I love pedals, I’ve got far too many, and rotate pedals regularly.
In my pedal journey, I’ve tried many popular pedals, some of which I really didn’t like.
My list of hated pedals.
Any Dumble pedal. That sound just bores me.
Tube Screamer. 80’s time warp tone. Sounds great for EVH, but unusable in my rig. It actually sets my teeth on edge.
All Line 6 pedals. Clunky switches, meh tones. Don’t get why people like the Echo Park, I absolutely hated mine. Awful thing.
Catalinbread Echorec. Interesting tones, but very fragile switches, very indecisive selector switch, had no confidence in its build quality or longevity in my heavy hands. Moved it on quickly.
Dynacomp. Removes dynamics, adds noise.
OCD: just meh! OD for the deaf.
HOF2 and Flashback 2; both very proficient pedals, they just left me cold. HOF2 tones are just not up to scratch compared to other modern reverbs, Flashback 2 just didn’t excite me. MASH feature is gimmicky, and not practical long term. Saving grace for these in the excellent Toneprint feature, but replaced with proper pedals.
TC Electronic Trinity 2. Fun, but pointless.
Trex Replica Worst delay ever. Would take a bog standard Joyo delay over this!
Pedal highlights.
LOVED these.
MXR M300. Awesome reverb pedal. Endlessly enjoyable.
Simble Pre Driver. Spectacular, subtle, but awesome.
Nocturne Attomic Brain. Best pre amp ever, especially for those who don’t use a lot of gain (like me). Adds to articulation, pick dynamics, lift the tone, adds a touch of sparkle. A cult pedal with Gretsch players. Expensive, but boy is it worth it.
OBNE Black Fountain. One of the most enjoyable and engaging pedals I’ve ever come across. Perfect for nighttime ambient noodling. I can loose myself in this thing for hours. Adore it.
Mad Professor Golden Cello. Gloopy OD with perfect amount of delay. Not normally my kind of thing, but tremendous fun.
Tumnus. I’ve got two on my board! Regular and Deluxe. Nuff said!
Almost all Barber pedals. Burn Unit with Fender amps, Half Gainer with EL84. Just quality!
Boss DD500. Tremendous fun. Though, probably too complex for me. But, I love playing with it.
Ky-ll-drive. A clone of the Univox UD-50 Uni-Drive. It’s my longest surviving pedal, had it on my board for 10 years. It’s a fuzz, sounds excellent, but I mostly use it like a Klon. Low gain, bit of volume. It adds some girth to the tone. Love it as an angry fuzz too. Will keep this one for life.
Marlin
Comments
Can't really understand the tim/timmy pedals either, I know they're supposed to be good "transparent overdrives" but something about them seems flat.
I have recently become quite big on JFET preamp type pedals, like the Benson preamps, or catalinbread's 5F6. They have a different kind of response/sonic signature and are super dynamic and responsive to your guitar's volume.
Tate FX
www.TateFX.co.uk
Instagram
Love delay, but what would one have in place of the Flashback 2? Have to say I haven't bothered (yet) with toneprint on mine. And agree with the mash feature is a gimmick too far. I won't say pointless, because someone somewhere might have been able to make it work in a song, but for me it's just rather superfluous.
Even if you want “true” bypass - and really that’s a flawed concept anyway - there are better, more reliable, less noise-prone methods of doing it.
I’ve now got rid of all my pedals with them, and won’t be buying another. I even gave my old IC Big Muff to the singer in my band in permanent loan.
I can just about live with soft-action metal switches like the one on the Whammy, but it’s pushing it. It’s not just the technical problems - I often play at home without shoes on and the nasty metal things get stuck between your toes if you aren’t careful...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Only criticism is it’s probably a bit too complex for me, but I love it. Don’t think i’ll ever get bored of it.
I have two other delays, one is a cheapy mini pedal just set for slapback, something I use a lot.
The other is the OBNE Black Fountain, a beautiful dark warbly smushy reverb. Pure joy.
Tumnus Deluxe is the only pedal on my board they won’t fit.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MYY9V4P/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1IzTCbM7E1CZZ
A disgusting sound that's ruined countless recordings.
Like Tubescreamers and saxophone solos, they scream 80’s.
- Boss RV-5 - had one for a long time and liked a few of the sounds, but still had that nasty digital sound to it. I tried a Fender Marine Layer Reverb and for me, the modulation setting knocked the much-vaunted equivalent on the RV-5 into a cocked hat. No comparison to my ears. RV5 has more options but Marine Layer nails the sounds.
- Strymon BlueSky - tried one after watching some demos and hearing good things about them from pretty much everyone. Found it a bit sterile, thought the Keeley Caverns V2 was better, and preferred the reverb sounds on the Fender Marine Layer again to both.
There's too many to list out of the ones I love
Didn’t like it much as an OD.
In terms of "things I hate that most people like" - shimmer reverb (ie reverb with a pitchshifted element). Cheese.
OCD- not a massive fan of how it transforms your sound instead of "adding" to it
strangely I like both of these pedals modelled in Helix
Also can't work Big Muffs