The worst pedal you've ever owned?

Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

Still deciding on this one. I hesitate to assign labels right now.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

DigiTech X-Series Death Metal Distortion. Blows a Metal Zone out of the water, at least a Metal Zone has a mid control!

I can get on board with this. I had this pedal for a few years. It sucked. Terrible dry, cold awful tone.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

Arion Distortion when I was 15. Besides sounding like crap, the battery cover and knobs all broke off. It's the only pedal I've ever thrown into the garbage can.

 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

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Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

Still deciding on this one. I hesitate to assign labels right now.

How about Rocktron Metal Planet? I owned one, briefly, before I experienced just how wretched it sounded through my Marshall.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

DigiTech X-Series Death Metal Distortion. Blows a Metal Zone out of the water, at least a Metal Zone has a mid control!

The X series version is the Metal Master. The one with no mid control but a morph control instead. I hands down agree with you. Sucks any lows and mids away I had. Inaudible in a band.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

Not sure I can pick one...I've owned so many freaking pedals over the years...but a few suckage standout effects

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Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

The Metal Master had a few sweet spots. I'd take one of those over a Metal Zone any day.

The HM-2 does one sound perfectly well. If you don't want that sound, don't get one. If you're after that sound, you need one. (Although the Behringer copy can do it almost as well.) One trick is to use the amp's distortion and just use the EQ knobs on the pedal to cut the noise down.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

I've been thinking about it for a while, and the only duds I can remember were an MXR Blue Box and a Dunlop 535Q. I know there isn't a ton of hate for either of these, but they just didn't work for me. The Blue Box sounded great in the store, but it's behavior and tracking were completely different when I got it home making it effectively useless. I've shared my opinion on the 535Q a few times... What good are a thousand wah sounds if they all suck?
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

Analogman Chorus... Sounded horrible... Noisy and just bad. Runner up is Mad Professor deep blue delay.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

When I had my '79 Trans Am, it was the brake pedal.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

It's a toss up.. it might be the TC Electronic Hall of Fame or the EHX Soul Food. The Hall of Fame was a well built pedal, and there were a few really cool toneprints, but I could never get it to feel quite 'natural', either for subtle reverb or for longer ambient stuff. I couldn't find a place for it on my board, though I know it works for a lot of other people so I hesitate to call it 'bad'.

The EHX Soul Food is... well it's really hyped up for being one of the first super cheap Klones, and it's neat, but I already have some 'transparent' overdrives that sound better than it, and I found it to be kinda boxy and meh sounding in comparison.

Neither of these are bad pedals, but I'm pretty obsessive about trying stuff and doing my research before buying (something I guess you couldn't really do pre-youtube to be fair) so I haven't had anything outright awful ever.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

I had one of those plastic Ibanez tube screamers back in the day. It used to lurk in a back alley, waiting for my Boss DS-1 to come out of the dope house, and it would beat the crap out of it.

Eventually they both died in prison.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

I had one of those plastic Ibanez tube screamers back in the day. It used to lurk in a back alley, waiting for my Boss DS-1 to come out of the dope house, and it would beat the crap out of it.

Eventually they both died in prison.

Goddamn that made my night.
 
Re: The worst pedal you've ever owned?

If we're including racks, I'll nominate the Chandler Tube Driver for worst one ever, right alongside any ART rack. The X-15 Ultrafoot is probably the best thing I've seen from them, but I've tried all their SGE racks back in the day, and was underwhelmed by them.

And yeah, that RockTek pictured is the one. Same box and all. I was there when they first came out :lol:
Their Chorus and Flanger weren't horrible, but weren't stunning either.

I'll throw in a vote for the Ibanez L.A. Metal as well, but it was actually the best bass distortion pedal I've ever heard.

As for the Tube Screamers, I've got issues with those being so highly regarded: granted, they're only digital models, but the TS models in both my GSP 1101 and the M13 generate a dirty and clean signal at the same time, like you're hearing a direct clean signal and the distorted amp at the same time, in equal volume. I've adjusted the settings on it in every direction, but always get the same "parallel clean/dirty" effect. I can't imagine this is an issue with digital models, or that two separate digital units made by two manufacturers are somehow having the same problem with the same pedal.
 
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