Your very first pedal

Re: Your very first pedal

jammertom said:
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I got my first effect around 1974 (Holy shirt! 40+ years ago!) It was a gizmo that you plugged into your guitar jack, rather than a stomp box on the floor. I didn't really like it hanging there in the way, so I reversed a couple of wires inside so that it could be plugged into the amp input instead. It could get a decent sound with a little EQ tweaking...
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I have the JEN version of that. I bought it around 1971/1972.
[ online pic same as mine ]
mgw7pgj7kxvsezcnhfcv.jpg

It wasn't my first " pedal " though. That was a two transistor Fuzz/distortion circuit built into a Chromed case . It was all made for me by the dad of another guitarist in a band I was in around 1967.
 
Re: Your very first pedal

Technically the first pedal I got was a Pro Co RAT. This was in 1985 and I was a total noob to the guitar. I tried it out through the crappy little solid state Sears amp I was using and hated the sound so I took it back to the shop and got an Arion Metal Master, which I loved. Oh if I had only known then what I know now!
 
Re: Your very first pedal

RiverDog said:
Technically the first pedal I got was a Pro Co RAT. This was in 1985 and I was a total noob to the guitar. I tried it out through the crappy little solid state Sears amp I was using and hated the sound so I took it back to the shop and got an Arion Metal Master, which I loved. Oh if I had only known then what I know now!
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i too bought a rat II around 88 and played it through a SS fender 10 r 15 watter... Sounded meh.. Sounded much better through an Ampeg V-4.:headbang:

I still own the pedal
1988 ProCo Rat.jpg
 
Re: Your very first pedal

SirJackdeFuzz said:
. . . and I would love to own a V4 half stack.
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well.. when i was 21 or 2 or so.. i had three 4x12's and ampeg v4,randal rg100es,ADA mp1 preamp, a 2x15, a 79' gibson LP, a 85' gibson SG,a kramer striker 200 and a kramer focus 1000.. all of this while working in a warehouse 50 to 60 hours a week making 4.15 an hour.. the year was 91 or 2

I had no idea what I had back then.. sure wish I had most of that gear now.. All i have from that era is the randall and the SG

edit
forgot to mention.. two of those cabs where the original cabs to the ampeg which was circa 1970 and onbe cab had celestian 80 watters in it
 
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Re: Your very first pedal

The first pedal I bought was a Danelectro FAB distortion; out of the box it didn't work, so it doesn't count.

But I just dug this one out again; my second pedal, but the first one that functioned:

overdrive_OD1_aria_ProII_.jpg


It contains a JRC4558 chip, but still sounds bad; very grainy when used on a clean amp, but using it to drive a distorted amp is worse: phlegmy, congested mush. At maybe 2:00 the gain goes into warp/noise mode, and it's almost more of a distortion.

The strangest thing is... When I was starting out, I used it with an equally crappy solid state amp (which I also still have.) Using any other pedal on that POS amp sounds worse than terrible. However this one still winds up giving one of the only acceptable tones that amp can produce; that is, it's only a bit worse than using the pedal with a tube amp.
 
Re: Your very first pedal

I think the first one I had was a c. 1967 E-H LPB-1 amp booster. Sounded great into my BF Fender Band Master rig. You plugged it directly into the amp.

Other pedals I had in my early days: (up through 1980)

Original Big Muff
Fender Blender (2)
Vox Wah (c. 1968)
Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer
Original Mu-Tron Phasor
DOD 250 Overdrive
DOD Stereo Chorus

All of those except the Mu-Tron were stolen.


These oldies I still have and use:

MXR Blue 10-band EQ (2)
DOD 500 Performer Stereo Chorus
Original Thomas Organ Cry Baby Wah
DOD FX pedals--OD, Stereo Chorus, Pre-amp
Boss Ph-1r Phasor
Real Tube 901 OD

And many more.

Bill
 
Re: Your very first pedal

Coloursound Flanger. So bloody expensive now, I wish I'd kept it!

HTC One Mini 2 - Tapatalk
 
Re: Your very first pedal

MXR Carbon Copy.

I was in university studying jazz guitar and I started listening to stuff from the "modern" jazz players like Kurt Rosenwinkel, Bill Frisell and Mike Moreno, all of whom used big boards with reverbs and delays. I fell in love with how big and spacey they sounded so I went out and bought my first delay. I didn't turn it off for a solid 4 years of owning and playing gigs with it, it just became 'my' sound. I set the mix fairly low with medium repeats and medium length delays to just give my tone a bit of authority and ambience.

I can never sell it, it's kicked a few far more expensive delays off my board in the past, and right now I have it sitting next to a Source Audio Nemesis to compliment it.
 
Re: Your very first pedal

My first was an LRE Fuzz Sound, sold by Lafayette Radio. I think it cost $14.95. This pedal was not big on volume or headroom, as it was powered by a single AA battery. I modded mine (kicking off a lifetime of not being able to leave well enough alone) with an input jack in place of the hardwired straight instrument cable, which was all of about 6 feet long. I eventually moved up to an MXR Distortion+. I think the Fuzz Sound got gutted and the housing re-purposed for some project my keyboard player built. Too bad... I really dig the old-school sloped metal box and gray hammertone paint.

 
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Re: Your very first pedal

My very first pedal was a $40 Danelectro Fab Tone, it was awful but there was something about it that I just loved when I was 15!!!

View attachment 75876

It was also the only pedal that I owned/used for years!!! Considering what my pedal board looks like today I don't know how I survived, LOL!!!!
 
Re: Your very first pedal

In some ways, my first pedal was a DOD Super American Metal. It belonged to a friend and was the first pedal I ever played through. Compared to the distortion in my little Crate practice amp, it was the best thing in the world.

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