Worst-sounding FX pedal?

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Last night I saw a band using a Strat/Zoom-digital-distortion combo and it was the most unpleasant, hideous noise I ever heard, and I've got quite a tolerance for unpleasant hideous noises, but this was just unbearable. (For the full horror of digital distortion, try late-period David Gilmour. On second thought, life's too short.)

― dave q, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I suppose digi-distortion has its uses (demos, practicing in flat when volume not an option, etc), but live - just don't do it kids. Poke a hole in the speaker cone if you must or just crank it up all the way, but digital pre-amps - no.

― dave q, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

(That D. Gilmour solo on Kate Bush's "Rockets Tail" on 'Sensual World' - that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. Ultra dud)

― dave q, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

cheap phasers are pretty nasty - turned up to a really high wavelength they make little Doctor Who style whoops, on a long wavelength they just torture the sound of the guitar into ear piercing feedback.

But surely the worst offender is our friend the chorus pedal.

― Pulpo, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

i agree, i have never heard good use of chorus in my life.

― ddd, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh nonsense. Pulp makes great use of the chorus pedal. So do the Byrds.

― John Darnielle, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Adrian Belew's solo) on Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging" sounds chorused to shit, but it's like he KNOWS already that chorus is really grating and takes it from there, so IMHO it works.

― dave q, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

hey! what gives? the Byrds used a chorus pedal as well as a 12 string? or was it used on Crosby's guitar or something?

― Pulpo, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Boss - Super Feedbacker/Distortion pedal (kinda lt. Orange)

as used in Pavement's "Mercy: The Laundromat" (b-side to "Summer Babe" on Drag City).

― gygax!, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Any post-Isaac Hayes "Theme from Shaft"/Jimi Hendrix use of the wah wah pedal - they totally ruined it for everybody, Hayes by using the easy trick that now everybody who plugs into the wah wah pedal plays, and Hendrix for milking it for every possible use, thereby making it obsolete.

― Nick A., Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

yes, good music should inspire us to put away our instruments forever!

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Cheap compressors are probably the worst FX pedals - a good compressor shouldn't be noticable in your chain, a bad one will do simply fuck all, as our band's Rocktek pedal did. £30 wasted.

― Rob M, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Flange: S&D

― the pinefox, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Pinefox I'm shocked.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Why?

― the pinefox, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Peter Hook makes excellent use of the chorus pedal. And, say what you will, Slash owns the wah-wah.

― paul, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I actually inflicted the Virgin megamonster listening booths on myself today while waiting for a friend to make her CD purchases. I heard the WORST use of chorus in years and years and years on song by the fucking Coral. Gah! Gah! Get it off! No idea what song it was, the booth wasn't labelled, but it was that awful, tinny, gated late 60s sort of chorusing that idiots in retro bands clearly think is "psychedelic." Clearly where they come from, psychedelic is a synonym for SHIT.

― kate, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Boss - Super Feedbacker/Distortion pedal (kinda lt. Orange)"

...I have one of these. Yup, it sucks, no matter what you're running through it. Sure is LOUD, though. Can't really turn it down except "all the way" down.

― Matt Riedl (veal), Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I never knew you to boast about the bedroom before, Pinefox. I mean searching flange is one thing, Pinefox, but destroying it?

I remember hearing Dave Angel play two of the exact same record once, right on top of each other, and their microscopic off-ness produced a very noticeable yet totally unpredictable flange effect. Eerie.

― Tracer hand, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Owners of wah - Mick Ronson/Eddie Van Halen(for "Suffragette City" & "Romeo Delight" respectively)
Flange is cool on drums

― dave q, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

The flanged drums on the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer" drives me crazy. I always think about how much better it would sound without that...

― paul, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Still don't get you Hand - your cool NYC dirty talk is over my head.

Search 'A Forest', presumably.

― the pinefox, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

whilst I would generally consider any effect pedal worth picking up IF IT'S CH34P ENOUGH there are a bunch ov BOSS distortion boxen I probably wouldn't buy at any price. the stuff I hear about Danelectro's new "Sitar Swami" pedal does not sound too promising. Oh hang on, I just remembered - auto harmoniser. Ugh.

― Norman Phay, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh, I recentl;y bought an old Vesta Fire "Vital Spark" for 20 quid. It is very nice, esp. on electric piano. So ner.

― Norman Phay, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm shocked that no one has mentioned the octave pedal, which really serves no purpose whatsoever other than to be annoying. Or the envelope filter, which is sort of a fake wah-wah for guitarists who can't use their feet and their hands at the same time and is to blame for all of those horrible cloned Jerry Garcia-isms jambands play.

Note that I own both of the aforementioned items . . .

― J, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

drum machine thru envelope philt3r = k-k3wl!~@!@#!@#!@#!'~

― Norman Phay, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

pinefox! I was under the impression that "flange" was cool dirty Brit-talk for a certain aspect of the female anatomy, thus once-possibly-funny, now-certainly-not yadayada on my part. as in, "top flange".

― Butthead Hand, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Flange, no doubt.

― OCP, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don'y know about the worst Envelope filter, but I know who (used to) make the best one.

www.lovetone.com

Unfortunately they have stopped making pedals now. But there are some other ones left if you have the money.

― Chewshabadoo, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Much as it pains me to say it, Tom Morello makes good use of an auto- harmoniser.

― dave q, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Nope, Butthead, never heard of it. But I live a sheltered life.

― the pinefox, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Flange? Eddie Rabbitt's "Someone Could Lose a Heart Tonite", Police "Bring on the Night"...I am REALLY reaching here, please help. The flanged bit in Kiss' "I Want You" is pleasant but doesn't really add anything to the song.

― dave q, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think there's chorus or flange on the intro of Martha and the Muffins' "Echo Beach" or something that sounds good anyway.

― dave q, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

surely flange = Cure, and that's OK

― the pinefox, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Danelectro "sitar swami" does not sound anything like a sitar - absolute pants

― bob snoom, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm not a huge fan of chorus or flange, myself, but I'd have to give the nod to Boss' Metal Zone pedal...sounded great at the store but terrible once I got it home and tried it with my own guitar. (This is less an indictment of the worth of the pedal itself and probably the remainder of my equipment, though. But still, that name is cheese-o.)

― Sean Carruthers, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Mr Hand, you are correct.

― Chewshabadoo, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Every distortion I have ever used, except the yellow Boss super overdrive. Chorus. Flange. Phaser. In fact, pretty much any effect other than equalisation or reverb/delay.

― electric sound of jim, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Flangers rule.

― sundar subramanian, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

three weeks pass...

Flange in "Rocket Queen" by Guns N Roses - on the voice.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 26 August 2002 03:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

I saw the banshees some years ago - for most ofthe set the guitars were flanged so heavily that they sounded like police sirens. It was GRATE. Cosey Fanni Tutti from throbbing gristle & her guitar that is so heavily flanged that it sounds like a railway train passing thru a tunnel r0x0r3d as well. Phlanger = OK by me.

― N0RM4N PH4Y, Monday, 26 August 2002 16:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

The Boss BS0 'SUCK' Pedal...

Three knobs: Shit, Piss, Why?

Worst pedal I ever bought

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 26 August 2002 17:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

psychedelic is a synonym for SHIT

I want this on a clever t-shirt. Kate do i have yer permission?

There are just certain sounds that are inexcusable. I'm with Dave q on the digital distortion thing - but surely the wurst is every 90s pop-punk guitar sound ever?!?

― Dave M. (rotten03), Monday, 26 August 2002 17:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

when I was young and naive I bought a DOD 60's fuzz pedal (made in 1990). I thought I could channel the super fuzz sounds of 60's beat combos through one miraculous pedal. My doorbell has a better fuzztone.

― lawrence kansas, Monday, 26 August 2002 18:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

one year passes...

s: delay; i've only used the white boss digital delay so far but it sounds lovely; i expect there are even nicer (cleaner? whatever) sounding delays to be discoverd.

d: oh yes flange and um the overdrive pedal my friend has i don't like ('rocktron blackjack' or something; he says it's really good but i couldn't get to sound too good when i ws just pfaffin about with it then).

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 9 January 2004 21:54 (twenty years ago) link

haha, my response is just as i predicted upthread...

Boss - Super Feedbacker/Distortion pedal

i recently used this piece again just to justify it's complete utter crapness.

it's a pedal that if you hold the pedal down it's supposed to emit a wail of feedback in the note that is playing when deployed. sounds awesome (to a 17 year old), right?

wrong, what is emitted is a paperthin, dying-kitten-melp of plastic-cheese-sound so weak and feeble that you were left wondering if your guitar instantly turned into baby's first keyboard with dying batteries.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 9 January 2004 22:06 (twenty years ago) link

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