cheesy guitar effects

[{ antonio }]

lately i have been noticing that i really enjoy effects from the eastern hemisphere.  some people call them cheezy but i think their great.  

http://www.meatexz.com/cheesyguitars/effects.html

i guess in the end i have several questions.

1.  where can i buy effects like this (with exception to ebay)?  is their a dealer for obscure effects?

2.  is there a site with schematics for these types of pedals?

thanks in advance.  antonio.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

http://www.meatexz.com/cheesyguitars/effects.html

(just fixing the url) Great link, thanks antonio.

Maybe DDD can tell us what they sound like!
Cheesy? Doesn't work? don't think the Soviets had a monopoly of that!

[Nasse]

The biggest stars of Rock´n´roll at 60´s played guitars made in Checkoslovakia, including Eric, Jimmy and Hank I believe. I have one bass named "Futurama", but it was made in Sweden by Hagström. Quess the Futurama was selling so good and it was made for middle europe market.

[jrc4558]

Well firstof all, first of all, those were not that cheezy at all.

I myself used to have
http://www.meatexz.com/cheesyguitars/effect-lel_digitaldelay.html

http://www.meatexz.com/cheesyguitars/effect-spectr3.html
and
http://www.meatexz.com/cheesyguitars/effect-leader1.html

Only leader somewhat sucked, but again. If you aint got nothin to compare too, like we did back home(in exUnion that is), you're as content with what you have as you could ever be.
Guitars were crappy, yes, that's true. But the pedals were nice.

As to where you could buy them? I don't know. Even in the nineties, when I was back home and in university, we were already repairing most of these pedals (originally issued in 70's-80's), so I don't think they survived in russian climate :twisted:
Anyhow, best luck. If you find them somewhere, gimme a shout, likewise I will let you know if I...

[thomas2]

i need the ESKO 100 unit with tape delay!    :shock:  :?    :shock:    i need one.. i need it so bad...

[DDD]

Hi guys,
Thanks for you question.
Actually I have no enough experience with Soviet factory-made pedals.
I used only two of them long ago, and even cannot remember their names:
1. Tremolo stompbox â€" sine and triangle-like modulation, very noisy, a lot of hiss modulated with LF oscillator. Its sound was harsh with a touch of strange distortion. Seems to be FET-based.
2. Fuzz/wah pedal â€" noisy, sandy, “empty” sounding fuzz and low-quality wah with scratchy controlling pot, low effective one-knob tone control. Wah section was hard-wired after fuzz and it was impossible to change the order. It was built extremely sturdy.
I think that Soviet factory-made stompboxes are not interesting at all. But there are some original Soviet amateur stompbox schematic floating on the Net.

What about some old-fashioned guitars I played:
1.   Soviet semi-hollow body one made in Leningrad â€" very beautifully-shaped deck and head and totally of very low-quality beginning with machine heads and to control knobs.
2.   Bulgarian “Cremona” hollow-body bass â€" average quality, poor sound.
3.   Soviet “Ural” solid body â€" extremely heavy and ugly one, actually gathering of crimes against electric guitar building laws.
4.   Bulgarian semi-hollow body with very bright, beautiful and loud sound, poor-quality tuners switches and pots.
5.   â€œMusima” solid-body made in Eastern Germany, accurate Eastern German quality, quite stable vibrato machine, average sound.
6.    Czechoslovakian “Iolana Star 9” solid body (maybe the same model that George have in his hands on the above photograph, but I’m not sure) â€" typical good quality of wooden and metal parts, so-so vibrato machine, typical average solid-body sound.
7.   Czechoslovakian “Iolana Tornado” semi-hollow body with the Bigsby vibrato, bolt-on neck, very good quality of wooden parts, paint and binding, good tuners, excellent neck, numerous poor-quality nickel-plates key switches, bad single-coils, idiotic bridge, e.t.c. Very beautiful thing, maybe the most beautiful electric guitar I’ve seen. Today couple my friends prefer to play upgraded Iolanas rather than expensive modern Ibanez and MIA Strat they have.

[DDD]

PS
You can see one of the above mentioned instruments here:
http://gtlab.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=92
(Soviet “Ural” solid body).