Axis Wah Announcement

ThePrettyDamned

frankus;345849" said:

I'm thinking of putting together a "rogues gallery" pedalboard -

So a vertex wah, freakish blues drive, a tone monk phoenix

Anyone got any more suggestions?

Weren't jhs involved in controversy for massively expensive mods that were really terribly built?

I'm glad he's come clean, but I hate all the Jesus and God references in the thread. It's making me cringe a bit.

I also think he's not quite clean about the volume pedal, which he originally claimed was gutted and rebuilt, and is now saying he was always clear on it.

I don't know, I'd never be a customer. Though my ultimate wah is a Wilson clone of a vintage wh-10, and he's a trusted builder so I won't ever need a different one.

Also, the Ben wah sounds like it's worth £325! I mean seriously! Change the pot out and it sounds even better! Why is every vintage tone hound not an owner?!

frankus

of course he had to simplify the user experience goign up AND down was waaaaay too complex.. so it just goes down.

joeyowen

BBE are the winners in all this, if people don't buy their wah for such a bargain price now, madness! 

xtrouble

frankus said:

I'm thinking of putting together a "rogues gallery" pedalboard -

So a vertex wah, freakish blues drive, a tone monk phoenix

Anyone got any more suggestions?

Devi Ever console kickstarter edition?

frankus

good call!

ThePrettyDamned

joeyowen;345987" said:

BBE are the winners in all this, if people don't buy their wah for such a bargain price now, madness! 

It can't be good, it's made in China.

Dave_Mc

Wow. Saw this last night just before I had to sign off for the night but I didn't get a chance to check it out properly. Will do so in a few minutes.

Have to admit, I didn't see that coming.

Paul_C

As suggested by a picture on the TGP thread, Lance Armstrong would be impressed by the way he's handled the whole sorry tale.

frankus

So where abouts would Jon Snow wave his arms on the Kubler-Ross swingometer?

Denial? Anger? Bargaining? Depression? Acceptance?

Dave_Mc

Wow. Read his post now (not the whole thread ) ). That does take a lot of guts, to give credit where it's due.

FelineGuitars

I'm glad he's come clean, but I hate all the Jesus and God references in the thread. It's making me cringe a bit.

I also cringe and assume it's because they're Merkins and it's so ingrained in them to spout the God stuff

It also gets me when politicians align themselves to a faith that they maybe don't hold to vigorously because the PR people tell them it's what they should be doing - except Blair who kept the uber Catholicism on the down-low in case it would be an affront to the protestant electorate.

It's like that trend 5-10 years ago where all celebs would go to the Priory Clinic to get help after behaving like complete pricks, and three months later we would all accept them back with open arms. Think it was a Max Clifford strategy

xSkarloey

To give the bloke the benefit of the doubt, maybe he is sincere in his faith. 

So unfortunate that he allegedly seems to have strayed somewhat from the path of righteousness in  the first place. 

After all, the eleventh commandment says "thou shalt not allegedly pass off thy rival's simply modified wah-wah as thine own discrete design". 

The twelfth of course states "thou shalt cover thy PCB with liquified camel dung". 

SidNewton

It's interesting to think just how many 'name' players bought into his bullshit. At the end of the day you had a Chinese made wah, a volume pedal which was essentially a modified Boss and cables which weren't what he claimed them to be. Yet numerous respected guitarists queued up to endorse his products. It just goes to show that no matter who you are or how good you might be you'll hear what you want to hear.

Dave_Mc

FelineGuitars said:

(a) I also cringe and assume it's because they're Merkins and it's so ingrained in them to spout the God stuff

(b) Think it was a Max Clifford strategy

(a) I dunno. People here (NI) spout the God thing too and it always makes me super-suspicious.

(b) To be fair, the Priory thing was probably a better plan than the current Max Clifford strategy...

Gassage

Very good from Mason.

I'm writing a song that features his wah throughout.

I'm calling it Notes on a Scandal.

juansolo

wolf5150 said:

I've no idea what the ' Freakish Blues ' reference is but it took balls to come clean.

No it took being discovered to come clean. It's fraud plain and simple, he's a con man and he's been caught. Similar thing happened to Freakish Blues who were buying cheap Chinese pedals, gooping them, tarting them up and flogging them as the next big thing.

What he's doing is damage limitation. Same again as the TMG saga who appears to be trans-continental shister.

Guts? He's lucky he's not facing legal action, he bloody should be. Anyone who thinks this move was in any way brave or by someone with any sort of moral values is deluded.

juansolo

stickyfiddle said:

Vemuram Jan ray and a Dumbloid?

The Jan Ray is a £400 Timmy knock off in a brass box.

The Dumbloid at heart (the circuit) is a (badly made) Tube Screamer with seemingly random parts thrown at it. However in Japan it isn't as stupidly expensive as it is here and if you took into account all the pedals that are tube screamers at heart, you'd have no boutique OD market. I think a lot of the problem with that one was the importer knocked it off and sold the knock off at half price. Still $300, but still the hypocrisy was staggering.

juansolo

FelineGuitars said:

I'm glad he's come clean, but I hate all the Jesus and God references in the thread. It's making me cringe a bit.

I also cringe and assume it's because they're Merkins and it's so ingrained in them to spout the God stuff

It's the 'praise and worship' crowd in the States they prey on. Deep pockets and quite gullible if you're good at spouting the god schpeel it seems. The TMG guy (who's English and has conned people here, Australia and now the US), is in full on God mode in his marketing and dealing with the US guys. Strange that only happened when he was there. Also he's a Michelin starred chef don't you know. No I don't for a second believe that either.

ThePrettyDamned

What he said.

I just think it's a joke really. The best part is reading people's thoughts on the axis wah, including, "Sweet and absolutely perfect in my opinion".

http://www.hugeracksinc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=77567&start=30

On the same page are folk waxing lyrical about how sweet and vocal like it is, as well as the "well applied goop"(!)

Like I said, it either shows how people listen with their eyes, or how bloody good the BBE is.

I can't see him staying in business, surely? I certainly wouldn't buy anything from a builder like that when there are bloody loads of other great ones around.

randomhandclaps

I actually disagree with the "The guy's said sorry good on him?" angle.  I fucking detest guys like this.  The musical equipment industry has long been dominated by big mass producers - whether pedals, guitars or amps and even stretching out into studio services.  Finally we are moving in a direction where skilled and innovative small businesses can build a reputation, then you get arseholes like Mason.

It's hard enough for small businesses to balance time and outlay against profit, makes their products appealing, reasonably priced and still be able to feed their kids.  Then twats like this pull crap like that.  They do it because they have nothing to lose.  If they get found out they just fold.  Genuine small business fight and suffer to avoid folding in the hope this builds customer faith, after all what good is a guarantee or laying down money if the business is not going to be around to honour it?  It takes trust and a leap of faith to support small, new builders etc. and when someone pulls shit like this it damages the whole independent market.

Did he set out to rip people off and/or was he fully aware of what he was doing?  He gooped the boards didn't he?  Why was that?  It's like catching someone burying a body in a garden and then them trying to deny having seen the corpse.

He a liar, a con artist, a fraudster and most of all him and his type are the utter scourge of small music businesses of any type.  He's said sorry like all con artists do as long as there is the slighted hope of exploiting money out of people in the future, but quite frankly I wish he'd shut up shop, fuck off and do something else that he might actually be good at.  There are plenty of employment roles where bullshitting is a required job skill so Mason should stick it all on his CV and he'll hopefully find something pretty damn easily.