http://proguitarshop.com/andyscorner/worst-effects-from-the-80s-90s
Agree, disagree or want to add to the list?
I owned the Xtortion(still do actually). It was great as afr as I am concerned. Made my tone for the latter '90's, and into the 2000's till I did some major amp upgrading. This was the precursor to the Megadistortion, and I think sounded better. I also bought the Black Licorice at one point, cheap, just for fun, and it was ok, not great. However, the Xtortion, in my opinion, was better sounding than the Metal Zone.
I was in a band with a dude who had something called a death metal pedal. To me it sounded unbelievably shitty, and he loved it. I cringed every time he stomped on it.
^That's always the shitty thing about being in a band with another guitar player. I try to avoid that.
In some cases, yeah. I had played the Death Metal pedal, and the Grunge pedal. Of the two, the Grunge sounded better. However, either was to my personal liking. Xtortion had a great tone shaping section, and had more of a higher gain DS-1 type sound.
I own a bunch of those. there was a time when i would buy ANY pedal if it was $15 or less. just to have a bunch of different sounds in the studio.
I both agree and disagree with the article I guess.
Boss has made some clunkers for sure. that weird chorus with the buttons? the slow Gear? but they are legendary and therefor collectible. Xtortion even .
some of those ibanez soundtank pedals are really good. tubescreamer is fine, delays, phaser, tremelo, all good. the foot switches blow on em.
worst effects to me are the metal, thrashmetal grunge, anything with the genre name on the pedal is gonna blow.
blues driver is okay i guess. :-[
We just used a Boss Metallizer on a track. Normally I would hate that pedal, but it fit the song so well. I think quicksand used it to record Slip.
The DOD SupraDistortion legitimately sucks. Only sounds good if you roll everything way back (and who's actually gonna do that?)
I was curious about the Death Metal Pedal many many years back but never bought one.
These look like something from a super low budget '80s sci-fi movie
(http://proguitarshop.com/media/cms/blog/Ibanez_Metal_2.png)
Whoa, that pic is huge. Sorry.
I don't think there is any really bad pedals. They are all good for a certain sound that in the right context can be just right. Now some pedals are built like shit though. Sountanks and those old rocktecks are for sure built like shit!
Death Metal pedals are kinda cool, but my experience is that they can only do one sound (the distortion is always up full, you only get EQ and Vol knobs). I think they could be useful for recording (as one layer of multi-tracked guitar, or for a guitar solo, or put your backup vocals through it, or on your cheap keyboard etc etc).
I've never played one, but Gonkulators sound pretty terrible. For some reason they actually go for a good bit of change now too
I bought a dod octave shifter which only works on the neck pick up and warbles in and out of effect??!! FUCK THAT! At least most pedals have shit tone or break. This one just flat didn't "effect". 80's.
Quote from: bbottom on July 27, 2013, 09:54:03 PM
I've never played one, but Gonkulators sound pretty terrible. For some reason they actually go for a good bit of change now too
I got one new in like 1996, still have it. It's a borderline unusable pedal from a heavy music standpoint. But it's interesting for noise, and comes in handy for NES/C64 type stuff, if that's your thing. Despite the dumb eBay prices, I just can't seem to get rid of it.
some of the really bad pedals are collectible and demand pretty good prices on ebay. The gonkulator, Xtortion... and the buzzbox.
the buzzbox truly sounds like somethings broken, its just pure noise. people like thurston moore were using em at one point.
I own one was playing it and it actually blew the transformer in my 72 champ somehow.
Any chorus pedal.
I would have to say that some of the worst effects of the '80s and '90s were mullets and singers that slurred every line into an "AAAAaaaaaa," respectively.
Quote from: RacerX on July 29, 2013, 11:42:47 AM
Any chorus pedal.
Any chorus pedal in 80s heavy metal is probably bad. But chorus is good when Andy Summers uses it. It's good in post punk stuff like Echo & the Bunnymen.
Some people turn the rate all the way down and leave it on all the time, because it adds subtle movement/depth, without being noticeable. (dudes who like "tone")
So while I usually hate chorus, it can be good sometimes.
when effects were first becoming popular amongst us guitar playing kids, we all thought we needed a chorus "OMG it makes your guitar sound like a 12 string! I can play the Rain Song!!"
Ive done the low rate chorus trick playing black metal before.
Buzzbox killed my beta Lead one time.
Those cheap Fender pedals are garbage. I have the Chorus, sounds uneffected all the time.
I wouldnt turn one of these down
(http://www.abalonevintage.com/Guitarist_brian_may_queen_boss_CE1_chorus_effect.jpg)
Me either, funky..
Quote from: Chovie D on July 29, 2013, 12:44:26 PM
I wouldnt turn one of these down
(http://www.abalonevintage.com/Guitarist_brian_may_queen_boss_CE1_chorus_effect.jpg)
My room mate in college had one it was pretty bad ass
There was a time when the 1958-1960 Les Paul's were not popular. All it took was for a guy like Eric Clapton to develop a new sound with one before they became the most sought after items in the history of rock musicians.
I'm going to do that with Rocktron effects. Yep.
Quote from: dogfood on July 30, 2013, 12:42:28 AM
Quote from: RacerX on July 29, 2013, 11:42:47 AM
Any chorus pedal.
this.
I can't stand my early 80's CE-3 but for some reason I still have it. And I bought it way back then.
Quote from: Lumpy on July 29, 2013, 12:18:58 PM
Some people turn the rate all the way down and leave it on all the time, because it adds subtle movement/depth, without being noticeable. (dudes who like "tone")
Stereo chorus plus 2 amps plus this = holy shit tone.
if anyone's looking to get rid of a shitty old chorus pedal (cheap), lemme know. want one for vocals. they do crazy shit with throatsinging. found that out when we used to run vocals through my old peavey bass combo.
I still feel this DOD is an honorable mention, good enough for Kim Thayil.
(http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x267/mikkejohansson/DODFX10C-1.jpg?1282469830)
Been playing with a DOD FX57 Hard Rock Distortion that Jake gave me.it doesn't sound great, but it is fun.
total shitpile.
"Let's add a delay to our Heavy Metal pedal and call it a Hard Rock pedal."
DigiTech processor rack
A little unusable delay*
the dod death metal pedal is a fucking classic..its sick as fuck on bass..
Quote from: mortlock on July 14, 2014, 11:47:07 PM
the dod death metal pedal is a fucking classic..its sick as fuck on bass..
It's great on keyboards and electronics. I've heard it's good for vocals? If you need feedback somewhere, it has tons of gain. Etc. One man's candy is another man's bicycle. Or something.
(http://resource.gearbug.com/e3/boss_tw1.jpg)
This fucking thing has to be one of the oddest, hardest-to-appropriate pedals I own. I love it, it just doesn't make sense anywhere I try to use it.
Quote from: tombhex on July 15, 2014, 09:53:16 AM
(http://resource.gearbug.com/e3/boss_tw1.jpg)
This fucking thing has to be one of the oddest, hardest-to-appropriate pedals I own. I love it, it just doesn't make sense anywhere I try to use it.
hell yes.. the t-wah. that pedal is awesome. I had a guitar player in a band back in the early 90s that used one. I loved what he did with it. great for bluesy wah wah leads.. you could squeeze some good 70s funk out of that..all dirty and greasy..
There's a trimpot inside those T-Wahs,have a play with that if you're not getting what you want out of it.Whole range of sounds available to dial in.
Quote from: moose23 on July 16, 2014, 06:26:59 AM
There's a trimpot inside those T-Wahs,have a play with that if you're not getting what you want out of it.Whole range of sounds available to dial in.
Shit, I never knew that. I never even thought to check! Thanks for the heads up. I always use it when jamming some weird CKY type stuff, just not to great results. Then again, I can't really play. Probably my fault.
Found this about the DOD Jake:
ok, this CAN be a pretty fun pedal --with a simple adjustment. This pedal has a true analog delay in it via the MN3002(? been awhile since I've had mine open.) Anyway, open her up, find the 2 trim pots inside near the MN3002 chip, one is probably for delay length and the for regeneration I guess. Just adjust them until you get the the sound you want. I have mine set up to the max length delay sounds pretty crappy! and then at about a 3/4 turn of the "Delay" pot it breaks into self-oscillation, So now it makes a great sound source. If your slightly ambitious it would be cool to bring these trim pots out so you can easily tweak them. After doing this it becomes a pretty useful pedal for what it offers it a compact space... and it's dirt cheap so what the hell.
note: if you adjust the internal trimpots you can create a delayed octave effects by maxing the delay knob and moving the (closest to bottom) trimpot untill you hear the lowest frequency of feedback and then (while imputing sound) move the middle trimpot untill you hear a pitch bent synth tone a couple seconds after each sound you put in. with this you can make crazy delayed sounds that can be 3 octave lower and sometimes completely reversed pitches.
Good Points: - delayed random synth note generator - presence knob dials in HUGE low end. - high gain butt rock distotion - quick distorted slapback delays - cheap!
Quote from: tombhex on July 15, 2014, 09:53:16 AM
(http://resource.gearbug.com/e3/boss_tw1.jpg)
This fucking thing has to be one of the oddest, hardest-to-appropriate pedals I own. I love it, it just doesn't make sense anywhere I try to use it.
I have one of those TW-1s, only with "Touch Wah" written on it. The guitar player in my old band used it with a HM-2 to create feedback-y "raygun" sounds. Pretty good as envelope followers go, I just can't figure out where to use it.
I sincerly can't stand the chours effect. I just makes me wanna hide/run/puke. Feels like the hole 80ies was drenched in it. ;D
I guess all/any effect has potential, but anymore I'm just like, write a song and maybe a sonic effect isn't so important. I tend to feel this way as I get older, and in terms of gear nerdery in general, too.
Agreed. Effects on a crappy song = sweet icing on shitcake.
(http://i421.photobucket.com/albums/pp299/Omletofon/96395311_4_644x461_kostka-exar-heavy-metal-hm-03-muzyka-i-edukacja.jpg)
Polish distortion stompbox from the nineties. I can't describe how bad it sounds... The worst thing is that it's still in production - new one costs about $30 and it's absolutely not worth its price. It's not worth any money - better get some meth. Seriously.
so shitty and nasty crap-out sounding it borders on awesome but it is total shit.
(http://mixonline.com/photogallery/the_faint/v_faint_foh_road_kill.jpg)
Quote from: bbottom on July 27, 2013, 09:54:03 PM
I've never played one, but Gonkulators sound pretty terrible. For some reason they actually go for a good bit of change now too
When I played in a techno band, we used one in the effects loop for the vocals, which we didn't do a lot of. It sounded amazing.
Any effect that sounds awesome alone but goes AWOL as soon as the battle erupts.... ;D