What's the worst distortion you've heard?

Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

My mates li'l bro has Yamaha starter pack amp and guitar. He runs Boss MT-2 thru the OD channel with maxed gain in both. Then he has the eq setting in the boss BMT 10/0/10, higher range mids are selected with the mid range knob. And then, the amp with it's tiny speaker (6" ?, I dunno) is set B/M/T 3/4/10. I guess I can't any words to describe that. Well I guess I may say that the dynamics aren't very well presented..
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

Fender H.O.T. amp... gag. Crate gx130c which I still own (sentimental reasons), I bypass the front end w/digitech genesis 3 to make it tolerable, cuz it's reeeeal bad. Had the zoom 505 and could hardly stand it, so one day when it acted like it wanted to change patches by itself..........I stomped on it til the lights went out. aaaaaaaaah, therapeutic.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

JeffB said:
when I started playing more/getting "serious" I ended up with an old Dean Markley Solid State amp. Not the later creme tolex ones (not that they were any better, LOL), but an original Black one. OMG horrid. Not long after I got into the pedal buying craze trying to get a decent sound out of it. DOD American Metal Pedal was the absolute worst sounding thing I remember buying. It made the onboard distortion sound warm and creamy!.
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I had one of those DOD pedals. I think I sold it for 20 bucks, to my bass player, who dabbled in guitar. He traded it at a party at his cabin (we were all jammin' there) for an x-box controller, some 80s metal dude.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

JeffB said:
The OD channel on a Roland Jazz Chorus is pretty dang awful too.
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Oh yeah! Wow. Worst rehearsal I ever had, I didn't feel like lugging my Marshall half stack to practice, which I did every time. The rooms always had Marshalls so I figured I'd take the easy way out one night. Well, the studio was down one Marshall and took the one from THAT room because they knew I always brought mine, lol. The only amp available was the JC-120. Mean amp, but the distortion on it was like a buzz saw and no bottom at all. I felt so bad I paid for the whole practice that night, lol. Never left the Marshall home again.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

The Beatles Revolution is pretty horrendous, it's so bad its good. Especially the lower parts where the notes just start raping each other thru the amp.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

thespricket said:
The Beatles Revolution is pretty horrendous, it's so bad its good. Especially the lower parts where the notes just start raping each other thru the amp.
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Legend has it that they created that distortion through the sound board, overloading the mic preamps!
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

Worst I have had:

Ibanez - LA Metal. I really have no idea how they thought this one sounded anything like its name?

Laney - AOR50. Buzzy, warbly, murky, piece of s**t! I could never turn the amp on and have it sound good with the previous days settings. I also had to constantly tweak the EQ because as it got warmer the sound fell apart.

80's Ampeg solid state 2x12 with chorus. Everyone loved the chorus, but the amp sounded like old piss smells.

Scholz - Rockman.
 
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Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

I also had a Rocktek Distortion that was the absolute worst. It was my first pedal. DOD death metal sucked when I had it. I was 16 and it covered my mistakes. It was better than the Rocktek.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

As far as actual bands go, The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Taste the Floor" from 1985's PSYCHOCANDY, and the solo in the middle of the tune...makes The Stooges' "I Wanna be Your Dog", sound like a fuzz knob on "3".:omg:

One can get a taste of the distortionation of The Chain, but the CD NOW links to the music have such lousy bandwidth, they add a "flanger" effect to the straight-up breaking glass fuzz gnarl of "Taste the Floor", and "The Living End":

http://www.amazon.com/Psychocandy-Jesus-Mary-Chain/dp/B000FFJ81M/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_b

BTW...I LOVE it! Supposedely they were users of the Japanese Shin-Ei fuzz., but that is only part of the sound.

Here is a vid of "Never Understand" from PSYCHOCANDY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs-42ge-TWY
 
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Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

Sludgenutz said:
As far as actual bands go, The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Taste the Floor" from 1985's PSYCHOCANDY, and the solo in the middle of the tune...makes The Stooges' "I Wanna be Your Dog", sound like a fuzz knob on "3".:omg:

One can get a taste of the distortionation of The Chain, but the CD NOW links to the music have such lousy bandwidth, they add a "flanger" effect to the straight-up breaking glass fuzz gnarl of "Taste the Floor", and "The Living End":

http://www.amazon.com/Psychocandy-Jesus-Mary-Chain/dp/B000FFJ81M/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_b

BTW...I LOVE it! Supposedely they were users of the Japanese Shin-Ei fuzz., but that is only part of the sound.

Here is a vid of "Never Understand" from PSYCHOCANDY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs-42ge-TWY
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another example of bad-sounding distortion working well for a band. i love the whole deal of playing slow, half-asleep shoegaze under walls of nasally fuzz.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

TSE said:
Worst band dist check out Satyricon Dark Medieval Times or Dark Throne's first albums. I am not saying I think the bands suck, in old black metal the bad tone and production was intentional, I'm commenting on the quality of distortion or lack thereof.
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+1. But I think Samoth from Emperor takes the cake, for his rhythm guitar tone on In the Nightside Eclipse.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

thespricket said:
The Beatles Revolution is pretty horrendous, it's so bad its good. Especially the lower parts where the notes just start raping each other thru the amp.
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure that sound is intentional...

Neil Young's song Hey Hey My My (Into the Black) has a sort of similar distortion...
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

75lespaul said:
Oh yeah! Wow. Worst rehearsal I ever had, I didn't feel like lugging my Marshall half stack to practice, which I did every time. The rooms always had Marshalls so I figured I'd take the easy way out one night. Well, the studio was down one Marshall and took the one from THAT room because they knew I always brought mine, lol. The only amp available was the JC-120. Mean amp, but the distortion on it was like a buzz saw and no bottom at all. I felt so bad I paid for the whole practice that night, lol. Never left the Marshall home again.
Click to expand...

Well that is because you were trying to use that amp for a style that it was in no way meant for. That is a legit enough distortion for jazz music.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

Skarekrough said:
Nine Inch Nails

The solo to "ruiner" was recorded with Reznor goofing around through one of those. He said he was totally goofing on trying some sort of David Gilmour-styled solo and it ended up backfiring and working for the part.
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It took me this long to check back to this thread. That solos is all kinds of fantastic. Who would have guessed.
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

GoldenVulture said:
"sounded like a transistor radio."= nerve-ana [nirvana]
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Well i honestly think a Boss DS-1 into a ragged old twin reverb can never sound that bad. But with a old noisey chorus pedal on 24/7 and a 1966 fender jaguar with hot dimarzio's you might approach that. I think Kurt got a simple and unique tone most of the time. Just he did'nt have any chops.

here is a open air recorded general live example...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JdkQeWJ44s

though 06/30/92 was a DS-2->SmallClone->Mesa .22 Preamp->Crown Power Amp->Marshall 4x12's with Greenbacks

why use a ds-2 when you have that great mesa drive tone and a super distortion in that vintage fender?
 
Re: What's the worst distortion you've heard?

I still have in a closet somewhere an original Zoom 505... you know, the one before the "improved" 505II. I keep it around because it did have some other effects that someday, maybe, I'll use, but the distortions and overdriven tones are nothing short of awful.
 
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