most pleasing:

Joyo Sweet Baby - nice little OD for not much dosh, finish was terrible but sounded really good.
Mojo Hand Recoil - very warm sounding digital delay, not very versatile and requires a lot of tweaking to get the best from it but sounded really nice.
Ibanez TS9-DX - lots of choices, very versatile and sounds spot on.

Matt_McG

It's interesting how there are a few things that have come up more than once. 

Strymon Timeline
Muffs and various fuzzes (clearly just don't work for some people)
OCD (which has about as many people how love it as hate it)
Some of the Catalinbread pedals

I've been there with the muffs. I've had about six or seven different varieties, including some quite fancy boutique ones. I do like 'em, but not enough to actually have one on my board. They never have enough "bite" or crispness, even with the ones with the switchable mid-hump. 

Majorscale

theflyisback said:

Most disappointing:
EQD Avalanche Run - Looks great, on paper sounds amazing, in reality near impossible to dial in a pleasant useable sound without it oscillating into a noisy pulp.  

Bonus choice: Thorpy Dane.  Adrian's pedals are generally amazing.  The boost side in this is stunning.  The OD isn't necessarily bad but a bit vanilla.  But I couldn't for the life of me get the two sides to stack in any way shape or form together and i would be tempted to say its built the wrong way round, or at least should have option for running the alternative way. 

Goes to show that we all have different tastes, The ThorpyFX Dane in my rig sounds absolutely heavenly and is essential for my live sound. Having the option of selecting the boost order would be a great addition though.

ourmaninthenorth

I listen to everything I can find on the web before I buy anything pedal wise, having a clear sound in my head as absolute navigation. I taper the choices down to one. 

I'm rarely disappointed.

I got over the shiny box, next great thing years ago. 

Tools for the job. I treat them as such, buy well, buy once. 

Change when the job changes. 

Jonathanthomas83

Matt_McG said:

It's interesting how there are a few things that have come up more than once. 

Strymon Timeline
Muffs and various fuzzes (clearly just don't work for some people)
OCD (which has about as many people how love it as hate it)
Some of the Catalinbread pedals

I've been there with the muffs. I've had about six or seven different varieties, including some quite fancy boutique ones. I do like 'em, but not enough to actually have one on my board. They never have enough "bite" or crispness, even with the ones with the switchable mid-hump. 

This was always my problem too and was only solved with a Cornish P-2, it's tighter than other muffs. I'd not go back now.

Matt_McG

@ourmaninthenorth I think that's incredibly hard to actually do well.

Internet demos basically divide more or less without remainder into two groups.

1) People who do this for a living. Generally brilliant players who can make any old piece of crap sound like the most musical pedal ever invented. It's almost impossible to work out what a drive pedal sounds like from listening to Mike Hermans playing through it, as it'll basically always sound the same. Even if you try to listen to as many as possible, you're still basically being marketed to.

2) Amateurs. Most of these people can't even play in tune. In fact, it seems like there's an inverse relationship between demoing gear on youtube and the ability to tune the B or G string of a guitar. These people often have no idea how to dial a pedal in, and so you get a lot of scratchy badly recorded wooffy muffled crap.

That's not to say that internet demos aren't useful. If I don't like it after I've heard a bunch of players of type 1) demoing it, I know I won't like it. But the converse isn't true. Just because it sounds great, doesn't mean I won't find it disappointing in person.

Mr_Claw

Most disappointing:

• TC Mojo Mojo - wanted to like it - just sounds dull and wooly with my setup.
• TC Viscous Vibe - same. Sadly uninspiring.
  

(I have other TC pedals I love like the Alter Ego 2 & the Spark - so nowt against them as a company)

Most pleasing:

• Selmer Buzztone clone with NOS gold-legged TI 2N404s in. It's *insanely* loud and hisses like a p*ssed off cat when idle, but it may be my favourite pedal. Just an utter beast of a boost/fuzz. Cleans up from the volume too.
• Effectrode Blackbird - I fitted it with a '50s KenRad in V1 and 2 Genalex Gold Lions in V2&3. It sounds lovely.
  
• Catalinbread 5f6 - A recent addition, but I Iove it. 

(I have a Supro Tremolo on the way and I'm planning on getting a Caroline Meteore and  Neunaber Immerse II soon so ask me again in a month or so!)

Biggest change in opinion:

• Tortenmann TA-100. When I first plugged it in it was shrill and unpleasant and I wondered what all the fuss was about. Was going to sell it, but replaced my cables and re-organised my wiring. I finally get it: I now have a lovely, clear, jangly, open-sounding overdrive.
  

Epsilon

Most disappointing is probably the Catalinbread SCOD. Couldn't get a decent sound out of it on any setting

Most pleasing has got to be the Analogman Prince of Tone. 

ourmaninthenorth

Matt_McG said:

@ourmaninthenorth I think that's incredibly hard to actually do well.

Internet demos basically divide more or less without remainder into two groups.

1) People who do this for a living. Generally brilliant players who can make any old piece of crap sound like the most musical pedal ever invented. It's almost impossible to work out what a drive pedal sounds like from listening to Mike Hermans playing through it, as it'll basically always sound the same. Even if you try to listen to as many as possible, you're still basically being marketed to.

2) Amateurs. Most of these people can't even play in tune. In fact, it seems like there's an inverse relationship between demoing gear on youtube and the ability to tune the B or G string of a guitar. These people often have no idea how to dial a pedal in, and so you get a lot of scratchy badly recorded wooffy muffled crap.

That's not to say that internet demos aren't useful. If I don't like it after I've heard a bunch of players of type 1) demoing it, I know I won't like it. But the converse isn't true. Just because it sounds great, doesn't mean I won't find it disappointing in person.

So what changes between it sounding great enough to warrant that descriptor,or even buying said item, and then being disappointed when it's in your hand? 

I don't share your binary view. 

How many ways are there of assessing how a pedal sounds, in any medium? Exactly equal to the number of people assessing it. 

Being marketed to? These poor buggers would starve if I were their target audience,  you tell me it's up, I'll tell you it's down. 

I think the word is contrarian. 

The last 6 months I've bought more pedals than in the last 40 years. I'm experimenting. I've used the exact formula I've described, and despite not really having a clue about these boxes ie not following this months hot ticket,  I've managed to put a little thing together that takes me to the millimetre to exactly where I set out to be. I've used all means at my disposal, internet. makers sound clips, picking the phone up .... " hey mate, I need to make this noise, what you using to do the same? " and then listening and researching the forthcoming. Why? because I don't want to get on the merry go round of always chasing what's over the hill. As I say, buy best, buy once. 

Which is why I'm not looking anymore, and playing the snot out of my hard earned little boxes of fairy dust. 

This isn't a pop at you by the way Pal, just merely offering a somewhat oblique take on the original question. 

Matt_McG

@ourmaninthenorth I'm not your "Pal".