Pedal prices are almost meaningless. Opinions on what pedals are "good" changes as much as the weather.
I remember when a used RAT and FZ-2 could be had for a 20 because many people thought they were "crap" compared to boutique pedals. Now people obsess over things as stupid as the year of damn DS1 pedals š
The majority of the pedal industry is sadly snake oil.
This is so true. I bought my FZ2 for like $60, sold it back to them to pay rent, and then bought it back for $75. I love it to death, but it breaks I'm probably going for the Behringer copy.
A lot of us are addicted to shopping and collecting. Manufacturers are all too happy to push you a marginally different overdrive every few months so you don't forget that brand exists.
I'd trade all my pedals for a band I could play in that just plays dumb stupid power chord punkrock. All the guys I know in my age (35-40) are so sophisticated and are more interested in testing and showing off their gear than in actually playing some music.
I have that issue too. I finally found a drummer and il protect him like he is gold! I actually am in a band with no bassist for the same reason but I play a baritone that runs into a bass can and my usual guitar rig so lows are covered. Itās hard to find people, let alone people with talent that are on the same page as you are musically. Like a lottery
Bro, I even play drums and still struggle. Iād prefer guitar, but fuck it at this point.
I donāt suck either. I played quads in drum line, played drum set in indoor drum line and won state, snd still practice to a metronome. Iāve even sat in jazz bands, but thatās not my forte.
Iāll play bass, keys, drums, but Iād prefer guitar. At this point I just miss making music with other musicians. Everything Iāve been writing the past two years has been sequenced.
Iāve definitely learned to play drums to compensate for the lack of having one. I have this dude who is pretty rad. I really need another guitarist. Finding a vocalist thatās cool and sounds great I think is like finding a Sasquatch. Iāve heard of them but never actually seen one.
I joined a local facebook group called "Toronto Musicians Connect," where people just post what they're looking for. Usually someone names a few bands they like, and what instrument they play. Then a bunch of people comment and I guess they meet up and jam. I've met a lot of musicians and set up jams/gigs this way. Rock, jazz, metal, rnb ā¦ Itās a dope page. Maybe your area has something like that?
Just said exactly this to my girlfriend yesterday!
Iām getting into your age and my board and chain turn more and more sophisticated, while Iām not really getting closer to actual music or performing
Iāve even sold all of my pedals this winter. And accumulated same amount since (this time itās a more deliberate choice though, so at least this)
My board over the years has become a finely tuned, tidy piece of endless possibilitiesā¦ then i jammed with some new people and I found myself just using comp, one drive, reverb the whole time, no switching of anything
I was exactly at that spot a few years back. Started a band with a mate and it became more about the stuff than the music and enjoyment real quick. Walked away and told myself it has to be about the fun or there is no point.
It's a shame because we spend so much time not actually hanging out with anyone or making music. Myself and others I know are so worn out from having our blood squeezed out to earn a living that being in a band seems for young and/or privileged people. I'm not in a band right now because last time I joined a group they stopped playing just as we were sounding good and doing shows and it was just surfy punk stuff but sometimes simple isn't easy. Got sick of working in restaurants and playing in bands and went back to school.
>Mama let that boy play some rock and roll
Jazz is much too crazy, he can play it when he's old
He's too young for the blues
He's still inside his first pair of shoes
You're supposed to be in your Jazz period.
Man I miss being in a band so much. Got two young kids so I just canāt commit to gigging with any regularity, which is what most people aspire to. Need to find some people who are happy with just casual jams and such.
Are we all just guys 30 and above buying toys to fill the void that the 9-5 grind turned our lives into? Shhh, don't respond. I think we all know the answer.
Nearly every unpopular pedal opinion Iāve seen has been the prevailing popular opinion in almost every forum Iāve been a part of, and itās the same in the synth, guitar, and bass communities.
āCheap gear is better than expensive gearā is the most common opinion of them all, and I think that it misses the point in the same way that āexpensive gear is better than cheap gearā does. It doesnāt feel like either group really pushes the boundaries of sound all that much, which is absolutely fine, but it kind of also takes the teeth out of their argument since at that point the things theyāre doing arenāt all that different from each other anyway. Bleep bloop music may suck to you, but it doesnāt to tons of people. The same is true of blues rock, shoegaze, death metal, country, pop, neo-soul, post-rock, and everything else you can think of. Every one of those genres has bedroom players (a fine type of player), weekend warriors (a fine type of player), and touring musicians (shaky but Iāll allow it).
I donāt even know what my own point is anymore, but I donāt love seeing a competitive spirit in the arts when thereās no actual metrics for better or worse beyond what works for each individual.
Well spoken, but Iām not sure you actually made any sort of point here. There are perfectly valid āunpopular opinionsā in this thread, and I was pretty damn surprised to hear some new ones.
A lot of bass pedals have a mix knob that lets you decide how much clean vs effected tone comes through.
That alone is such an awesome utility to have on drives in particular.
I like him for honesty, he will make 30 minutes video trying to sell amp emulation pedal and at the end will say tube amps still sound better and fuck it. :D
A 6 pedal limit will cover 90% of gigs.
Tuner, wah, overdrive/distortion, eq pedal, modulation of some kind, delay. Iāve done a lot of gigs with 3 pedals on a mini board and itās been enough, often less pedals forces you into being a more creative player.
My rig is Big Muff, Mojomojo Overdrive, and a Behringer Vintage Delay. I'll swap out the Delay for a chorus if we are doing 80s covers.
No-one ever notices....
Nobody in the audience will notice or care about your pedal. A simple performance gimmick like jumping up while playing, everyone will notice. At one gig we launched rubber ducks with personal messages or prizes on into the crowd; people were still talking to us about it years later.
More pedals = more fun at home tho!! š
A *strong but reasonable* collection of pedals is great for playing with others. Iāve had bandmates come up with ideas after hearing sounds that I was making with guitar pedals that people call āimpossible to use in a band contextā. Iāve also experienced the opposite lol so gotta get lucky with your bandmateās ability, willingness and open-mindedness to hear songs where others may not.
I shit you not, I brought my Microcosm to practice to just have it and run through some cool settings real quick to show the people, and the bass player picked up on a rhythmic part on one of THE most esoteric settings on the pedal and wrote a whole verse and chorus based off of it. Pedals donāt always have to be front and center to inspire and help with ideas!
I use a fuzz face, a tuner, a rat, a pharaoh, a boost, into a reverb and delay. I also have a chorus/vibrato but I never use it. I've never needed anything else and if I had a combo reverb/delay I'd probably be better off.
unpopular opinion: popular opinions are not necessarily correct. in general, they are built off of communal experience. but music is art.
using 6 gain stages, gigging a boutique wet pad reverb/delay/bitcrusher pedal, running modulation into drive or running a cab sim into an old tube amp are all personal choice because art is experimentation and subjective.
āif you arenāt painting the ceiling of the sistine chapel, you arenāt making art dudeā is what popular opinion sounds like to me.
I like this. Do whatever you want! Who made all these rules?? Some of my coolest sounds came from just experimenting and not following the order of things! You get it!
Chase Bliss pedals aren't meant to play music in a live environment. They are noise making tools for studio & bedroom players.
And that's OK - but those pedals don't make sense for playing in a band.
It seems like when people say āin a bandā when commenting on the usefulness of a pedal, they almost always mean āin a loud rock band that mostly plays distorted power chords.ā There are other kinds of bands.
Yes! I find many negative opinions on weirder pedals always seem to boil down to "I can't use this in my AC/DC cover band so they are only for bedroom musicians". I use CBA pedals (on my bass) live in my weirdo noise band and they work wonderfully. Different tools for different jobs.
I'll piggy back on this one: these last few bleep bloop pedals they've made are pretty much all the same pedal. Mood, Blooper, Habit, Onward (I'm probably missing one) all just do weird, unpredictable looping type stuff.
There's obviously some great minds at the company, I just wish they would put that creative energy towards something else.
I won't argue that stuff like Mood, Habit, etc. are easy to incorporate universally, but you could use a Dark World or Generation Loss in just about any genre of music, including in live settings, just fine.
But even the ones where you're tempted to sit there and fiddle with like they're instruments all their own can be used effectively live with proper midi control.
Iād look closer. I have a Tonal Recall, a Gravitas and Dark World, all of which are indispensable live tools.
Thermae, Brothers, and Condor are also totally viable.
If only you knew how wrong you are, respectfully.
They are getting more and more use live and itās amazing. They are quite common out there nowadays.
I use them in live settings every single week. Iām playing an alt-rock gig tomorrow night where the Mood, Thermae, and Bliss Factory will be heavily featured in my bass rig. Is use the Habit, Gen Loss mkii, and Dark World in my metal and country stuff all of the time.
I think that pretty much anything can be used for anything if you are intentional about the sounds. Chase Bliss and even weirder pedals are more useful than people are comfortable giving them credit for. I donāt know if the pushback from traditional players stems from fear of change, option paralysis, lack of curiosity, or a combination of the three, but itās a bummer to me that people arenāt seeing the full potential of āunusableā pedals.
Itās the reason that all of the most interesting Boss pedals stopped being made and are now super expensive. We didnāt know what we had with the Slow Gear until it was gone. I fear that weāre gonna do the same thing with Chase Bliss, Gamechanger, Pladask, Hologram, and any other builder that tries to put something different out there.
āIt is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all ways and be more and more in accord with his own.ā
Some people just lack imagination. People donāt need to like everything but itās easy enough to ignore things youāre not interested in. The existence of anyone elseās music does not invalidate my own.
If you're clever enough anything can be used in a song. That's kind of the essence of creativity itself. Not your fault you can find a way to use it and they can't.
Sort of true but midi presets make your carefully crafted bleep-bloop settings available for live music.
Just probably not going to be a standard-issue rock band using it.
The old school Dallas Rangemaster and Colorsound Overdriver circuits are the best overdrive circuits ever made. The modern tweaked versions are amazing too.
Same the Overdriver has my favorite. Both are super dynamic and just play so well with an amp. There is very few over drive I canāt put in the same conversation as those two
Itās crazy to me how dirt sounds ā to my taste ā never really got better. Unless I were playing metal, iād take dirt pedals and amps designed in the 60s any day.
My Rangemaster clone and overdriver clone, along with a tone bender clone (along with guitarās volume knob)are all the dirt I need. The Rangemaster is the most unappreciated pedal ever. Every time I see a SOtB pic I look for one, I canāt remember the last time I saw one.
Pedals respond so differently to different guitars, amps, boards, players, and recording gear. This makes video demos almost pointless, especially shootouts.
Most video demos are pointless for me anyway because I'm primarily a rhythm player and they're mostly a bunch of dudes wanking away. Most, not all. Shoutout to Noise Generator.
Good pedal demos show you the features and give you a good idea of what you're buying.
Andy Reverb and Pete Thorn tend to do a great job, showing various sounds on various guitars and explaining the settings to get there.
My whole opinion of wah changed when I got a switchless one. Prince's "1999" has one guitar track in the verses with 4 beats of wah at the end of every second line. So that's either a second guitarist entirely, or stomping that toe button in and out, or a switchless piece of cake. I went from using a wah twice in a show to using it whenever I felt inspired.
Listen that song a million times and never heard that until you pointed it out! Subtle but rad. I love that we musicians buy gear for such nuanced things.
Iād like them more if people/companies were open to some more distinct synthy filter types. Instead of a basic bandpass, wouldnāt some guitarists appreciate just a Moog-style resonant lowpass filter inside a wah/expression housing? Perhaps with a resonance control knob on the side, or even a second expression pedal. The closest I know of is the original Moogerfooger MF-101 controlled with an external CV expression pedal.
Then thereās the possibility of using dual peak resonance that can start to create more convincing vocal sounds besides wah/wow like:Ā https://youtu.be/jpbFnsusfp0?si=pCRpMkU0wE4Nv3cv
Also I tend to hate autowah until itās a plugin or something else with a lot of control over the auto- control section. An auto-lowpass pedal is something Iād probably use on synths and lots of other things. But the second an autowah envelope gets too presumptuous and shrill on me, Iām out.Ā
Can you elaborate? I played a lot of rooms with a one spot that had inconsistent power and the Voodoo Labs power supply has been a game changer. Iām not even totally sure why tbh, but I donāt run into any of the power or lag issues I did playing live without it
Voodoo Lab is isolated so the pedals do not interact or interfere with each other. The One Spot is probably the best power supply for daisy chaining though. Not every setup needs isolated power though, especially when they are small. However, if you're building a space station with 15 pedals, all the lfo bleeps and bloops travel on the common ground line and create noise.
I generally hate sideways pedals, until my most recent board configuration. I had to put my ehx Pitchfork sideways for space and I realized I could see the knob and switch positions better that way.
Any pedal that inspires you is a good pedal. Doesnāt matter how much it costs or what itās doing for you. Want to pay $500 for a Mood because you like that one stretch function? Go for it. Enjoy. There will always be someone who looks at your board and thinks youāre an idiot or an asshole for setting it up or using it a certain way.
ā¦except for all you flanger users ew gross grow up yuck.
Drive pedals mostly sound the same if you know how to set them properly. With a compressor and good EQ on your amp, you can make any drive pedals sounds like a TS, a klon or a bluesbreaker.
As an experiment I've managed to make my Klon identical to my TS, and vice versa. Also can make Fender sound Marshally or Voxxy. Great form of learning how to EQ
I think it's more accurate to say "You can find settings on both that sound the same". This doesn't mean you can get all the same sounds from every pedal.
I don't really see the point in fuzzes that try to "blend fuzz and overdrive" as their main thing. To me fuzzes sound best when they get more unruly, with a more unpredictable character to the drive. Sure, I love a low-drive germanium fuzz into other gain sources, but for straight fuzz tone, I need something a bit more recognizable as a fuzz. Otherwise I'll use just a quality OD or distortion.
I think the idea of a wooly overdrive is appealing. Clarity and character all in one
In practice that's not really how it works, sadly. But the dream keeps people going.
And neither is the HM2, that's for a much more specific sound.
The Metal Muff *is* appropriate, however, but it's time we admit it's just a Metal Zone with a different EQ section.
Also the DOD Death Metal has always been a great pedal. I'm tired of pretending it wasn't.
I could name like half a dozen off the top of my head.
Rev pedal (red or purple), empress heavy, 5150, vox cutting edge (my personal favorite), amptweaker stuff, BEOD (deluxe only imo, the standard is garbage because it has no mids), metal zone waza.
JHS doesn't deserve the hate it gets. They own the fact they do clones. They also make some damned good ones. I understand the early hate, yet now they just make quality pedals. They might not be ground breaking, but they are definitely road worthy. I'll always keep the pulp-n-peel v3 , the moonshine, and the panther cub v2 on my board.
I have an OG panther I have been trying to replace for a bit now because itās big af on my board and I just canāt find anything better. Itās a solid pedal
They've been building a lot of limited run & "meme" pedals over the last couple of years.
I love them for it because they actually build quality products & actually deliver.
People both rail against it and eat it up - they've found their niche.
They can pry my Colour Box V2 from my cold dead hands. I'd buy another in a second - and I bet they inflated in cost more than I want to know over the pandemic.
I don't get this fetishization of playing live being the only way certain people can discuss pedals, and it being a gold standard. I don't give a fuck if you play to twelve board people in a shitty bar, and "your tone really cut through the mix". So what?
There are TubeScreamer pedals being released these days that arenāt Tubescreamers. Now apply this to every other type of drive, Klonās, Boosts etc. More knobs doesnāt mean it expands upon its base ability - it just turns it into an EQ pedal.
EQ pedals are severely underestimated by most guitar players, including those on this subreddit. The amount of change they can impart on your sound is far larger than the 15th boutique OD you just got.
Youāre better off with an HX Stomp (or similar) than a bunch of pedals. For the cost of 3-4 pedals, you get many more options in a smaller form factor and it will likely have 90% of the tones youāre looking for. While itās not as immediate as twisting knobs on a dedicated pedal, you can make tweaks relatively quickly - and the trade off is that you have dozens of tweaked settings instantly available.
I think it's silly to have $1500 in pedals and yet play through a dirt cheap starter amp.
(I completely understand the rebuttals to this; I like the Peavey Vypyr as much as the next guy, but it just tastes bad to me)
The BAT Pharaoh Supreme is the best fuzz pedals every made. Nothing will improve upon it. The rest should just give up. We should all just use Pharaohs going forward.
Knowledge plus a multi-effect is all you need. I run a gt-1 into my DAW and play it live straight to the desk or my portable PA.
Understanding EQ, boost, edge of breakup, how different environments affect tone, using your ears and sufficient monitoring are all way more important than the perfect pedalboard.
Also, once you understand and achieve good tone then STOP and PLAY, PRACTICE, WRITE, REHEARSE and PERFORM, i.e. stay off this forum except to help others.
There's a lot of snobbery in the community overall on both sides. And the amount of gear needed is dependent on the music you make. I can't gig with three pedals, I've tried. But I also don't need any more pedals. GAS isn't real. It's just poor mental restraint on cool sounding things.
I'm somewhere in the middle where yeah I like having pedals, but I also don't need walrus everything and a million kinds of noise makers. I like nice sounding things, and don't want to play with behringer shit either.
However, I think dad rockers that say you don't need any gear, or that you can gear with an overdrive and delay need to shut the fuck up. That is fitting for YOUR music. Like, why are you browsing a pedal board subreddit if you think it's unnecessary?
Musicians are so egotistical they think their way is the best way. Bitch, how come people with Axe Fx units (something I detest) are more successful in music than I am? It's cause it works for them. I may dislike it, but shit what do I know?
Having spent a few years building pedals, I'd actually say Boss pedals are some of the least-cloned or tweaked for boutique pedals. 60's fuzzes, Muffs, tubescreamers, bluesbreakers, and Rats are pretty common bases for people to build off of.
You might see something based on a DS-1 or Metalzone, but it seems like the exception to me.
An expensive pedal isnāt necessarily gonna sound much better than a cheap pedal. Playing in a band or into a mix, theyāre all gonna sound more or less the same. But thereās reasons why I covet pricey pedals (in general, not all) which are less common in cheaper pedals:
* **compatibility with other effects**. My Polychrome doesnāt sound twice as good as a boss BF-2. But the tone it produces is much easier to blend and use with other effects imo.
* **Inspiration to create interesting sounds**. A nice pedal, just like a nice guitar, inspires one to create play. A cheap pedal gets the job done, but a nice pedal makes me want to play more. I wouldnāt have explored new sounds and settings if not for one of the quirky effects on my pedal that is fun to dial in. Unfortunately, this logic can lead to GAS so need to really control oneself to see what you really want.
* **Good balance of traditional tones and quirks**. I dislike purchasing pedals that are one trick ponies for just that one effect in that one song. At the same time, pedals with only traditional tones (which are easier to use) can get boring. I like it when my pedal can do both.
I see the point being made, yet itās ironic that all this discontent is being vented on a guitar pedals subreddit. We are all here, unable to stop looking at pedals. š¤
Have you gigged with a Joyo power supply? Are they noisy? I borrowed a MXR Iso Brick and it was pretty noisy with 2 pedals on. I bought a Cioks DC10 and it is so much quieter!
EHX can eat a dick.
A ton of great pedals, a million options, but after all this time you're still using these god awful switches?
I love my Russian Muff reissue...but it's practically unusable. The switch cuts out, literally cuts my sound completely off until I press it a bunch of times to fix whatever is wrong with it, and adds static.
You're a huge company, stop it. On top of that, it's a manufacturer defect that's widely know, but they want to charge you to send it in to fix. Say what you will about Walrus, but they'll fix your shit for free and that's awesome.
Tubescreamers are bland, 1 trick pony, and terrible as a standalone overdrive into a clean amp. As a boost, they lack enough boost to really push an amp like I need. EQ pedals are far superior and typically cheaper.
2nd one: You really don't need a reverb pedal. What you actually need is a delay pedal. Applying a room or hall algorithm while playing in a room or hall is just plain stupid. And delays do the actual shimmer. Just because strymon chose to call shimmer a reverb it doesn't become reverb. It was just a genius marketing trick.
* If you play live anywhere other than at Church, you probably donāt need a Strymon āJet Plane Cockpitā Reverb.
* Fuzz pedals are āmehā.
* The plain old TS-9 is a great pedal.
Delay seems to get so much love but I've never really understood why; I have the Boss DD6 and it does its thing fine, but a lot of people seem to gush overdelay pedals - it's just not important at all for me
Jhs Pedals use the same format/approach as Berhinger, Joyo, Mosky, etc. Their quality is also on par with those brands. The only reason they're popular is because of their YouTube videos.
Amp and boost pedal fan?
I personally never have my drive pedals' gain set past like 11 o'clock at most because I like just a touch of hair on the amps.
All Big Muffs basically sound the same. Yeah yeah, different features or pot values or whatever. They all sound like Big Muffs. There's no special version.
I donāt like compressors, now I may well just be ignorant, and I have one in case I feel the need to use it, but I feel it just removes the skill of being able to play evenly to ensure consistency
I also get how some may prefer it for their play style but not for me
Tube screamers are garbage. Boxy, shitty, plastic sounding pedals.
Big muffs with added mids sound like dogshit. Adding mids beyond a certain point, be it via switching, a knob, or just tweaked set eq, makes it sound absolutely nothing like a Big Muff and it becomes truly unpleasant.
The BOSS DS-1 is one of the worst drives ever made, and itās reevaluation in recent years is almost solely due to soyfacing gearfluencers looking for good clickbait, rather than the pedal being worth even the parts used to build it.
EQD largely makes gimmicky pedals that do āle quirky weird pedal soundā, but do so in a way that is made digestible for normie dorks. Both the selling point āweird thingā and more traditional sounds tend to be fairly pedestrian and boring, in most of their stuff. This is true of most āweirdā pedal builders, where there is rarely a balance found between usable sounds and a novel idea, or the āweirdā thing is actually just kinda boring and canned/limiting. Same goes for ā(genre) in a boxā pedals, that shit blows. Cool, you have a button that makes Loveless happen, a record that was made by combining and tweaking separate effects in inventive and interesting ways. Good job, gazelawyer!
Soft click switches can eat my entire ass. Completely for bedroom players hitting it with a sock, rather than someone on stage who needs that tactile feedback to know they engaged or disengaged it fully.
DBA is great but man, the Fuzz War is not a good pedal.
JHS has made almost no pedals that are not a bland version of something better and, in many cases, cheaper. Their show has become a cringe circlejerk with a neurotic fixation on inconsequential minutiae that have nothing to do with sound, and the smarmy attitude towards the tangible negative impact their stupid limited releases and Joshās personal hoarding of hard to find shit have had on the market is obnoxious as hell. Josh, shut yo hoe ass up and make some pedals (that you didnāt copy).
Let the downvotes flow
EDIT (actually like the third one but oh well!): oh yeah, and if I see a band setting up with Chase Bliss pedals, itās my cue to buy another drink and go chainsmoke outside for the next 20-30 minutes.
I only have one problem with JHS, and itās not the same problem anybody else has with JHS. And that is, those initials were already notable in the guitar pedal world long before they came around, and used by people to refer to John Hornby Skewes. Youād think a pedal historian like Josh would know that and name his company something else.
John Hornby Who? I've played since the 80s and that's the first I've seen/heard that name. And I'm going to do the reddit thing here and, instead of googling it myself ask who it is and how they're notable in the pedal world.
I actually don't know what the hate is with JHS, maybe just blissfully oblivious.
Dude makes pedals and vids. And the vids aren't even shilling his own pedals.
I think it's bizarre that he cloned Devi's Hyperion, claimed he never heard of her before, and then when people traced out the circuits realized that the clone was so exact that Josh even left in design errors from the original that wouldn't be replicated by coincidence.
In the thread Josh just doubled down and kept insisting on lateral thinking. Like what? It's more than the circuits being similar. It's a 1:1 lift.
He never owned up to it. Also bizarre that a "historian" has such huge gaps in what popular pedals he suddenly doesn't know about. Especially as a forum junkie. He knew about Devi, and he knew about Haunting Mids. He was being a shitter.
At least he never tried to deny knowing what a Klon is. But he did try to make believe his clone page was hidden/private despite being on Google.
There was some controversy circling around Joshās opinions on some things that are based on his Christian background. I really like the guy and I feel like he did more than enough to explain himself and make amends, but it did leave a sour note in peoples ears so to speak
I agree to (as a target group of his phobia). He feels like heās made amends and what heās done since, if anything, points to the opposite. Itās one of the few guitar channels that lacks a dude/lad vibe and tired sexist/misogynistic humor. Plus he put out a good video about being a better person and donated quite a bit during the BLM protests. Maybe itās marketing but to me he comes off as a guy with the heart in the right place.
I'm convinced that much, if not the majority, of JHS hate is centered around wanting to find something wrong with his beliefs. Failing that, people try to glom onto anything else they can think of that might smear the guy's reputation.
And I'm an atheist, I truly could not give a fuck about the actual religion part; it's just painfully obvious. When you get down to brass tacks, it's all nothing-burgers.
Exactly, and they make entertaining videos and for such a niche interest, I thank JHS for it!
Also JHS if youāre reading this, I hope people arenāt sleeping on your Series 3 Fuzz. I have like 50 fuzz pedals and the simplistic Fuzz Face that you can rip with that bias knob is such a killer pedal and lives on my board, sandwiched between Hoof and a Fuzz Factory
Every single pedal if the form is good and has some sort of use, even if you think it sucks it probably doesnāt? Modern is better than vintage, companies need to start making new stuff instead of the same things Iāve been seeing for two years now and innovating just a little bit more.
Mine is you donāt need that new pedal, youāre most likely never going to use midi, and you can probably get the sounds your after with clever stacking or eq, especially if itās a 250$ new drive.
Boss, DOD/Digitech, EHX, and MXR/Dunlap is the only brands truly essential IMO. I could probably even just shorten that list to just Boss.
A one spot PSU is good enough for 98% of people on this sub including me. The next time someone has three Amazon pedals and asks what psu they need and everyone says isolated Iām gonna scream.
1) less pedals is far better in real life application. When boards are filled with more than about 6 pedals, I typically see people struggle to switch them on and off cleanly when playing a song. Some players canāt stop messing with knobs enough to play songs either.
2) You donāt have to spend a lot to have a great pedal board. After years of having super expensive pedals, Iāve settled on a board with 4-5 pedals which costs (new) about $800 with board and isolated power supply included. Money is best spent on a really nice amp and less so on expensive pedals imo
If your choice of guitar going into your choice of amp sounds shite, pedals are a masking agent.
If your choice of guitar going into your choice of amp sounds *great*, pedals are excellent enhancements.
The artists you love mostly use cheap shit because things break on tour and it is easy to replace that gear at any random town than a boutique offering that might be out of stock or need to be ordered and shipped. I own boutique pedals because I like them but not because I think I āneedā them. If I went on tour and was dead set on those specific ones, Iād want to get backups.
Pedals with "distortion" or nearly even "overdrive" in their name means you are doing something wrong if you also care about amps and is allowed to play loud. Pedals is for more different tastes than what's close to a pushed tube preamp stage of guit'. Obviously fuzzes and boost or then very distinct tastes like rats and klones gets to be entitled. I guess I attack transparent stuff most of all here, if you're not compromising to keep low loudness.
I also saw something about prices being irrelevant and clearly that isn't controversial over here. That's so funny with all the hot takes and controversial takes on Reddit, the top upvoted aren't really winning. To me I will make it controversial by saying that I agree but then also say that pedal budgets are sort of not great as well. There are pedals that hits the spot for you preferences that has to cost a lot. You can be someone that doesn't care that much but spending money on pedals that are cheap gear from the start is very legit if you care. I've got 2 out of 6 pedals like that now, and a 150usd/euro budget wouldn't do it for those.
And yes, you who own 44 and tap dance on 22 pedals are supposed to exist but there are too many of you, in the purpose of serving music. I love some of you because some of you legit need that thing but what I say is that too many just do it in diservice to the music. It's alright to have only fun though, I mean I'm sure there's not at all many legit music killing pedal tap-dancers. What I more say is that kids should maybe learn to maximize their potential without pedals though.
Making a pedal video and playing something that will never be played with that pedal makes the video instantly worthless. Example: doing a demo of a super velcro-y fuzz and playing ten minutes of blues licks. Like at least give us some chunky power chords and maybe a line over a sustained low string. I'm at the point where if the reviewer is playing blues licks I'll just find a new video, because the best I'm going to get out of it is maybe a minute of something classic rock sounding.
You're buying pedals to escape from the fact that you are not growing or developing as a musician anymore. Trade that one SS/BS pedal for Ableton and make some music, dingus. Gear will not take you to the next step - your lack of fulfillment isn't because you don't have 3rd Count to 5.
Pedal prices are almost meaningless. Opinions on what pedals are "good" changes as much as the weather. I remember when a used RAT and FZ-2 could be had for a 20 because many people thought they were "crap" compared to boutique pedals. Now people obsess over things as stupid as the year of damn DS1 pedals š The majority of the pedal industry is sadly snake oil.
It is but I love my boutique HM-2 and my rat with 8 clipping options!
My boutique DOD Super American Metal was cheaper than the real one!
Drunk Beaver Gang?
This is so true. I bought my FZ2 for like $60, sold it back to them to pay rent, and then bought it back for $75. I love it to death, but it breaks I'm probably going for the Behringer copy.
A lot of us are addicted to shopping and collecting. Manufacturers are all too happy to push you a marginally different overdrive every few months so you don't forget that brand exists.
Guitar pedal releases = Craft beer IPA releases Just give me a Coors Original (Boss DS-1) and let me fucking party.
>Guitar pedal releases = Craft beer IPA releases Agreed. Guitar pedal releases are awesome.
Whatās the equivalent to shots because I want to party without having to drink as much?
Zoom 505
Does this mean Amazon Basics pedals are the Keystone Light or Natty Ice of pedals?
My man
I'd trade all my pedals for a band I could play in that just plays dumb stupid power chord punkrock. All the guys I know in my age (35-40) are so sophisticated and are more interested in testing and showing off their gear than in actually playing some music.
You can find musicians in your mid 30s is whatās impressive. I canāt find anyone to collaborate with and Iāll literally play whatever.
I have that issue too. I finally found a drummer and il protect him like he is gold! I actually am in a band with no bassist for the same reason but I play a baritone that runs into a bass can and my usual guitar rig so lows are covered. Itās hard to find people, let alone people with talent that are on the same page as you are musically. Like a lottery
Bro, I even play drums and still struggle. Iād prefer guitar, but fuck it at this point. I donāt suck either. I played quads in drum line, played drum set in indoor drum line and won state, snd still practice to a metronome. Iāve even sat in jazz bands, but thatās not my forte. Iāll play bass, keys, drums, but Iād prefer guitar. At this point I just miss making music with other musicians. Everything Iāve been writing the past two years has been sequenced.
Iāve definitely learned to play drums to compensate for the lack of having one. I have this dude who is pretty rad. I really need another guitarist. Finding a vocalist thatās cool and sounds great I think is like finding a Sasquatch. Iāve heard of them but never actually seen one.
I joined a local facebook group called "Toronto Musicians Connect," where people just post what they're looking for. Usually someone names a few bands they like, and what instrument they play. Then a bunch of people comment and I guess they meet up and jam. I've met a lot of musicians and set up jams/gigs this way. Rock, jazz, metal, rnb ā¦ Itās a dope page. Maybe your area has something like that?
Just said exactly this to my girlfriend yesterday! Iām getting into your age and my board and chain turn more and more sophisticated, while Iām not really getting closer to actual music or performing Iāve even sold all of my pedals this winter. And accumulated same amount since (this time itās a more deliberate choice though, so at least this)
My board over the years has become a finely tuned, tidy piece of endless possibilitiesā¦ then i jammed with some new people and I found myself just using comp, one drive, reverb the whole time, no switching of anything
Man I just want to find friends and play explosions in the sky with them, so I feel this
Man, that would be fun. If we knew each other I'd go for that.
I feel this.
I was exactly at that spot a few years back. Started a band with a mate and it became more about the stuff than the music and enjoyment real quick. Walked away and told myself it has to be about the fun or there is no point.
It's a shame because we spend so much time not actually hanging out with anyone or making music. Myself and others I know are so worn out from having our blood squeezed out to earn a living that being in a band seems for young and/or privileged people. I'm not in a band right now because last time I joined a group they stopped playing just as we were sounding good and doing shows and it was just surfy punk stuff but sometimes simple isn't easy. Got sick of working in restaurants and playing in bands and went back to school.
>Mama let that boy play some rock and roll Jazz is much too crazy, he can play it when he's old He's too young for the blues He's still inside his first pair of shoes You're supposed to be in your Jazz period.
Man I miss being in a band so much. Got two young kids so I just canāt commit to gigging with any regularity, which is what most people aspire to. Need to find some people who are happy with just casual jams and such.
When your unpopular opinion is what everyone is secretly thinking.
Are we all just guys 30 and above buying toys to fill the void that the 9-5 grind turned our lives into? Shhh, don't respond. I think we all know the answer.
My Boss DS-2 likes Will Ferrell's episodes in The Office
Nearly every unpopular pedal opinion Iāve seen has been the prevailing popular opinion in almost every forum Iāve been a part of, and itās the same in the synth, guitar, and bass communities. āCheap gear is better than expensive gearā is the most common opinion of them all, and I think that it misses the point in the same way that āexpensive gear is better than cheap gearā does. It doesnāt feel like either group really pushes the boundaries of sound all that much, which is absolutely fine, but it kind of also takes the teeth out of their argument since at that point the things theyāre doing arenāt all that different from each other anyway. Bleep bloop music may suck to you, but it doesnāt to tons of people. The same is true of blues rock, shoegaze, death metal, country, pop, neo-soul, post-rock, and everything else you can think of. Every one of those genres has bedroom players (a fine type of player), weekend warriors (a fine type of player), and touring musicians (shaky but Iāll allow it). I donāt even know what my own point is anymore, but I donāt love seeing a competitive spirit in the arts when thereās no actual metrics for better or worse beyond what works for each individual.
Well spoken, but Iām not sure you actually made any sort of point here. There are perfectly valid āunpopular opinionsā in this thread, and I was pretty damn surprised to hear some new ones.
Redditās format inherently and actively discourages dissent, so actual hot takes are scarce.
Bass pedals are superior to guitar pedals and work better on guitars.
A lot of bass pedals have a mix knob that lets you decide how much clean vs effected tone comes through. That alone is such an awesome utility to have on drives in particular.
My man.
What are your best examples of this?
Would love to know this too
Boss Bb1x, ehx delux bass big muff, sansamp bass driver di.
Captain Lee doesn't know how to use pedals
That man could dial in a bad tone on an EQD Acapulco gold.
I like him for honesty, he will make 30 minutes video trying to sell amp emulation pedal and at the end will say tube amps still sound better and fuck it. :D
I love the captain but man youāre right lol
A 6 pedal limit will cover 90% of gigs. Tuner, wah, overdrive/distortion, eq pedal, modulation of some kind, delay. Iāve done a lot of gigs with 3 pedals on a mini board and itās been enough, often less pedals forces you into being a more creative player.
I love it. I gigged, toured, and recorded for years with just tuner>wah>noise gate>Boss DD-20. Distortion and reverb came from amp.
My rig is Big Muff, Mojomojo Overdrive, and a Behringer Vintage Delay. I'll swap out the Delay for a chorus if we are doing 80s covers. No-one ever notices....
Nobody in the audience will notice or care about your pedal. A simple performance gimmick like jumping up while playing, everyone will notice. At one gig we launched rubber ducks with personal messages or prizes on into the crowd; people were still talking to us about it years later.
I always find it funny when I see people list a wah as their essential. To me itās almost as essential as a ring mod
I mean feel free to switch it out for something youād use more. I always have at least one song in a set that benefits from it.
Ive done wedding gigs with just a zoom multistomp.
More pedals = more fun at home tho!! š A *strong but reasonable* collection of pedals is great for playing with others. Iāve had bandmates come up with ideas after hearing sounds that I was making with guitar pedals that people call āimpossible to use in a band contextā. Iāve also experienced the opposite lol so gotta get lucky with your bandmateās ability, willingness and open-mindedness to hear songs where others may not. I shit you not, I brought my Microcosm to practice to just have it and run through some cool settings real quick to show the people, and the bass player picked up on a rhythmic part on one of THE most esoteric settings on the pedal and wrote a whole verse and chorus based off of it. Pedals donāt always have to be front and center to inspire and help with ideas!
I use a fuzz face, a tuner, a rat, a pharaoh, a boost, into a reverb and delay. I also have a chorus/vibrato but I never use it. I've never needed anything else and if I had a combo reverb/delay I'd probably be better off.
unpopular opinion: popular opinions are not necessarily correct. in general, they are built off of communal experience. but music is art. using 6 gain stages, gigging a boutique wet pad reverb/delay/bitcrusher pedal, running modulation into drive or running a cab sim into an old tube amp are all personal choice because art is experimentation and subjective. āif you arenāt painting the ceiling of the sistine chapel, you arenāt making art dudeā is what popular opinion sounds like to me.
I like this. Do whatever you want! Who made all these rules?? Some of my coolest sounds came from just experimenting and not following the order of things! You get it!
People sometimes forget it's art. Your 200$ guitar and 200$ amp gives you the sound you want? All the power to you!
Couldnāt agree more.
Chase Bliss pedals aren't meant to play music in a live environment. They are noise making tools for studio & bedroom players. And that's OK - but those pedals don't make sense for playing in a band.
It seems like when people say āin a bandā when commenting on the usefulness of a pedal, they almost always mean āin a loud rock band that mostly plays distorted power chords.ā There are other kinds of bands.
Its also not just guitar players using them.
Yes! I find many negative opinions on weirder pedals always seem to boil down to "I can't use this in my AC/DC cover band so they are only for bedroom musicians". I use CBA pedals (on my bass) live in my weirdo noise band and they work wonderfully. Different tools for different jobs.
I'll piggy back on this one: these last few bleep bloop pedals they've made are pretty much all the same pedal. Mood, Blooper, Habit, Onward (I'm probably missing one) all just do weird, unpredictable looping type stuff. There's obviously some great minds at the company, I just wish they would put that creative energy towards something else.
I legit just watched the onward pedal demo and felt like they already made that pedal 3x already. Extremely cool peda though.
They're perfect for making background music for YouTube pedal review videos... wait a minute...
I won't argue that stuff like Mood, Habit, etc. are easy to incorporate universally, but you could use a Dark World or Generation Loss in just about any genre of music, including in live settings, just fine. But even the ones where you're tempted to sit there and fiddle with like they're instruments all their own can be used effectively live with proper midi control.
Iād look closer. I have a Tonal Recall, a Gravitas and Dark World, all of which are indispensable live tools. Thermae, Brothers, and Condor are also totally viable.
If only you knew how wrong you are, respectfully. They are getting more and more use live and itās amazing. They are quite common out there nowadays.
I use them in live settings every single week. Iām playing an alt-rock gig tomorrow night where the Mood, Thermae, and Bliss Factory will be heavily featured in my bass rig. Is use the Habit, Gen Loss mkii, and Dark World in my metal and country stuff all of the time. I think that pretty much anything can be used for anything if you are intentional about the sounds. Chase Bliss and even weirder pedals are more useful than people are comfortable giving them credit for. I donāt know if the pushback from traditional players stems from fear of change, option paralysis, lack of curiosity, or a combination of the three, but itās a bummer to me that people arenāt seeing the full potential of āunusableā pedals. Itās the reason that all of the most interesting Boss pedals stopped being made and are now super expensive. We didnāt know what we had with the Slow Gear until it was gone. I fear that weāre gonna do the same thing with Chase Bliss, Gamechanger, Pladask, Hologram, and any other builder that tries to put something different out there.
āIt is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all ways and be more and more in accord with his own.ā Some people just lack imagination. People donāt need to like everything but itās easy enough to ignore things youāre not interested in. The existence of anyone elseās music does not invalidate my own.
If you're clever enough anything can be used in a song. That's kind of the essence of creativity itself. Not your fault you can find a way to use it and they can't.
Always love seeing your stuff on the CBA page :)
I just a band live with a Mood. Granted, they used it to make glitchy noise.
Sort of true but midi presets make your carefully crafted bleep-bloop settings available for live music. Just probably not going to be a standard-issue rock band using it.
The old school Dallas Rangemaster and Colorsound Overdriver circuits are the best overdrive circuits ever made. The modern tweaked versions are amazing too.
Yep, right here with ya on this. I really like the RM, but the Overdriver is my absolute favourite
Same the Overdriver has my favorite. Both are super dynamic and just play so well with an amp. There is very few over drive I canāt put in the same conversation as those two
Itās crazy to me how dirt sounds ā to my taste ā never really got better. Unless I were playing metal, iād take dirt pedals and amps designed in the 60s any day.
Even metal sounds better through vintage amps (at least the metal Iām playing, for chugs youāll probably want a new high gain).
My Rangemaster clone and overdriver clone, along with a tone bender clone (along with guitarās volume knob)are all the dirt I need. The Rangemaster is the most unappreciated pedal ever. Every time I see a SOtB pic I look for one, I canāt remember the last time I saw one.
My Black Arts ToneWorks "Black Forest" is pretty cool
Pedals respond so differently to different guitars, amps, boards, players, and recording gear. This makes video demos almost pointless, especially shootouts.
Most video demos are pointless for me anyway because I'm primarily a rhythm player and they're mostly a bunch of dudes wanking away. Most, not all. Shoutout to Noise Generator.
Good pedal demos show you the features and give you a good idea of what you're buying. Andy Reverb and Pete Thorn tend to do a great job, showing various sounds on various guitars and explaining the settings to get there.
Hate Wahs
Damn... This one is controversial
Admittedly I do like the use of Wah on āperfect from now onā by built to spillš one of my favorite recordings
I used to hate wah. Then I realized what I really hate is people that overuse wah.
My whole opinion of wah changed when I got a switchless one. Prince's "1999" has one guitar track in the verses with 4 beats of wah at the end of every second line. So that's either a second guitarist entirely, or stomping that toe button in and out, or a switchless piece of cake. I went from using a wah twice in a show to using it whenever I felt inspired.
Listen that song a million times and never heard that until you pointed it out! Subtle but rad. I love that we musicians buy gear for such nuanced things.
Iād like them more if people/companies were open to some more distinct synthy filter types. Instead of a basic bandpass, wouldnāt some guitarists appreciate just a Moog-style resonant lowpass filter inside a wah/expression housing? Perhaps with a resonance control knob on the side, or even a second expression pedal. The closest I know of is the original Moogerfooger MF-101 controlled with an external CV expression pedal. Then thereās the possibility of using dual peak resonance that can start to create more convincing vocal sounds besides wah/wow like:Ā https://youtu.be/jpbFnsusfp0?si=pCRpMkU0wE4Nv3cv Also I tend to hate autowah until itās a plugin or something else with a lot of control over the auto- control section. An auto-lowpass pedal is something Iād probably use on synths and lots of other things. But the second an autowah envelope gets too presumptuous and shrill on me, Iām out.Ā
Kirk Hammett is on the way to your house with a baseball bat
Let him come. Iām ready for his sorry ass! Heās my prime enemy. Time to settle this once and for all
Me too!
Your board will probably work just fine off of a One Spot
Or a Caline for that matter.
Can you elaborate? I played a lot of rooms with a one spot that had inconsistent power and the Voodoo Labs power supply has been a game changer. Iām not even totally sure why tbh, but I donāt run into any of the power or lag issues I did playing live without it
Voodoo Lab is isolated so the pedals do not interact or interfere with each other. The One Spot is probably the best power supply for daisy chaining though. Not every setup needs isolated power though, especially when they are small. However, if you're building a space station with 15 pedals, all the lfo bleeps and bloops travel on the common ground line and create noise.
My pedals donāt have their own opinions
Boards are lame, itās Cooler to make a big circle on stage and stand in the center.
Circles are just cooler than rectangles quite frankly. I'm of the mind that I should make a circle of fuzzfaces
People who buy a lot of boutique pedals are less annoying than people who cry about boutique pedals being overrated in every thread
Boutique pedals are overrated. They sound the same when plugged into my Line 6 Spider
Most overdrive pedals sound the same or can be dialled in to sound near indistinguishable.
But these "common point" settings may not be what you want from pedal though.
The terrible pedals from the 90s and 2000s are still terrible.
Found out yesterday this is apparently super unpopular, but sideways pedals donāt look good on a pedalboard. :)
I generally hate sideways pedals, until my most recent board configuration. I had to put my ehx Pitchfork sideways for space and I realized I could see the knob and switch positions better that way.
Any pedal that inspires you is a good pedal. Doesnāt matter how much it costs or what itās doing for you. Want to pay $500 for a Mood because you like that one stretch function? Go for it. Enjoy. There will always be someone who looks at your board and thinks youāre an idiot or an asshole for setting it up or using it a certain way. ā¦except for all you flanger users ew gross grow up yuck.
Drive pedals mostly sound the same if you know how to set them properly. With a compressor and good EQ on your amp, you can make any drive pedals sounds like a TS, a klon or a bluesbreaker.
As an experiment I've managed to make my Klon identical to my TS, and vice versa. Also can make Fender sound Marshally or Voxxy. Great form of learning how to EQ
I think it's more accurate to say "You can find settings on both that sound the same". This doesn't mean you can get all the same sounds from every pedal.
Fuzz is better than distortion
No one wants to listen to our ambient swells.
Hey Gertude from church said it was really interesting.
I don't really see the point in fuzzes that try to "blend fuzz and overdrive" as their main thing. To me fuzzes sound best when they get more unruly, with a more unpredictable character to the drive. Sure, I love a low-drive germanium fuzz into other gain sources, but for straight fuzz tone, I need something a bit more recognizable as a fuzz. Otherwise I'll use just a quality OD or distortion.
I think the idea of a wooly overdrive is appealing. Clarity and character all in one In practice that's not really how it works, sadly. But the dream keeps people going.
The Boss Metal Zone is a badass motherfucker.
RATs are not an appropriate recommendation for people looking to play modern metal.
And neither is the HM2, that's for a much more specific sound. The Metal Muff *is* appropriate, however, but it's time we admit it's just a Metal Zone with a different EQ section. Also the DOD Death Metal has always been a great pedal. I'm tired of pretending it wasn't.
What is?
I could name like half a dozen off the top of my head. Rev pedal (red or purple), empress heavy, 5150, vox cutting edge (my personal favorite), amptweaker stuff, BEOD (deluxe only imo, the standard is garbage because it has no mids), metal zone waza.
Add Wampler Dracarys, itās a great pedal.
JHS doesn't deserve the hate it gets. They own the fact they do clones. They also make some damned good ones. I understand the early hate, yet now they just make quality pedals. They might not be ground breaking, but they are definitely road worthy. I'll always keep the pulp-n-peel v3 , the moonshine, and the panther cub v2 on my board.
I have an OG panther I have been trying to replace for a bit now because itās big af on my board and I just canāt find anything better. Itās a solid pedal
They've been building a lot of limited run & "meme" pedals over the last couple of years. I love them for it because they actually build quality products & actually deliver. People both rail against it and eat it up - they've found their niche.
They can pry my Colour Box V2 from my cold dead hands. I'd buy another in a second - and I bet they inflated in cost more than I want to know over the pandemic.
I don't get this fetishization of playing live being the only way certain people can discuss pedals, and it being a gold standard. I don't give a fuck if you play to twelve board people in a shitty bar, and "your tone really cut through the mix". So what?
The HM-2 should be better known because of the cool sounds it can achieve, not the shitty ass chainsaw sound. It gives it a bad name.
There are TubeScreamer pedals being released these days that arenāt Tubescreamers. Now apply this to every other type of drive, Klonās, Boosts etc. More knobs doesnāt mean it expands upon its base ability - it just turns it into an EQ pedal.
EQ pedals are severely underestimated by most guitar players, including those on this subreddit. The amount of change they can impart on your sound is far larger than the 15th boutique OD you just got.
Youāre better off with an HX Stomp (or similar) than a bunch of pedals. For the cost of 3-4 pedals, you get many more options in a smaller form factor and it will likely have 90% of the tones youāre looking for. While itās not as immediate as twisting knobs on a dedicated pedal, you can make tweaks relatively quickly - and the trade off is that you have dozens of tweaked settings instantly available.
Putting together a board for touring is about reliability before sound.
Most players have way too many pedals.
synth pedals are dumb, just get a synth... there are plenty that can be had for the cost of a silly synth pedal that tracks like sh*t anywayĀ
I think it's silly to have $1500 in pedals and yet play through a dirt cheap starter amp. (I completely understand the rebuttals to this; I like the Peavey Vypyr as much as the next guy, but it just tastes bad to me)
The BAT Pharaoh Supreme is the best fuzz pedals every made. Nothing will improve upon it. The rest should just give up. We should all just use Pharaohs going forward.
Knowledge plus a multi-effect is all you need. I run a gt-1 into my DAW and play it live straight to the desk or my portable PA. Understanding EQ, boost, edge of breakup, how different environments affect tone, using your ears and sufficient monitoring are all way more important than the perfect pedalboard. Also, once you understand and achieve good tone then STOP and PLAY, PRACTICE, WRITE, REHEARSE and PERFORM, i.e. stay off this forum except to help others.
There's a lot of snobbery in the community overall on both sides. And the amount of gear needed is dependent on the music you make. I can't gig with three pedals, I've tried. But I also don't need any more pedals. GAS isn't real. It's just poor mental restraint on cool sounding things. I'm somewhere in the middle where yeah I like having pedals, but I also don't need walrus everything and a million kinds of noise makers. I like nice sounding things, and don't want to play with behringer shit either. However, I think dad rockers that say you don't need any gear, or that you can gear with an overdrive and delay need to shut the fuck up. That is fitting for YOUR music. Like, why are you browsing a pedal board subreddit if you think it's unnecessary? Musicians are so egotistical they think their way is the best way. Bitch, how come people with Axe Fx units (something I detest) are more successful in music than I am? It's cause it works for them. I may dislike it, but shit what do I know?
You only need boss pedals, thereās a good chance your fancy boutique pedal is a clone of a boss pedal
Having spent a few years building pedals, I'd actually say Boss pedals are some of the least-cloned or tweaked for boutique pedals. 60's fuzzes, Muffs, tubescreamers, bluesbreakers, and Rats are pretty common bases for people to build off of. You might see something based on a DS-1 or Metalzone, but it seems like the exception to me.
I'd trade all my pedals for a marshal stack and I'd od be just as happy.
Your board will probably work just fine off of a One Spot
An expensive pedal isnāt necessarily gonna sound much better than a cheap pedal. Playing in a band or into a mix, theyāre all gonna sound more or less the same. But thereās reasons why I covet pricey pedals (in general, not all) which are less common in cheaper pedals: * **compatibility with other effects**. My Polychrome doesnāt sound twice as good as a boss BF-2. But the tone it produces is much easier to blend and use with other effects imo. * **Inspiration to create interesting sounds**. A nice pedal, just like a nice guitar, inspires one to create play. A cheap pedal gets the job done, but a nice pedal makes me want to play more. I wouldnāt have explored new sounds and settings if not for one of the quirky effects on my pedal that is fun to dial in. Unfortunately, this logic can lead to GAS so need to really control oneself to see what you really want. * **Good balance of traditional tones and quirks**. I dislike purchasing pedals that are one trick ponies for just that one effect in that one song. At the same time, pedals with only traditional tones (which are easier to use) can get boring. I like it when my pedal can do both.
I see the point being made, yet itās ironic that all this discontent is being vented on a guitar pedals subreddit. We are all here, unable to stop looking at pedals. š¤
Whammy tones are awful
Omg agreed. Every pitch shifter that does that shitty ādigital chipmunkā sound enrages me.
Have you gigged with a Joyo power supply? Are they noisy? I borrowed a MXR Iso Brick and it was pretty noisy with 2 pedals on. I bought a Cioks DC10 and it is so much quieter!
The RAT is good for some things, but it doesnāt need to be on every single pedalboard
I don't like when pedals have a bunch of different modes or features I never use. I prefer set it and forget it
EHX can eat a dick. A ton of great pedals, a million options, but after all this time you're still using these god awful switches? I love my Russian Muff reissue...but it's practically unusable. The switch cuts out, literally cuts my sound completely off until I press it a bunch of times to fix whatever is wrong with it, and adds static. You're a huge company, stop it. On top of that, it's a manufacturer defect that's widely know, but they want to charge you to send it in to fix. Say what you will about Walrus, but they'll fix your shit for free and that's awesome.
Tubescreamers are bland, 1 trick pony, and terrible as a standalone overdrive into a clean amp. As a boost, they lack enough boost to really push an amp like I need. EQ pedals are far superior and typically cheaper.
Digital pedals, multieffects and VST plugins sound amazing these days and are in no way inferior to analog gear.
2nd one: You really don't need a reverb pedal. What you actually need is a delay pedal. Applying a room or hall algorithm while playing in a room or hall is just plain stupid. And delays do the actual shimmer. Just because strymon chose to call shimmer a reverb it doesn't become reverb. It was just a genius marketing trick.
Pedals are way too overpriced
* If you play live anywhere other than at Church, you probably donāt need a Strymon āJet Plane Cockpitā Reverb. * Fuzz pedals are āmehā. * The plain old TS-9 is a great pedal.
Behringer SF300, although very well loved around here. I hate it.
Delay seems to get so much love but I've never really understood why; I have the Boss DD6 and it does its thing fine, but a lot of people seem to gush overdelay pedals - it's just not important at all for me
Iād rather have delay than a reverb pedal if the amp doesnāt have reverb of its own.
Jhs Pedals use the same format/approach as Berhinger, Joyo, Mosky, etc. Their quality is also on par with those brands. The only reason they're popular is because of their YouTube videos.
Drive pedals are overrated.
Boosts/amp breakup are overrated. I want my tone to come from the pedal, not from pushing the amp. Signed, Roland JC user
I wish mentioning the type of genre you play is required when saying this like that.
Amp and boost pedal fan? I personally never have my drive pedals' gain set past like 11 o'clock at most because I like just a touch of hair on the amps.
The popular consensus is that pedals made in Malaysia are the best. Pedals made in any other part of Asia are trash.
Malaysia mentioned š²š¾
All Big Muffs basically sound the same. Yeah yeah, different features or pot values or whatever. They all sound like Big Muffs. There's no special version.
I agree about every version except the opamp muff. The opamp muff sounds different (and better) than all the others
I donāt like compressors, now I may well just be ignorant, and I have one in case I feel the need to use it, but I feel it just removes the skill of being able to play evenly to ensure consistency I also get how some may prefer it for their play style but not for me
Tube screamers are garbage. Boxy, shitty, plastic sounding pedals. Big muffs with added mids sound like dogshit. Adding mids beyond a certain point, be it via switching, a knob, or just tweaked set eq, makes it sound absolutely nothing like a Big Muff and it becomes truly unpleasant. The BOSS DS-1 is one of the worst drives ever made, and itās reevaluation in recent years is almost solely due to soyfacing gearfluencers looking for good clickbait, rather than the pedal being worth even the parts used to build it. EQD largely makes gimmicky pedals that do āle quirky weird pedal soundā, but do so in a way that is made digestible for normie dorks. Both the selling point āweird thingā and more traditional sounds tend to be fairly pedestrian and boring, in most of their stuff. This is true of most āweirdā pedal builders, where there is rarely a balance found between usable sounds and a novel idea, or the āweirdā thing is actually just kinda boring and canned/limiting. Same goes for ā(genre) in a boxā pedals, that shit blows. Cool, you have a button that makes Loveless happen, a record that was made by combining and tweaking separate effects in inventive and interesting ways. Good job, gazelawyer! Soft click switches can eat my entire ass. Completely for bedroom players hitting it with a sock, rather than someone on stage who needs that tactile feedback to know they engaged or disengaged it fully. DBA is great but man, the Fuzz War is not a good pedal. JHS has made almost no pedals that are not a bland version of something better and, in many cases, cheaper. Their show has become a cringe circlejerk with a neurotic fixation on inconsequential minutiae that have nothing to do with sound, and the smarmy attitude towards the tangible negative impact their stupid limited releases and Joshās personal hoarding of hard to find shit have had on the market is obnoxious as hell. Josh, shut yo hoe ass up and make some pedals (that you didnāt copy). Let the downvotes flow EDIT (actually like the third one but oh well!): oh yeah, and if I see a band setting up with Chase Bliss pedals, itās my cue to buy another drink and go chainsmoke outside for the next 20-30 minutes.
Those who donāt understand CBA pedals are simpletons afraid of exploration and learning the pedal as its own instrument.
I'm not afraid, just a simpleton who can't be bothered. Love CBA and Joel seems awesome though.
I've never even heard of the abbreviation so simpleton it is
Chase Bliss Audio
Fuzz is overrated.
I only have one problem with JHS, and itās not the same problem anybody else has with JHS. And that is, those initials were already notable in the guitar pedal world long before they came around, and used by people to refer to John Hornby Skewes. Youād think a pedal historian like Josh would know that and name his company something else.
John Hornby Who? I've played since the 80s and that's the first I've seen/heard that name. And I'm going to do the reddit thing here and, instead of googling it myself ask who it is and how they're notable in the pedal world.
Most notable to pedal geeks today for making the Zonk Machine. Google the rest!
I actually don't know what the hate is with JHS, maybe just blissfully oblivious. Dude makes pedals and vids. And the vids aren't even shilling his own pedals.
I think it's bizarre that he cloned Devi's Hyperion, claimed he never heard of her before, and then when people traced out the circuits realized that the clone was so exact that Josh even left in design errors from the original that wouldn't be replicated by coincidence. In the thread Josh just doubled down and kept insisting on lateral thinking. Like what? It's more than the circuits being similar. It's a 1:1 lift. He never owned up to it. Also bizarre that a "historian" has such huge gaps in what popular pedals he suddenly doesn't know about. Especially as a forum junkie. He knew about Devi, and he knew about Haunting Mids. He was being a shitter. At least he never tried to deny knowing what a Klon is. But he did try to make believe his clone page was hidden/private despite being on Google.
There was some controversy circling around Joshās opinions on some things that are based on his Christian background. I really like the guy and I feel like he did more than enough to explain himself and make amends, but it did leave a sour note in peoples ears so to speak
I agree to (as a target group of his phobia). He feels like heās made amends and what heās done since, if anything, points to the opposite. Itās one of the few guitar channels that lacks a dude/lad vibe and tired sexist/misogynistic humor. Plus he put out a good video about being a better person and donated quite a bit during the BLM protests. Maybe itās marketing but to me he comes off as a guy with the heart in the right place.
I'm convinced that much, if not the majority, of JHS hate is centered around wanting to find something wrong with his beliefs. Failing that, people try to glom onto anything else they can think of that might smear the guy's reputation. And I'm an atheist, I truly could not give a fuck about the actual religion part; it's just painfully obvious. When you get down to brass tacks, it's all nothing-burgers.
Exactly, and they make entertaining videos and for such a niche interest, I thank JHS for it! Also JHS if youāre reading this, I hope people arenāt sleeping on your Series 3 Fuzz. I have like 50 fuzz pedals and the simplistic Fuzz Face that you can rip with that bias knob is such a killer pedal and lives on my board, sandwiched between Hoof and a Fuzz Factory
Every single pedal if the form is good and has some sort of use, even if you think it sucks it probably doesnāt? Modern is better than vintage, companies need to start making new stuff instead of the same things Iāve been seeing for two years now and innovating just a little bit more.
Mine is you donāt need that new pedal, youāre most likely never going to use midi, and you can probably get the sounds your after with clever stacking or eq, especially if itās a 250$ new drive. Boss, DOD/Digitech, EHX, and MXR/Dunlap is the only brands truly essential IMO. I could probably even just shorten that list to just Boss.
A one spot PSU is good enough for 98% of people on this sub including me. The next time someone has three Amazon pedals and asks what psu they need and everyone says isolated Iām gonna scream.
You donāt need another dirt pedal, learn how to work your knobs
1) less pedals is far better in real life application. When boards are filled with more than about 6 pedals, I typically see people struggle to switch them on and off cleanly when playing a song. Some players canāt stop messing with knobs enough to play songs either. 2) You donāt have to spend a lot to have a great pedal board. After years of having super expensive pedals, Iāve settled on a board with 4-5 pedals which costs (new) about $800 with board and isolated power supply included. Money is best spent on a really nice amp and less so on expensive pedals imo
If your choice of guitar going into your choice of amp sounds shite, pedals are a masking agent. If your choice of guitar going into your choice of amp sounds *great*, pedals are excellent enhancements.
Hands up if you use a pedal you don't really like but is kind of OK but cant be bothered to sell it for something better..
The artists you love mostly use cheap shit because things break on tour and it is easy to replace that gear at any random town than a boutique offering that might be out of stock or need to be ordered and shipped. I own boutique pedals because I like them but not because I think I āneedā them. If I went on tour and was dead set on those specific ones, Iād want to get backups.
Pedals with "distortion" or nearly even "overdrive" in their name means you are doing something wrong if you also care about amps and is allowed to play loud. Pedals is for more different tastes than what's close to a pushed tube preamp stage of guit'. Obviously fuzzes and boost or then very distinct tastes like rats and klones gets to be entitled. I guess I attack transparent stuff most of all here, if you're not compromising to keep low loudness. I also saw something about prices being irrelevant and clearly that isn't controversial over here. That's so funny with all the hot takes and controversial takes on Reddit, the top upvoted aren't really winning. To me I will make it controversial by saying that I agree but then also say that pedal budgets are sort of not great as well. There are pedals that hits the spot for you preferences that has to cost a lot. You can be someone that doesn't care that much but spending money on pedals that are cheap gear from the start is very legit if you care. I've got 2 out of 6 pedals like that now, and a 150usd/euro budget wouldn't do it for those. And yes, you who own 44 and tap dance on 22 pedals are supposed to exist but there are too many of you, in the purpose of serving music. I love some of you because some of you legit need that thing but what I say is that too many just do it in diservice to the music. It's alright to have only fun though, I mean I'm sure there's not at all many legit music killing pedal tap-dancers. What I more say is that kids should maybe learn to maximize their potential without pedals though.
I would disagree about behringer being flimsy, but i have other pedals coming apart aswell so likely the problem is me...
My acoustic guitar my neighbor gave me 23 years ago sounds better than any other guitar or effect Iāve played. You donāt need much
Making a pedal video and playing something that will never be played with that pedal makes the video instantly worthless. Example: doing a demo of a super velcro-y fuzz and playing ten minutes of blues licks. Like at least give us some chunky power chords and maybe a line over a sustained low string. I'm at the point where if the reviewer is playing blues licks I'll just find a new video, because the best I'm going to get out of it is maybe a minute of something classic rock sounding.
No pedal sounds as good as a nice tube amp pre.
You're buying pedals to escape from the fact that you are not growing or developing as a musician anymore. Trade that one SS/BS pedal for Ableton and make some music, dingus. Gear will not take you to the next step - your lack of fulfillment isn't because you don't have 3rd Count to 5.
Higher gain should came from the amp not the pedal (except fuzz)