Worst pedal you've owned?

hugbot

stickyfiddle said:

hugbot;124389" said:

Slightly cheating because I havent actually tried it yet, but my other guitarist send me  a demo of the EHX holy stain the other day going "check this out it sounds awesome" but distorted reverb just sets my teeth on edge and Im begging him not to buy it.

Worst pedal i've owned? Line 6 AM4. And I got good use out of both the POD and the uber metal. The AM4 however was just abysmal and has since been disowned from their website.

I had an AM4 and liked it. For turning any clean amp into "your" sounds it was excellent, 10 years ago at least. Very good with a small practice amp. Never understood that massive hate it gets.

The problem is the lack of switchable speaker sim IMO. In my experience any POD type modeller needs to be tweaked with an appropriate speaker configuration to have any versitility, otherwise you use it with the wrong amp it it sounds like arse.

tbm

Boss Phase Shifter, think it was a PH3. I don't think it was bad pedal, but to my ears it just covered everything with gloop. Hated it.

I had a HM-2 as well. Shite on guitar but loved it on bass. Gave in away during a period of time where I wasn't playing bass that much. Regret it. 

ICBM

tbm said:

Boss Phase Shifter, think it was a PH3. I don't think it was bad pedal, but to my ears it just covered everything with gloop. Hated it.

You were right the first time. It's a bad pedal. A nasty digital "update" of the earlier and great-sounding PH-1R and PH-2, which makes anything you put through it sound the same.

Ditto the BF-3 Flanger and OC-3 Octaver - none of them sound anything like the '2' versions.

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;133287" said:

tbm said:

Boss Phase Shifter, think it was a PH3. I don't think it was bad pedal, but to my ears it just covered everything with gloop. Hated it.










You were right the first time. It's a bad pedal. A nasty digital "update" of the earlier and great-sounding PH-1R and PH-2, which makes anything you put through it sound the same.

Ditto the BF-3 Flanger and OC-3 Octaver - none of them sound anything like the '2' versions.

I got a good sound from a ph3 in store, which justifies it's existence... Just. Sorta. Not really.

But it had way too much wacky stuff going on, and it took a lot of dialing to get a sound that didn't sound like it was destroying the dry signal.

The harmoniser is pretty great though. I really enjoyed it, though you need pretty clean technique to get the most from it.

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

I got a good sound from a ph3 in store, which justifies it's existence... Just. Sorta. Not really. 

But it had way too much wacky stuff going on, and it took a lot of dialing to get a sound that didn't sound like it was destroying the dry signal.

Because it was. Unlike most other Boss digital pedals which only digitise the effect itself, these three digitise the dry signal as well. This also makes them unusable in a parallel effects loop, which is how I found out...

StageStruck

Rocktek Distortion - the easy way to give any amp the 10w practice amp sound. In my defense, it was my first pedal when I was 15.
Boss AC2 - Sounded ok-ish with a strat or tele. Pity I mainly play Humbucker loaded guitars...
EHX Holy Stain - I really wanted this to be great, but it was pretty unusable

stonevibe

A Shin-Ei (Shitty) wah pedal was fucking awful, always fell to pieces and sounded like shit. Bought it at a car boot sale in the early 90s along with a ton of other pedals that I later binned.

ICBM

stonevibe said:

A Shin-Ei (Shitty) wah pedal was fucking awful, always fell to pieces and sounded like shit. Bought it at a car boot sale in the early 90s along with a ton of other pedals that I later binned.

… and which are now worth a fortune.

The Shin-Ei Companion Fuzz in particular - I hope you didn't bin one of those!

(I agree about the build quality.)

kelvinburn

ICBM said:

tbm said:

Boss Phase Shifter, think it was a PH3. I don't think it was bad pedal, but to my ears it just covered everything with gloop. Hated it.

You were right the first time. It's a bad pedal. A nasty digital "update" of the earlier and great-sounding PH-1R and PH-2, which makes anything you put through it sound the same.

Ditto the BF-3 Flanger and OC-3 Octaver - none of them sound anything like the '2' versions.

Is the OC3 that bad? I'd wanted to try one for pseudo baritone parts. I'd already assumed since its a boss pedal that the drive sound would be fairly awful though

stickyfiddle

Bucket;129459" said:

Morley Mini Wah.

Shite.

The full size bog-standard Morley Classic isn't much better. Probably ok for Vai type stuff but massively dull, not wacka-wacka capability and the size of a small house. Separate footswitch made it a PIA live too.

Good for elmuating the synth-horn bit I the Ghostbusters song, though iirc. That's the only thing I remember using it on live.

DrBob

DannyP said:

Imagine a tubescreamer encased in marshmallow under a mattress in a mosquito-infested pillow factory and it might sound a bit like the...

DOD Classic Tube.

"But can't you pull down the gain a bit and just use it to drive a nice amp?" - NO.

"But aren't there any weird extreme setting that one can use for something quirky now and again, as one can on so many shit pedals?" - NO.

Hmmm, you've just reminded me that one of these was my very first ever pedal as an impressionable 16 year old And now I can't help but wonder if there is a direct correlation between this and my reliance solely on amp distortion for the intervening two decades.... Hmmm...

ICBM

kelvinburn said:

Is the OC3 that bad? I'd wanted to try one for pseudo baritone parts. I'd already assumed since its a boss pedal that the drive sound would be fairly awful though

It's very synthetic-sounding, more like a digital pitch shifter than the old analogue OC-2. Admittedly it tracks a lot better (although I like the OC-2's quirkiness, when you get used to it), but it alters the original tone very badly, even if you don't use the distortion. If you want more of a White Stripes type sound than a Mountain type sound it might be the very thing though.

kelvinburn

ICBM said:

kelvinburn said:

Is the OC3 that bad? I'd wanted to try one for pseudo baritone parts. I'd already assumed since its a boss pedal that the drive sound would be fairly awful though

It's very synthetic-sounding, more like a digital pitch shifter than the old analogue OC-2. Admittedly it tracks a lot better (although I like the OC-2's quirkiness, when you get used to it), but it alters the original tone very badly, even if you don't use the distortion. If you want more of a White Stripes type sound than a Mountain type sound it might be the very thing though.

Cheers @ICBM. I love the quirky tracking of my ME50s octave down function, which is what I'm trying to replace TBH

LastMantra

lasermonkey said:

I had a Kimbara fuzz which was the first pedal I ever bought. To this day, I have no idea why. Any more than two notes sounded horrible, and you couldn't even think about playing a minor chord. Ugh.

I never got on with the Boss DF-2 either. I liked the feedbacky thing, I just thought the distortion sounded shit.

ICBM said:

stonevibe said:

A Shin-Ei (Shitty) wah pedal was fucking awful, always fell to pieces and sounded like shit. Bought it at a car boot sale in the early 90s along with a ton of other pedals that I later binned.

… and which are now worth a fortune.

The Shin-Ei Companion Fuzz in particular - I hope you didn't bin one of those!

(I agree about the build quality.)

I was wondering if those were the same thing. I mean I think the companion fuzz was sold under kimbara.

I love nasty old Japanese fuzz! Supafuzz! 

Cacofonix

Edit: deleted through lack of interest.

xHymnal

Some of these "shit" fuzzes are worth a LOT of dollah. I have a few vintge shin-ei fuzzes and they are awesome... not shit at all. 

ThePrettyDamned

Hymnal said:

Some of these "shit" fuzzes are worth a LOT of dollah. I have a few vintge shin-ei fuzzes and they are awesome... not shit at all. 

Fuzz is such a love/hate thing.  I hate the Meastro fuzz (r 'Satisfaction' fuzz).  Others love it.  

Same as distortion I guess - some folks love compressed, some like open and middy, some like scooped...

It's the OD world that's a bit dull but even there, there are so many flavours... We are spoilt for choice these days, regardless of budget.  

mike_l

Morley Bad Horsie, I loved the switchless operation, but hated the sweep.

Before I get slated, mine was donated to a friend who had started learning, and she loved it.

I also know @viz uses one as his wah-of-choice...

Phil_aka_Pip

Not sure I've got one(s) that are "worst", but I don't use any of the 3 that I bought in 1983 (see the other thread), neither do I use the Cool Cat Overdrive. The latter didn't like being powered by a wall wart, neither did the wah. I think I would use the former if it didn't insist on a battery. The others, well, I've just settled on a pedal board config that does what I want for now and that doesn't include them.

Shark_Eyes

For me it has to be my Mooer Ensemble King - It either does nothing or sounds horrible and 80's.

I've tried finding a setting I like, and just can't find anything useable, it sounds oddly ok on bass, but I still regret the purchase.

Given my love of pedals (particularly DOD ones for some reason) I'm sure this won't be the last purchase I regret.