High end pedals & why do people hate them?

therose789

I have joined a group on FB called 'gear talk' because i like looking at pictures of gear and i like talking about gear. 

After a little while i soon released it was mostly populated by 'merica. 

Almost daily there is someone on there asking the question 'Why do people by high end pedals like strymons, i get by with a guitar and an amp. those people are chumps' etc...

Surely if you can afford it and you like it it doesn't matter? I mean if you're playing good ol' rock n roll maybe just plugging into an amp and cracking the balls out of it works for you but not everyone does!

Some people just want to watch the world burn... 

ThePrettyDamned

Because the high end pedal industry has a history of rip offs. 

Not entirely. But a lot of it is. I think there was a massively expensive overdrive from someone that was a tubescreamer... Without the buffer. Yeah, it sounded different, but they charged a lot for something that required no r+d. 

Edit to remove name.

Also, who could forget the alpha drive and alpha drive red dot? 

Or the amazing Jan ray and the tone changing case... which was a very slightly tweaked Timmy for really stupid money.

Jonathanthomas83

I fuckin love a high end pedal, I do.

guitarfishbay

Nothing high end in the guitar world takes my fancy.  Darkglass have cost me a lot of money in the bass world though.

mrkb

I dont think them 'mericans like people that arent like them....... why would other people not think the same way they do....

timhulio

Is this a high-end pedal?

english_bob

ThePrettyDamned said:

Because the high end pedal industry has a history of rip offs. 

Not entirely. But a lot of it is. I think there was a massively expensive overdrive from someone that was a tubescreamer... Without the buffer. Yeah, it sounded different, but they charged a lot for something that required no r+d. 

Edit to remove name.

Also, who could forget the alpha drive and alpha drive red dot? 

Or the amazing Jan ray and the tone changing case... which was a very slightly tweaked Timmy for really stupid money.

Yep, there's a lot of that sort of thing out there. The company with the bufferless Tubescreamer has four or five pedals in its line that are all based on the same very simple distortion pedal circuit (that they didn't create) with a few component substitutions. Most boutique overdrives contain about £20 worth of parts if you're lucky, and result from very little that's original or innovative as regards electronics.

Alongside that, there's the curiously persistent idea that effects pedals are sort of like crutches- the "real" players can do what they do with just a guitar and an amp, so if you can't it's because you suck. I don't even want to know what the logic for that one is.

xSkarloey

Maybe they're just trolls. At very least they sound judgemental nosey parkers when there's no need to be. 

It's very corrosive, isn't it, sneering at and judging people. It's far simpler to follow your own path and not get burdened with jealous or judgemental thoughts about others. 

I like to think that when I see a flash board my thought isn't 'flash git' or 'what a waste of money' but rather 'that's interesting. How does it sound?'. 

Here endeth the sermon. 

Now congregation please be upstanding for Hymn Number 58, "Ah likes to go straight into the front end of Mah Princeton yessiree, but mah buddy here has a board like mission control but ah loves him all the same, yes ah do". 

Whitecat

A lot will be the same people that hate boutique guitars and amps... they purport to dislike stuff because the reality is it's not easily attainable for them. Should it ever become so that they can have whatever they want I'm sure their tune would change.

I subscribe to the "play what you like" mentality. No matter who you are, it doesn't matter how nice/expensive a guitar you can show anyone from your collection, I guarantee you someone somewhere has a "nicer"/more expensive one.

The thing about ripoffs is certainly true though, and then there's the whole 'goop' phenomenon - I understand that some builders want to protect their circuit design but on the other hand it's pretty easy to 'hide something' underneath it, huh?

TimmyO

therose789 said:

I have joined a group on FB called 'gear talk' because i like looking at pictures of gear and i like talking about gear. 

After a little while i soon released it was mostly populated by 'merica. 

Almost daily there is someone on there asking the question 'Why do people by high end pedals like strymons, i get by with a guitar and an amp. those people are chumps' etc...

Surely if you can afford it and you like it it doesn't matter? I mean if you're playing good ol' rock n roll maybe just plugging into an amp and cracking the balls out of it works for you but not everyone does!

Some people just want to watch the world burn... 

"people" don't hate them. Just the bunch of twunts you've found. such groups exist. Avoid them. 

Sassafras

'Muricans are generally idiots.
That's why I prefer this forum where people tend not to repeat parrot fashion opinions they barely understand.
Unfortunately, the boutique pedal market is full of hype, flowery descriptions and outlandish claims.
And one or two out and out rip-off merchants.

equalsql

Jonathanthomas83 said:

I fuckin love a high end pedal, I do.

Don't you mean "I love fuckin a high end pedal, I do" ? 

Dopesick

Because they're fucking peasants.

Don't want those impoverished unwashed types touching my Eventides.

equalsql

Sassafras said:

'Muricans are generally idiots."

In the past I would have thought that to be an unfair statement..but looking at the couple of muppets running for president (no offence mean't  to Jim Henson), I now tend to agree with you.

therose789

In the very same group someone has asked the question 'who is better? SRV or the guitarist from fall of troy?' The discussion has lead to the fall of troy guitarist being better on count of his ability to be able to spin kick while playing guitar. 

*leaves group* 

crunchman

Some of it is the stuff already mentioned that a lot of overdrives are essentially a classic circuit with minor tweaks, and the components in there cost peanuts yet they are being sold for silly money.

Some of the boutique stuff has better components in.  Mass produced stuff might have cheap ceramic capacitors that cost 2p if you buy in bulk where a boutique version may have a much higher end film capacitor that costs 15 times as much.  Some of the boutique fuzzes might have carefully selected germanium transistors etc. but generally the boutique drives cost far more than the difference in component costs from the mass produced versions.  I think sometimes the builders charge what they think the market will be willing to pay.

The digital stuff is a bit different.  The hardware and quality of something like a Strymon is top notch.  I think there is still an element of charging what the market will pay, but the build quality, and even the unseen stuff like the quality of the D to A and A to D converters will be a lot better than what you get in a cheaper pedal from someone like Zoom.

therose789

I get all the 'charging loads for a clone' stuff and 'charging loads around hype' and all that but if you can afford it and you like it, why does it matter? 

I posted a picture of my pedalboard on one of these groups once and someone said 'Yeah but do you really need all of that?' (obviously after an argument) to which i responded 'no but i like to have it'. 

I don't know why it winds me up so much but it really does, and i don't even have a board full of strymon pedals! 

Maybe I shouldn't have come onto the internet today. 

ThePrettyDamned

crunchman said:

Some of it is the stuff already mentioned that a lot of overdrives are essentially a classic circuit with minor tweaks, and the components in there cost peanuts yet they are being sold for silly money.

Some of the boutique stuff has better components in.  Mass produced stuff might have cheap ceramic capacitors that cost 2p if you buy in bulk where a boutique version may have a much higher end film capacitor that costs 15 times as much.  Some of the boutique fuzzes might have carefully selected germanium transistors etc. but generally the boutique drives cost far more than the difference in component costs from the mass produced versions.  I think sometimes the builders charge what they think the market will be willing to pay.

The digital stuff is a bit different.  The hardware and quality of something like a Strymon is top notch.  I think there is still an element of charging what the market will pay, but the build quality, and even the unseen stuff like the quality of the D to A and A to D converters will be a lot better than what you get in a cheaper pedal from someone like Zoom.

This is a much better summation of my post I think, which came across as one sided. 

I'm always sceptical of new overdrive pedals - the market loves the same stuff. I have something that's really different on my board that comes from the diy community, but it wouldn't be popular because it isn't a tubescreamer or a timmy - it's a bit noisier and different (not harder) to dial in. 

Whereas you can often hear digital improvements. The line 6 m series is ace for delays and trems but I don't know many people that think it's as good as an eventide. Probably isn't, nor would you expect it to be given the cost. 

sweepy

We all like shiny stuff and I'm no different, some pedals prices do make me wince a liitle but it you want Strymon, go for it, personally I preferred some if the Way Huge pedals offering great vfm and sounded generally nicer to my ears. It would become deadly dull if we all liked the same gear 

Winny_Pooh

Some high end pedals on the other hand are just not duplicates of anything, for example my Blackstone Mosfet & Skreddy LM deluxe.
You could for example:
A- Stack an ORD-1 into a gunshot perhaps
B- stack a fuzz face into an eq and distortion
but you'd not quite nail it. 

robinbowes

It's mostly about intolerance, and the inability to comprehend anything other than their own thought process.

R.