Interesting V****x Effects article on Reverb

bingefeller · September 2016

dindude said:

I think @iain.reverb is getting an unnecessary hard time here. A). He didn't write or place the article himself, although he is representing reverb I do understand, and b) The article isn't the fawning adtorial that people are making it out to be.

People would clearly love to read a hate filled, aggressive article, but to what end, especially for a company (Reverb) that needs to retain its progressional edge.

There's enough there that you can't make up your own mind with regards to the integrity of Vertex, just as if you had read an interview with Nigel Farage, you don't need blatant, unprofessional journalism to establish that he's a twonk.

So pitchforks away, all this article has reminded me of is that I personally would never buy a Vertex product.

who is giving Iain a hard time?

joeyowen · September 2016

To be fair, the article has really made me gas for a way huge overrated special....

joeyowen · September 2016

haha! The Axis Wah for sale on ebay:

"These are extremely rare to come by and they don't make these anymore"

ummmm, BBE fucking do! haha

iain.reverb · September 2016

dindude said:

I think @iain.reverb is getting an unnecessary hard time here. A). He didn't write or place the article himself, although he is representing reverb I do understand, and b) The article isn't the fawning adtorial that people are making it out to be.

People would clearly love to read a hate filled, aggressive article, but to what end, especially for a company (Reverb) that needs to retain its progressional edge.

There's enough there that you can't make up your own mind with regards to the integrity of Vertex, just as if you had read an interview with Nigel Farage, you don't need blatant, unprofessional journalism to establish that he's a twonk.

So pitchforks away, all this article has reminded me of is that I personally would never buy a Vertex product.

Thanks @dindude ;
I don't feel that I'm getting a particularly hard time. I didn't write or place the article but at the end of the day my company did and I represent them here in the UK and Ireland so therefore I feel like I should at least get involved in the discussion.

I think people would love to see Mason get his comeuppance in various nasty ways but sometimes it just seems like some people are made of Teflon and/or have zero shame.

I think everyone on here has made up their mind whether they would give Vertex a second chance. I pretty sure the answer is a resounding NO!

I also feel that our article would help someone to make up their mind who was not familiar with the whole sorry story or at least provide a jumping off point for further information digging regarding him and his company. I mean the the first three suggested Google searches to Vertex effects end in Scandal, Fraud and Controversy.

Masons dug such a big hole for himself over the years. I don't think an article by us (which has been widely condemned!) will help him any if at all.

UnclePsychosis · September 2016

dindude said:

I think @iain.reverb is getting an unnecessary hard time here.

He's not had a hard time at all, so I'm more than a tad confused by this comment. I stand by my criticism of Reverb, but clearly this isn't Iain's doing. I was just interested to hear his take on it.

joeyowen · September 2016

Yeah iain you nob! All your fault!

Bet you have the hots for Mason too!

UnclePsychosis · September 2016

dindude said:

People would clearly love to read a hate filled, aggressive article, but to what end, especially for a company (Reverb) that needs to retain its progressional edge.

There's enough there that you can't make up your own mind with regards to the integrity of Vertex, just as if you had read an interview with Nigel Farage, you don't need blatant, unprofessional journalism to establish that he's a twonk.

Allowing people to peddle half-truths and just plain out-and-out lies without challenge is about as far from "professional journalism" as you can get. Five minutes with Google finds the holes in the story he tries to paint here. Letting this slide, but with a half-hearted "its up to you whether you believe him or not" disclaimer is sloppy, lazy journalism.

The "professional edge" that you mention would have either been to either write the article properly---and challenge the answers---or not to run it at all.

Did anyone else see the initial version, by the way?

hugbot · September 2016

I dont see a problem with interviewing him. Vice magazine interviews criminals all the time. I was interested to hear the story as to how exactly the scam came about.

Worrying about giving him "free advertising" seems a bit mch. All it does is further attach his name to the story- people can make their own mind up or not if they want to do business with him.

Like the freekish blues thing I think its an informative story that ought to be at the front of your mind next time you're considering whether its reaaallly worth spending 400 quid for a custom gooped boutique jobby thats supposedly a million times better than anything mass produced because thegearpage says it is.

iain.reverb · September 2016

joeyowen said:

Yeah iain you nob! All your fault!

Bet you have the hots for Mason too!

He told me my axis wahs in the post

Beef · September 2016

Is my tshirt in the post yet?

bingefeller · September 2016

UnclePsychosis said:

dindude said:

People would clearly love to read a hate filled, aggressive article, but to what end, especially for a company (Reverb) that needs to retain its progressional edge.

There's enough there that you can't make up your own mind with regards to the integrity of Vertex, just as if you had read an interview with Nigel Farage, you don't need blatant, unprofessional journalism to establish that he's a twonk.

Allowing people to peddle half-truths and just plain out-and-out lies without challenge is about as far from "professional journalism" as you can get. Five minutes with Google finds the holes in the story he tries to paint here. Letting this slide, but with a half-hearted "its up to you whether you believe him or not" disclaimer is sloppy, lazy journalism.

The "professional edge" that you mention would have either been to either write the article properly---and challenge the answers---or not to run it at all.

Did anyone else see the initial version, by the way?

Yeah I saw it and @Heartfeltdawn saw it.

Teetonetal · September 2016

I bet the majority of people buying Vertex new pedals have absolutely no idea about the story behind the company. I've said before that Tim Pierce has name dropped him (in a good way) during Tim and Pete's guitar show - so either many in the USA have been able to forgive and forget, or many are totally oblivious.

If I was new to the story and read Reverb's article, I think it would put me off trying the brand. Simply because there are so many builders out there these days that there is no need whatsoever to give my money to anyone with a tainted commercial history. My money is hard earned (and contrary to appearance on these boards) I do actually care where it goes!!

I am surprised that Reverb did not see TGP's backlash on the 60 cycle hum podcast interview with Mason though? Or maybe the article was already done?

juansolo · September 2016

This is an interesting subject because the music hardware industry, particularly FX, is rife with this sort of behaviour.

There are many things about this that are questions of morality and where you draw the line on that personally. Sadly no one is ever going to agree on where that line should be. I'm playing devil's advocate here, most pedals, amps and guitars are derivatives of versions that went before them. There are only so many ways you can do an OD, a fuzz, a delay, a phaser, etc in the analogue/semi analogue domain.

So clones happen. Some people are extremely open about this, and this I personally have no problem with. DAM charge a huge premium for cloning Tonebenders and other old fuzzes for example. But he's never hidden that fact and he makes them well enough that people are prepared to pay a premium for them. Skreddy was the same with muffs, again no issue there. Where I personally have an issue is people claiming other people's work as their own. Claiming to have done R&D to come up with the next great thing, not only to find that it's not only a clone, it's actually using someone else's PCBs without their consent or knowledge. Freakish Blues taking it one step further by just re-painting a Chinese knock off and not actually doing anything at all other than being very good at stoking the hype train on TGP.

That said, who's defending EHX with the muff? Or Ibanez, who must be the most cloned on the planet with the TS. Or Roland/Boss with the multitude of their stuff that's been cloned. Indeed EHX joined the party with the Soul Food which to this day I find particularly amusing as it killed the market for Klones overnight.

It's a wavey-arsed line.

By the way, this post in no way is defending fluttering cunts like JHS, Lovepedal, Freakish Blues, Tone Monk, Vemuram, Vertex, etc, etc...

Sassafras · September 2016

Much as I deplore Mr Vertex's "business" practice, he's cleverly marketed his overpriced clones at the section of buyers who turn their noses up at reasonably priced effects in favour of boutique effects that make dubious claims and use all the important keywords like transparency, unique, years of research and refinement, handmade in the USA and all the other crap people swallow by the barrow-load.
Anyone who thinks spending 3 or 4 hundred quid on a wah, booster or "modified" SD-9 is reasonable has got more money than sense.
I find it hard to summon up too much sympathy for those types. Not that that makes Vertex's actions excusable.
He comes across as a world-class knob every time he opens his mouth.

joeyowen · September 2016

His marketing reminds me of a web designer I knew.

For pretty cheap, below the competition, he would make you a website...business was bad.
So, for about 3 times as much, he would make you a website.... business turned very good

People assumed, that because he cost more than the others, it must be great.

But not, a tenner more, like 50% more... so he really stood out.

Difference is, he actually made the websites

Heartfeltdawn · September 2016

iain.reverb said:
This is the thing I don't understand about Mason though, Please believe me when I agree with you that a leopard never changes its spots, especially when it comes to dishonesty.

But this is whats weird......
He held his hands up (only because he was caught)
He issued refunds to the people affected. (dodgy accounting included)

But he still puts his name to a line of new pedals!
The man either has a neck made of the absolute finest brass or there is a terrifying character defect going on.

Vertex as a brand is now mud. Quick Google and the first page list of results is all about how he is a con artist. But he still insists on going on with the Vertex line. I genuinely can't fathom why he would go through all this hassle. It's absolutely fascinating from a people watching point of view.

As far as the free advertising goes I don't think it will encourage many people to buy any of his pedals anytime soon. If anything I think this has just dragged up all the old (and a few new) skeletons in his closet. I'd pretty much forgotten all about the whole sorry story until the interview came out.

I would say it's caused a mini Streisand effect but we haven't seen anything back from Vertex yet.

He held his hands up eventually. It wasn't a case of him being caught and instantly coming clean whilst saying "It's a fair cop, guv". The article doesn't state how lawyers acting on his behalf issued at least one Cease and Desist communication to someone who exposed him on TGP. When the truth came out, there was no grasping of the nettle then.

Even now after all of this, there is a marked lack of open speaking.

"I’m certainly not opposed to admitting that what I did was wrong. I lied to people. I don’t legally know whether it constitutes fraud or not. One lawyer said that it could be, that there might be grounds for a class action suit if everyone who owned one got together."

Certainly not opposed? Fuck me, this guy should be running for state governor with slimy non-committal bullshit like that. He didn't just lie about one product. He lied about a number of products, as Rackdoctor's post stated. Cables, volume pedals, even the battery box idea which seems to have been cribbed from Bob Bradshaw.

If he didn't legally know if what he did constituted fraud, then perhaps it might have been an idea to ask that same lawyer who sent out the C&D letters.

The regulars in this forum will know the story of our photographer scammer. When he was caught, he made legal threats and dished out stories of harassment that made him the victim. There are parts of that Reverb article where Mason flirts with victimhood in the same way. Both are only fit to be described as con men.

Dave_Mc · September 2016

iain.reverb said:

Dave_Mc said:

Saw this on TGP... astounding.

Me too. I knew people were P**sed off at Vertex but wasn't prepared for that ! I surprised he's selling as many of his new pedals as he claims.

If you'd followed the saga from the start (like I did) it shouldn't have been that surprising. Both the level of (justified, in my opinion) disgust on TGP about the article and the fact he's still selling pedals (though, like you, I'd be surprised he's selling as many as he claims, but I could well be wrong).

I know you didn't write the article, but if people who aren't involved in the music industry and who are just interested and hang out on the forums know all this stuff, it wouldn't be that difficult for someone writing an article (or the person who rubber stamps it as fit to publish) to find that out, either. It's all out there online, easy to find with a quick google.

UnclePsychosis said:
Did anyone else see the initial version, by the way?

Yes I think so. It was flagged up on an old TGP thread that I happened to be subscribed to* and I read the article before I saw any posts on TGP mentioning the updates to the article, so I think I saw the original article before the revisions. Considering that (an awful lot of the current caveats which are being mentioned now weren't in the original article, though I should clarify that I only skimmed the artlcle intially as I didn't think it'd be changed

Certainly the caveat at the start of the article wasn't in the original version) I must say I find it somewhat ironic to see @iain.reverb saying:

iain.reverb said:

This is the thing I don't understand about Mason though, Please believe me when I agree with you that a leopard never changes its spots, especially when it comes to dishonesty.

But this is whats weird......
He held his hands up (only because he was caught)

Isn't that effectively what Reverb did when they changed the article because of the uproar it caused? Would the article have been changed had said uproar (or possibly other uproar behind the scenes which we're not privy to which some members on TGP have mooted as a possibility) not happened?

*I post there very rarely these days, mainly because I got sick of the place when a mod threatened to ban me when I was pointing out that the Jan Ray might be a clone... apparently I was being too argumentative and they only want nice (fawning) positivity regardless of whether that's facilitating (in my opinion) the ripping off of forum members and it was annoying other posters, but in my defence the other guy started it and more importantly posterity shows I was correct in that the Jan Ray absolutely did, to the best of my knowledge, turn out to be a pretty (scandalously, in my opinion) lightly modified Timmy. Anyway, I check in most days to see if anything has happened to my old subscribed threads and that came up so I saw it pretty early I think.

Laurie · September 2016

@VertexEffects .. Care to chime in?

bingefeller · September 2016

Laurie said:

@VertexEffects .. Care to chime in?

Mason will only reply to select posts, like he does on TGP.

Beef · September 2016

To be fair to Satan, I mean Mason, there's not really much he should or could add here that wouldn't just be fuel to the fire. Probably best to keep shtum and forever deal with the consequences of your prodigious scumbaggery.

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Interesting V****x Effects article on Reverb

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