o/t - Strange how pedal fads change.......

[alteredsounds]

I was just reading through a few pages of posts and couldnt help but noticing that even in my reasonbly short time on this forum how things have gone in and out of fashion.  Most noticiably fuzz face and everything Ge tranny related.  I can remember when I started posting here how many questions seemed to be asking for pinouts of various Ge transistors.  The current fashion seems to be all things muff related, wonder what's next?

[markm]

Boosters in general seem to be like that at times.
There are MANY to choose from.

[Bucksears]

That's funny, because I was sorta thinking the same thing. For a while (and still quite going strong), it was everything JFET-amp emu related.
Most recently, I guess things have turned toward the classic Muff and Dist + (myself included). I think the early/mid-90's were to blame for people getting into fuzzes (and some metal distortions) with the grunge sound that prevailed.
In my case, it just depends on what I DON'T have in my lineup and what I'm looking for at the moment.

- Buck

[Phorhas]

The old classics aren't classics for no reason - they are both designed to sound well and they are ment to work with your rig (dist+ into a big ol' Marshall half stack) instead of replacing it (like say a Dime Distortion on a peavey classic or a small SS amp)

[sta63bmx]

I think a lot of people today who aren't DIY or into electronics are just way too into I GOTS TO HAVE ME MORE DISTORTION, MAN!  And then you wind up in fartity fart fart land with fizzy buzzy gain only it's REALLY LOUD and the guitar is REALLY DETUNED cause "I wanna be HEAVY man" and then everything kind of sounds like someone farting through jello.  Green jello, specifically.  But people just seem to want heavy, heavy, heavy, super distortion from hell.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when there's so much intermodulation distortion that EVERYTHING is in the soup.  That's one thing I really like about the guitar tones of Billy Gibbons and John Schaffer (Iced Earth, Demons & Wizards).  Completely different genres (if you're NOT listening to IE and D&W for metal, I think you should be!) but the same thing applies: the tones still retain a lot of individual string clarity, despite being massively overdriven and distorted in a lot of cases.  In the foggy reaches of my mind I want to say it's because these guys have a lot of asymmetrical clipping going on SOMEWHERE.  Put a single clipping diode in a distortion plus and hit the amp hard.  There's that rough edge, but still a lot of clarity, and you can let chords ring.  Mescalero by the Top had a lot of great tones like that.  And Schaffer still seems to retain a lot of clarity despite having massively heavy tone.  I want to say he had a Bogner and a JC-120 for cleans when we saw them in St. Louis.  If you listen to "Blood On My Hands" by Demons & Wizards, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.  His tone is overdrive, not scooped metal distortion.

It's hard to explain, I guess. 

[jonathan perez]

FUZZZZZ! 

GOTTA HAVE ME FUZZZZ!

NAH MAN ITS ALL ABOUT THE BOOOOOOST! BOOST MY AMP INTO HELL AND BACK!

are you kidding? 

TOOOB SCREEEMER! SCREEEAMIN TOOOOOBS! TOOOBS

im fed up with seeing all the tube screamer crap...but hey, it sounds good...right? well...matter of perspective.

anyways ITS ALL ABOUT THE WAAAAAH WAAAH! WHWHWHWHWHAHAHAAHAHHWHAHWHAH!   

[toneman]

U know, i also noticed the Lack of Germainum.
Probably cause it's hotter in the northern hemisphere(?)
T

[Ape32]

I rode out a few of them but what (homebrews) always stay in my pedal board are:

Toobscreamer
Coulorsound tonebender
rangemaster

These just flat out work in my world

I have all the boosterz (circa 2002 or so) but must have been scavenged for their boxes.

[jonathan perez]

anyways ITS ALL ABOUT THE WAAAAAH WAAAH! WHWHWHWHWHAHAHAAHAHHWHAHWHAH!   

im a little wired today, arent i? 

[Stephen]

I see people come and go too!  Used to see AMZ, RG, Z VEX all the  time and Mike from Fulltone..........I have left and come back....Was into Fuzzes must of built 50 of them ...SOLD in a friends music store......Than the 4049 chip still into that...now the J201 ......I like my modded SD-1 the best...OH WELL!!!!!
      The next fad will be the MODS..............MODS........ ..& more MODS........... check it out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MartyMart]

My recent "Fad" has been all the Jfet amp emu's, ...... think I'm done with that unless someone has a specific
"BOOTIQUE" amp suggestion .. !!
I'm starting to like much lower gain stuff, like "just starting to break up" ... I keep hearing "The Who" on those
great CSI credits, "Wont get fooled again" has this great big guitar part, beautifully played, but it's quite clean
when you study the sound ... superb tone on that one

MM.

[sta63bmx]

"Won't Get Fooled Again" has the greatest rock and roll scream ever, I think.  I would also put the opening to "Screaming For Vengeance" by Priest and Dickinson's scream at the beginning of "Number Of The Beast". 

I'm new enough at building that I'm just trying to build everything I can find that looks interesting.  As far as usefulness, I need low/medium gain overdrive, boosters, and some modulation is nice.  I am meaning to mod my crybaby when I have time.

[markm]

 
Another pedal fad........
.....the etched enclosure!!!

[vanessa]

I think another reason why there is a move off  lower gain pedals on this forum might lie in expertise. After you build a few simple circuits you want more of a challenge. It's possible that as a collective we thirst for bigger more challenging projects that have more tonal capabilities?

[jmusser]

I've seen several come and go. I was heavy into germanium there for awhile, (and still am for that matter), but it happened for me, because I finally got a small tube amp to play them through where I could really get the true tone out of them. They're just wasted through SS. There was a fad for awhile with the Ugly Face, 4049 circuits, and I believe, the Orange Squeezer.

[Gilles C]

It made me realise something.

I have a friend who always sweared only by a Fender Tele straight to his Fender amp for a long time. That's for Blues.

The last time I saw him on TV, he was playing a Gibson SG with a bit of distortion and I couldn't see in which amp he was playing. Still playing Blues, but a bit heavier.

And he's only the last of the guys I know who kind of changed like that over time. So it seems to be true, not only for guitar effects builders, but for guitarists as well.

Btw, there's only one guy I know who never changed his sound or his style. He's 62, and never changed his sound a bit, except for a Wah that I saw him use once for a song.

Gilles