Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

I've been underwhelmed with pretty much every overdrive pedal I've ever tried, I think it's more an issue with me than the pedals though. I just can't stand overdrive pedals. I like distortion pedals though. Whether the amp is clean or dirty overdrive pedals always manage to make it sounds worse for me. Same with delay, I never figured out how to make that work either. I briefly had a Wampler Black 65 pedal, which almost could have been great except for some nasty sag that ruined it.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

I usually have my expectations adjusted to where I'm not surprised by things.

That said, I just can't "get" most flange or phasing effects; it can sound good when someone else uses it subtly, but when I use it, it feels like playing a clean guitar with an out of balance dryer getting picked up somewhere in the background.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

ThisDyingSoul76 said:
I don't usually even dismiss the gear I don't like. I try to find a way to make it work. If I can't make it sound good, it's either because I don't know how, or another piece if gear I am using it with just doesn't react in the way I want it to.
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Great point! And I totally agree.

Having said that, my big disappointment was the Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe... which I traded away for a Carl Martin Hot Drive & Boost... which I dislike even more than the Wampler.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

I was excited to pick up the Throttle box by Mesa Boogie. I wanted to see if a pedal could capture the sound of a Mark amp or at least close. I got it home, plugged it in and was totally shocked on how awful it sounded. I went online and listened to the clips and I couldn't get anything like that out of it and I tried all the online setting and dialed it in myself.
I kept it for a week and then returned it. It didn't do what I wanted it to. Some swear by this pedal and love it to death. Me I'm extremely picky about my tone and this pedal just wasn't for me.

Before that it was all the Line 6 pedals. When they hit the market , I was all excited to try them out. Some people I knew already purchased a few and loved the **** out of them. So I ran out, looked over the line and picked up a Delay, Reverb and Chorus all single pedals.
At that time I had all Boss stuff of those effects and compared them to each other single , not all in a row. So I listened to my Boss Delay and then the Line 6 delay and found the Line 6 to sound very fake. It sounded like a cheap Arion Pedal that I started with when I was very young. Maybe worse. I thought maybe I just needed more time to find out what works for me and kept attempting. No dice. This held true for all 3 pedals. The Internet didn't exist back then so I had to hold on to them until someone wanted to buy them from me. I felt ripped off.

I have stayed away from Line since then. I have plugged into their amps and found nothing for me. I have tried their Pedal boards and Pods and still nothing for me. Today I see the new Board Helix and honestly I don't really want to plug in. it looks light years ahead of everything before it but still to me line 6 is a modeling company that I don't think makes their own effects, just copies of what everyone else worked so hard to create. I'm out.
 
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Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

mantis said:
I was excited to pick up the Throttle box by Mesa Boogie. I wanted to see if a pedal could capture the sound of a Mark amp or at least close. I got it home, plugged it in and was totally shocked on how awful it sounded. I went online and listened to the clips and I couldn't get anything like that out of it and I tried all the online setting and dialed it in myself.
I kept it for a week and then returned it. It didn't do what I wanted it to. Some swear by this pedal and love it to death. Me I'm extremely picky about my tone and this pedal just wasn't for me.
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For me the Tech21 U.S. Steel turned out to be the pedal that I was hoping the Throttle Box would be. I love the Mesa pedal, but it does something a little different and makes me work harder for it.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

Mincer said:
Most tube-based pedals haven't done it for me. I also didn't like the Digitech Distortion Factory, but the Chorus Factory is a little gem.
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Man, the Distortion Factory stinks. Having owned several of the pedals being modeled, and being prepared to be happy with "close enough", I was pretty disappointed. It just didn't respond in an organic or musically pleasing manner no matter what I did.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

Wah pedals still don't give me what I'm looking for. It's just entirely too harsh. The closest I've come to being happy with one is the model in the Line6 M13, but only because I can set the upper and lower sweep limits exactly where I want them.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

Silence Kid said:
I usually have my expectations adjusted to where I'm not surprised by things.

That said, I just can't "get" most flange or phasing effects; it can sound good when someone else uses it subtly, but when I use it, it feels like playing a clean guitar with an out of balance dryer getting picked up somewhere in the background.
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Same here. Not a fan of most flangers but some of the phaser used by Mick Jones sounds cool...until I try it.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

The secret to playing with flange and phase is to play to the peaks. You have to anticipate the point in the waveform you want to hit the notes, and how much swell and dive you want to be heard. Jake E. Lee used a flanger for solos and set it to an almost auto-wah sweep rate. Sustained bent notes were hit as the sweep reached its peak, so you got the "open wah" sound.
You can time your notes to get a "tone swell", similar to the solo to Megadeth's "Sweating Bullets", or to get a "oww" sound like the intro to U2's "Mysterious Ways".

For phaser, at least the BOSS Super phaser I had some years ago, you can fiddle with the settings to get a tremolo effect, or you can set it for those inverse "mewwww mewwww" Reggae sweeps, or a straight "jet flyover" sweep. I used mine mostly for tremolo effects, like the intro riffs to Alice Cooper's "Halo of Flies". Definitely works better for single-notes than full chords, at least in the forefront of a mix, but then that started life as a keyboard effect, according to the BOSS manual.

When paired with a pitch shifter/octave effect, you can really unlock a phaser's potential on guitar, like copping those swirling overdriven Hammond tones of Jon Lord without actually having a full-on Leslie and Hammond rig.

Put it after a delay pedal, set it for a sharp, fast tremolo effect, hit a chord and fill the delay's memory, then mute the strings and turn on the phaser. Machine Gun on the fly.


Someone mentioned not knowing how to use a delay earlier:
Like phase and flange, mostly you have to play to the effect, rather than work the effect into your playing. Delay can be used for "echo canyon" reverb far better than a reverb unit, especially a spring tank.
Or, it can be used as room reverb without coloring the tone like a spring tank does.
Then there's Rockabilly/Surf slapback.
Then there's the "classic" unity-volume repeats like the intro to Welcome to the Jungle.
Once you start getting into looping with one, things can get really interesting, as well as really messy in a hurry.
 
Re: Ever been thoroughly underwhelmed by a pedal?

Tech 21 Overdrive Boost. I've had better overdrives, better clean boosts and better pedals that combine both. If you're looking into getting one, do yourself a favor and buy a fulldrive instead.
 
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