Worst pedal you've owned?

roberty

My worst pedal was the EHX Lumberjack. I bought it because it was £30 and it put me into the free postage bracket. From what I gathered it put a horrible crunching noise on your signal. It didn't even sound like it was part of the guitar sound. Just a horrible, unmusical, on-top noise. God knows what they are thinking

 

AntonHunter

Mine was probably the Hotone Fury Fuzz. A shame, as I like their Blues Driver clone, and I'm a big fan of the form factor. But it just sounded really boring and bland. No idea what, if anything, it's a clone of.

Yorkie

Theez:


It was supposed to be a clone of the Blues Driver. Extremely low gain, useless with single coils, barely noticeable with humbuckers.

Jon

Sassafras

Hao Rust Booster.
Most disappointing pedal ever. Not much volume and sounded like a broken chainsaw.

thecolourbox

Cookiemonster said:

thecolourbox said:

The Electro Harmonix Screaming Bird has to be the worst sounding pedal I have ever used

Isn't that a treble booster essentially 

I bought it thinking it would be a Treble Booster in a similar way to how a Rangemaster is a Treble Booster, ie a boost with a focus on upper mids. It turned out to sound more like it cut out everything below the upper mids and boosted everything above it so it sounded like I was playing a DS1 through an old telephone line.

I imagine it could have worked in parallel with the unboosted sound, perhaps via a boss ls2, but it seemed crazy to buy that just to make a crappy £20 flimsy pedal sound usable

dilbert

d8m said:

Had an Arion Overdrive back in the day. Still gives me nightmares now.

Arion Metal Master. If you think the MT-2 is bad, 5 mins with the Metal Master would have you drooling over one. 

Voxsupertwin

The worst pedal I have ever owned was the right hand one on my Tri-Ang Tricycle when I was 4.
It wobbled a lot.

Sassafras

The absolutely worst pedal anyone could own is a chorus pedal..

Lewy

SansAmp Tri-OD. I swear there wasn't a good sound to be had out of that thing. Managed to be ice-picky and muddy at the same time. 

breezytele

After enough pages, it’s possible that every single pedal ever  made, is the worst ..
My playing guitar certainly is.

Supportact

When I was a kid i had a 'Rocktek' overdrive. To be fair to it i don't know if it was the pedal or the solid state Sound City 1 x 10 combo i was playing it through, but I sounded shit. Kind of fizzy and weak. Like a shandy. 

LastMantra

thecolourbox said:

Cookiemonster said:

thecolourbox said:

The Electro Harmonix Screaming Bird has to be the worst sounding pedal I have ever used

Isn't that a treble booster essentially 

I bought it thinking it would be a Treble Booster in a similar way to how a Rangemaster is a Treble Booster, ie a boost with a focus on upper mids. It turned out to sound more like it cut out everything below the upper mids and boosted everything above it so it sounded like I was playing a DS1 through an old telephone line.

I imagine it could have worked in parallel with the unboosted sound, perhaps via a boss ls2, but it seemed crazy to buy that just to make a crappy £20 flimsy pedal sound usable

Often, for me anyway, part of the fun of some pedals is finding out how to get a good sound out of them. 

I never really found a good use for this circuit though. Think I got some OK sounds boosting fuzz in a narsty kind of way. 

EHX probably made a few quid out of it right enough.

thecolourbox

LastMantra said:

thecolourbox said:

Cookiemonster said:

thecolourbox said:

The Electro Harmonix Screaming Bird has to be the worst sounding pedal I have ever used

Isn't that a treble booster essentially 

I bought it thinking it would be a Treble Booster in a similar way to how a Rangemaster is a Treble Booster, ie a boost with a focus on upper mids. It turned out to sound more like it cut out everything below the upper mids and boosted everything above it so it sounded like I was playing a DS1 through an old telephone line.

I imagine it could have worked in parallel with the unboosted sound, perhaps via a boss ls2, but it seemed crazy to buy that just to make a crappy £20 flimsy pedal sound usable

Often, for me anyway, part of the fun of some pedals is finding out how to get a good sound out of them. 

I never really found a good use for this circuit though. Think I got some OK sounds boosting fuzz in a narsty kind of way. 

EHX probably made a few quid out of it right enough.

I did find a good sound from it, by switching it off

Actually it did achieve the tone of the first two bars of Green Day's American Idiot. Which is not particularly useful, but that was literally it

OutOfSequence

My worst has to be a Rocktek overdrive pedal that sounded rubbish whatever it was plugged into. I've got a place in audio hell reserved for a Boss Metallizer, but that sounded amazing compared with the Rocktek. 

Beexter

Mooer Pure Octave. The colour of it actually sums up what it sounds like and it's not mud.....

prov

OutOfSequence said:

My worst has to be a Rocktek overdrive pedal that sounded rubbish whatever it was plugged into. I've got a place in audio hell reserved for a Boss Metallizer, but that sounded amazing compared with the Rocktek. 

Rocktek for me as well, but the Vibrator (stop sniggering at the back!)
Did nothing but kill the tone, a genuine sex toy used as a slide would be more useful than that pointless lump of crap.

ICBM

Yorkie said:

It was supposed to be a clone of the Blues Driver. Extremely low gain, useless with single coils, barely noticeable with humbuckers.

Sounds more like a Marshall Bluesbreaker copy.

Hattigol

TC Mimiq. Absolute dogmash.

26.2

Wampler Ace-30. There were just about usable sounds on the ‘AC-15’ side. The other side was weedy and characterless.

Catalinbread  Formula 5 - was hoping for tweed but got a buzzy mush instead. 

guitargeek62

Hattigol said:

TC Mimiq. Absolute dogmash.

What rig were you using it with? There’s a pretty critical trick to it having any materially good effect…