That one craptastic pedal you just can't drop

[jrmy]

So, I'm assuming that everyone has something like this - a piece of equipment or a pedal that's largely viewed as unusable by the public at large... but you just can't let it go. Maybe you've managed to get That One Magical Sound out of it, or you're just convinced that the Sound is in there somewhere... if you could just dig it out.

I've had a few of these, starting with my first pedal, an Ibanez Thrashmaster Sound Tank... nothing but thin & nasty treble on bass, but it eventually became my secret weapon, used as a treble boost driving other pedals, or a dynamic contrast when I wanted to drop the bass out in a breakdown. Sadly, that's long gone.

My current "can't lose it, can't use it" is a Dano Sitar Swami. Total impulse buy. I knew that it wouldn't make my bass sound like a sitar, but I thought it would end up being more flexible than it actually is. At the moment, I'm toying with having it modded... maybe a mix knob, so I can let some clean come through? I wish that someone could tweak the circuit so each of the multiple effects could be altered individually, but I don't think that's gonna happen...

Anybody else? Anybody use the Sitar Swami? I've heard that some people really love it for a noise/texture effect...

[aen]

Theres one at my local shop that I wil probably buy someday. it really is the worst effect ever. Oh wait, chorus.

Anyway, my "cant use it cant lose it" pedal is a digitech bad monkey. I htink the only thing it's been used for is demonstrating power starving pedals.
The last time i used it musically was probably over a year ago on some lame-ass commercial music job. Then the fucking show got canned and nobody paid me.

[jrmy]

If you hold out on that Swami long enough, Aen, they'll probably sell it to you for $5.

Power starving the bad monkey seems like proper punishment for it being a bad pedal...

[the raytownian]

lol... most of my pedals. I feel bad about selling them... Most were gifts.

I'd say the Danelectro French Fries is way up there... I've managed to get the most convincing, agonized human screaming sound with a contact mic+feedback... Seriously, freaking amazing... and Now I can't do it... It has uses, but they're hard to find.

and my circuit bent Danelectro FAB Metal... It can do some cool stuff, but not much that's really different from my other pedals.

My Danelectro Tuna Melt doesn't get enough love either... It doesn't have as deep/hard a chop as I'd hoped for... It's like... I always wanted a trem. (and hated using the ones on multi-fx units) until I got it...

Oh, And the Behringer Ultra Vibrato... I love Vibrato effects, but I really wish it were more extreme... and it gets completely lost in a noise setup... really fun for drones and warping pre-recorded audio, though.

[Pirate]

My Boss DS-1 because I tried to do a seeing eye mod on it and now all it does is make white noise and weird sounds.Well I guess that isn't bad!How bout my Crybaby wah wah,that really sucks.Its either really screechy with lots of highs or all out weird distorted bass.I think I might get a creepy fingers drop in wah replacement so its some what usable.Or paint rainbows on it and put like a fuzz phaser circuit in it,like my friends dads Maestro Fuzz Phaser.

[jrmy]

Dare I ask what you run the radio through in a live setup?

One of my favorite parts of one of my old band's recording was when, during an atomospheric part of the music, the guy recording us had the good idea to drop in a track of an AM radio he had in the booth shifting between stations... by sheer luck the static did a perfect ramp-up just before the section ended... one of those things we couldn't possibly have planned that just made the song.

[hatshirt]

dod flanger. it is a piece of shit on most settings if you ask me, but one setting gets a really great tin-can-tone.

[metalmariachi]

ratshack.jpg (13.58 KiB) Viewed 4478 times

Realistic Electronic Reverb.
Cost me a whole $10.00

Not bad and not great at the same time.

[the raytownian]

I've heard great things about those Realistic Reverbs when circuit bent or used in feedback loops.

[jrmy]

I love the "ratshack" label job you did on it!

[metalmariachi]

Yup that's some one else's.
I was too lazy to take a photo of mine.
I didn't notice the Rat Shack until it was pointed out.

Now I feel bad.

MM

[jrmy]

Don't feel bad... just put RatShack on yours!

[jrmy]

Holy smokes! Not that anyone necessarily cares, but I just found my long-assumed-lost craptastic Thrashmaster in my closet! Whoo!



Yep. Still pretty much just a crappy Thrashmaster.

ThrashMaster.jpg

[glitch]

Well, my current "boomerang" (keeps coming back around, no matter how often I throw it out) would have to be this craptastic GR-20 Roland guitar synth....

gr-20.jpg

I got it for a steal at a local used gear shop ($55USD!!!!) because there was a problem with the GK pickup that came with it. All my axes already have GK's on them, so no big issue for me. Definitely the best deal I've come across in a year.

The patches are your typical preset guitar synth sounds, and who wants to play piano with a guitar -- aaargh!. However, there's one thing that it's really, really, REALLY good for:

I'll set it to a slow attack and a simple sine or square wave patch. Then I'll mix that with the natural guitar signal and run it through a high-intensity fuzz. BTW, the Hyperion works great for this!!! At this point, the guitar and synth meld into the same sound, and the synth wave merely becomes feedback -- infinitely controllable and sustainable feedback(!) though.

I can feed back on any or all six strings simultaneously. I can press the hold pedal and have the feedback sustain for as long as I want. I can do that while playing other lines over the top of it. I can retune the feedback to octave above, octave below, fifths, etc. It's a great substitute for an Ebow or a Sustainiac (not to mention you can also use it with either of those if you want).

Now if only the damn thing didn't look like a rejected Star Wars toy, and carry a "cool factor" of negative 170.

-- glitch.@#$%!

[the raytownian]

I always thought they were cool, haha... Bump that up to 169! (I guess my opnion doesn't count for much... I like shit to be as cheesy as possible.)

I've always wanted to use one of those GK pickups for other MIDI doodads... In my own (small amount of) experience, circuit bending around MIDI tone-generator data chips (whatever holds the ROM in keyboards) gets crazy results... I probably wouldn't want to bend the unit itself... but other bent stuff/samplers w/ MIDI inputs would be a lot of fun.