Your most disappointing pedal experience versus your most pleasing pedal experience

guitartango

Most Disappointing : Boss BD2
Most pleasing : Boss BD2 into a proper amp with the drive turned down, also Okko Diablo.

I was looking to sell the Bd2, instead I purchased a real valve amp and the BD2 has never left my pedalboard.

HAL9000

guitartango said:

Most Disappointing : Boss BD2
Most pleasing : Boss BD2 into a proper amp with the drive turned down, also Okko Diablo.

I was looking to sell the Bd2, instead I purchased a real valve amp and the BD2 has never left my pedalboard.

Interesting how some drive/amp combinations simply do not work. A while back I played a Tele into a J Rockett Blue Note into a Blackstar Studio 10 6L6 (all decent bits of kit) but the result was very much like the sound at 6:32 in this TPS video...

https://youtu.be/CdKjhXWpjq8

...replacing the Blue Note with a Boss SD-1, which has a significant mid-hump, made all the difference.

Majorscale

And that in a nutshell is it, a better idea is to have several threads... "Pedals that do or don't work with Tweed Amps", "Pedals that do or don't work well with Blackface" etc. Yes there will still be personal preferences going on but there should also be more consensus too.

downbytheriver

I’ve already done my post in this thread but I had completely forgotten the greatest pleasing moment ever (it was a VERY long time ago!)

pleasing: Boss ME-5. What a revelation! Great sounds and kinda programmable. Filled me with joy for years. 

Paul_C

Most disappointing: Alexander Colour Theory

I still have it, still use it, and I have managed to get one or two sounds out of it that I like, but I can't help but feel there should be much more in there but it's really hard to dial anything in unless you spend an age on it.

Most pleasing: Miku

munckee

Haych said:

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.

Joyo sweet baby is great can’t remember why I sold mine. Mojo mojo was meh. 

monquixote

Interesting how many people have put the Mojo Mojo on the bad list when Paul Gilbert considers it the cornerstone of his rig.

Never tried one, but it does show everyone is different.

GavRichList

I’m almost surprised to see the Timeline come up so much...don’t get me wrong, it’s just a very functional audio beige and really quite unremarkable... it’s just, Disappointed suggests that comes as a surprise? I bought one once because I just needed a capable do-all delay. It does that...boringly. I personally wasn’t in the least surprised by that though. It was a joyless little grey box, but it does do a lot averagely. The Phil Neville of pedals. 

shaunm

GavRichList said:

I’m almost surprised to see the Timeline come up so much...don’t get me wrong, it’s just a very functional audio beige and really quite unremarkable... it’s just, Disappointed suggests that comes as a surprise? I bought one once because I just needed a capable do-all delay. It does that...boringly. I personally wasn’t in the least surprised by that though. It was a joyless little grey box, but it does do a lot averagely. The Phil Neville of pedals. 

Fantastic description of that pedal. I have one and I’m not inspired by it. It doesn’t make me want to write new part or songs. Funnily enough I have a Line 6 DL4 and to me that’s one of the most inspiring pedals I have as a writing tool. 

monquixote

I found the El Cap quite disappointing.

You could really hear the tape algorithm, it sounded quite fake and no better than most modern delay pedals.

Blueingreen

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.

In other words videos in this group are telling us everything we need to know about drive pedals, if only we were paying the right sort of attention.

Jonathanthomas83

GavRichList said:

I’m almost surprised to see the Timeline come up so much...don’t get me wrong, it’s just a very functional audio beige and really quite unremarkable... it’s just, Disappointed suggests that comes as a surprise? I bought one once because I just needed a capable do-all delay. It does that...boringly. I personally wasn’t in the least surprised by that though. It was a joyless little grey box, but it does do a lot averagely. The Phil Neville of pedals. 

Superb description, made me smile...good old Phil. I still stand by the notion of it being disappointing though. The "Stryfecta" are amongst the most commonplace and over-hyped pedals out there. They're also quite expensive nowadays. I expected a lot more, tbh. :-)

Zoolooter

Most disappointing was the El Cap, didn’t sound good at all, too smeared sounding, hard to put into words. That may have been because most of the time I have a touch of plate reverb on. Anyway, it was sent packing very quickly. 

Best: Anarchy Audio Gold Class drive & Strymon Brigadier. 

Matt_McG

@Blueingreen Heheh. I know what you mean. Tone is in the hands of player, etc. Something I wouldn't fundamentally disagree with.

And yet ...

I'm reminded of a great bit in Perfecting Sound Forever (a book about the history of sound recording) about early public demonstrations of phonographs.

They'd have a record playing and then an opera singer would sing beside it, and when they flicked between the two in an AB test, they'd sound the same. They really did sound the same, because the opera singer was imitating the record. Not because the primitive 1920s phonographs actually sounded like a person singing in the room.

I sometimes thing of Mike Hermans et al as being a bit like that. Slightly tortured metaphor/analogy, I know. Basically, someone _can_ make them all basically sound the same, especially someone with a very distinctive musical/tonal voice, but that doesn't mean they'll all basically sound the same in the hands of someone else.

WiresDreamDisasters

Wow. I don't get the "Timeline is average" viewpoint at all. I had to do some re-tracking today coz I had some corrupt files for one of our new songs, so tracked the DI's and then reamped them through the pedals I used in the original session... and that was back in October/November and I haven't used the Timeline since.

But yeah, it still blows my mind how great it sounds.

stickyfiddle

shaunm said:

GavRichList said:

I’m almost surprised to see the Timeline come up so much...don’t get me wrong, it’s just a very functional audio beige and really quite unremarkable... it’s just, Disappointed suggests that comes as a surprise? I bought one once because I just needed a capable do-all delay. It does that...boringly. I personally wasn’t in the least surprised by that though. It was a joyless little grey box, but it does do a lot averagely. The Phil Neville of pedals. 

Fantastic description of that pedal. I have one and I’m not inspired by it. It doesn’t make me want to write new part or songs. Funnily enough I have a Line 6 DL4 and to me that’s one of the most inspiring pedals I have as a writing tool. 

Spot on for me too. Given the number of people who rave about it I was expecting fireworks but it just didn't grab me. 

By comparison I just got another Timefactor after a few years without one and it instantly brought a smile to my face. 

thomasw88

Actually need to add the Fetto Nord 70 to the most disappointing pedals.

I'd previously owned a Fetto nord standard which was a superb pedal, and one of the few I regretted selling. 

I had been looking for another one for ages and then stumbled across the nord 70 for a reasonable price.  It;s horrific.  horrible drive and the EQ doesn't allow you dial it out anywhere. Tried it about 3 rehearsals and it was foul.  

Axe_meister

TC Mojo Mojo could not get on with it

MkI Marshall Govn'r ace unit

MikkiMcMurderer

Disappointed with: Mesa Throttle Box, not enough volume or highs. Any kind of Big Muff or Fuzz Face.
Most pleasing: Basic Audio Scarab deluxe, MXR micro flanger, Whammy DT

jeroenvanhulsteijn

Disappointed with: most fuzzes, because they don't seem to work well with my solid state amps (exceptions are the op amp muffs and super fuzzes)

Most pleasing: VL Effects OD One Big Block and Audio Kitchen Small Trees because they always sounded good with my stuff. And the Behringer SF300, because it is dirt cheap and still sounds pretty amazing.