OT- Whats the worst effect you ever bought? Play with?

[gmoon]

Lots of Zoom bashing.  And rightfully so, but hear me out:  Zoom did this REALLY STUPID thing on those 90's series 50x pedals, which was to put a built-in volume drop into the pedal.  I think it was the whole "knobs are now obsolete and we know you all all love MIDI racks and tweaking more than playing" time in our lives.

Now, I can't speak for the II series as I haven't tried them or read their manuals, but the first 50x series had their volume set at 40 of an available 50.  Who knows why... 

That doesn't sound like my 505 at all... The output volume (level) varies between 1-30. Factory presets used anything from 5 to 27, with the vast majority in the low-mid 20's.

How much boost over "bypass" those settings produced had a lot to do with your amp, and the amount of distortion in the setting. When I was actually using the pedal, I made my own patches--none when higher than 5 on distortion (out of 30), none had a level setting over 21, and generally all were louder than the bypass setting. Some had level set at <15, and were still louder than the bypass.

Granted, some amps seemed to expand the sound of the unit, while others sounded "smaller" somehow. Like the amp was in a cardboard box.

I'm not really defending the pedal. Eventually I gave up on it...no matter how I tried there was always a fizzy decay on the settings I liked, even with distortion @ 3 or 4 and the reverb on the lowest (in all honesty it's not present on ALL settings). And the bypass lacked clarity--the better the amp, the more obvious it became. And it only tunes in bypass, which doesn't mute. You get what you pay for.

Still, if I wanted a cheap headphone amp w/effects and a tuner, it's worth a few bucks...

[ayayay!]

That doesn't sound like my 505 at all... The output volume (level) varies between 1-30. Factory presets used anything from 5 to 27, with the vast majority in the low-mid 20's.  

Right, that's the factory presets.  The levels for patches.  I'm talking about Master Volume not being turned up all the way.  It's on page 5 on the lower right side here:  http://s3.amazonaws.com/samsontech/related_docs/505.pdf
Since they fubar'd it with such a balancing act, they deserve to be ridiculed so much.  I'm just saying that they may be more useable that one thinks, but they defeated themselves before they left the factory.  

Edit:  Oh and each time you power it down, it defaults back to 40 of 50.  Derp!!!!  Luckily, Line6 took a lot of the heat of off Zoom for derps this past decade. 

[artifus]

i had one briefly, a 505 that is, many, many moons ago when they first came out i think. the thing i couldn't get over was the momentary glitch/silence when switching between patches. just couldn't live with it. with regards to level i would guess it's more to do with your guitar/pups than your amp. have a pretty hot humbucker with on board pre amp that i often use (it's brutal and i like it) and find the bypassed signal much louder when it's engaged than processed on most commercial pedals i've tried, the zoom particularly so. isn't it actually processing a sampled (adc/dac) signal rather than the 'raw' guitar signal? anyways, i diy now and there's no looking back.

[gmoon]

Since they fubar'd it with such a balancing act, they deserve to be ridiculed so much.  I'm just saying that they may be more useable that one thinks, but they defeated themselves before they left the factory.  

Edit:  Oh and each time you power it down, it defaults back to 40 of 50.  Derp!!!!  Luckily, Line6 took a lot of the heat of off Zoom for derps this past decade. 

Ha! If I ever know it had a master level, I'd forgotten that!

I don't see a problem with the master set at 40 out of 50. Are you thinking it should have been designed so "unity" is halfway (25) ? That makes more sense to me, and sounds a lot like rack-mounted gear. You certainly wouldn't want unity to be full-on, if it's to be flexible enough to work with all amps and gear.

I might dig it out of the box and see how my diy patches sound with the master lower and the patch level higher--that might eliminate some noise...

But not being able to set and retain that master level control? Freaking ridiculous! That oversight alone makes it target practice-worthy...

[ayayay!]

I don't see a problem with the master set at 40 out of 50. Are you thinking it should have been designed so "unity" is halfway (25) ? That makes more sense to me, and sounds a lot like rack-mounted gear. You certainly wouldn't want unity to be full-on, if it's to be flexible enough to work with all amps and gear.

Well, I'll put it this way:  The 508 Delay I have does not reach unity gain until I turn it up to 50.  So it seems the other 50x's would follow suit.  Thank you for clarifying that. 

Is it worth the trouble?  Heck no.  But it does what I want it to do, which is seamless patching, good up/down scrolling, and very accurate tap tempo via an external box (not a Boss one either, just a simple DIY one.)  I can layer easily with it, and have about 8 patches easily within reach of each other.  Good tone control and it's....

What the hell?  We're talking about worst effects, sorry.

I still hate Morleys! 

[gmoon]

Well, I'll put it this way:  The 508 Delay I have does not reach unity gain until I turn it up to 50.

Ouch!

I guess they trusted the engineers and their graphs and 'scopes, but didn't listen to decide what constitutes "unity"...which is subjective with FX (not to mention that these sound different, amp to amp).

A "master level" that's not persistent is just a kludge. And they had a few generations of 50x to implement this fix, too. Putzes.

Yeah, I'm not going to dig out that 505 right now.

[Renegadrian]

Among many other Zoom's, I have a 606 (which was a 505 with exp. pedal built in) and a 506-II (for bass).
They can give some interesting sound, but you have to spend a lot of time tweaking parameters, and sometimes you don't have too many parameters. To say, chorus or phasers cannot be tweaked with speed and depth but have only fixed amounts (you go C1-->C9 to say...) - I used the 506-II as a preamp (and a cheap tuner, that made it last longer!!!) so just some compression and some eq involved. As you pretend a little more, you find its limits...oh and bass synths sounds are HORRIBLE!!! The 606 is a little better, but yeah there's a lot to tweak to get some decent sounds (and it got worse, imho...)
Best Zoom was the 3030! I still got a couple actually...

[EATyourGuitar]

wow I almost forgot the 90's. every zoom product was crap except for the drum machine. a lot of the digitech or boss stuff was bad too. I had more love for boss chorus flange phase tremolo etc. than I did for DS-1 or metal zone. recently I played a swollen pickle in the store and it was just disappointing that none of the sounds I heard on youtube where in the pedal. too many knobs. some of the knobs were tiny shit plastic trim pots that make it impossible to see your settings. dunlop needs to just stop putting the hendrix name on those SMD garbage gigantic fake fuzz faces.

[newfish]

I have a red, two-knob 'Frontline' distortion pedal.
It sounds like crap, but I love it.

I think this is simply nostalgia, as it was my first ever pedal (from twenty-something years ago!).

There are two diode clipping stages (Si and Ge), and a couple of Op-Amps in there - and it does sound less fizzy than a DS-1!

I have never gigged it, nor would I ever, but it's ecome my 'guilty pleasure' pedal... 

[deadastronaut]

Whats the worst effect you ever bought? Play with?

hmmm...anything built by me...

[newfish]

EHX Nano Clone should have a dis-honourable mention here, I feel.

Snagged one cheap on eBay the other day, as I was trying to save space on my pedal board.

I played it twice, looked inside it, and decided to sell it on.

There's a phenomenal amount of 'hiss' present with the effect engaged.

Tweaking the two on-board trim-pots ((mark where they're set first!) Trim One is the delay 'sweet spot', and Trim Two is the 'depth', I think...) did nothing to reduce this issue.

...and despite only needing 10mA to run (I measured it), this one pedal takes down my otherwise stable Power Supply (and I mean 'takes it *down* - nothing works - even the simple, economical Boosters). I even checked for shorts in my Nano at this point.

Replcing the Nano with my Tonepad Small Clone (bigger case, but waaaay better) was the way forwards.

Sure the Nanos are cheap, *really* sturdy, and made by one of the most (deservedly) trusted of companies, but the Nano, for me is a 'No-no'.

Too noisy, and does not play well with others.

Don't wish to seem like I'm ragging on EHX - I have a couple of their other devices (Muffs!), and they're amazing, but this one product is, sadly, disappointing.

[CynicalMan]

Ummm... The nano clone is positive ground. You can't daisy-chain it with negative ground pedals or it will short your power supply. Electro-Harmonix shouldn't have made it that way but I think that many of the issues are caused by people daisy-chaining it and breaking it or their power supply

[newfish]

Ummm... The nano clone is positive ground. You can't daisy-chain it with negative ground pedals or it will short your power supply. Electro-Harmonix shouldn't have made it that way but I think that many of the issues are caused by people daisy-chaining it and breaking it or their power supply

Really?  *Positive ground*?  But it's the 21st Century!   

That would explain a thing or two then.  The adapter polarity is 'standard' - which is what threw me, I guess.

Still, it's too noisy to be of any serious use - even powered by a Battery - which is a shame because the effect itself is warm and lush.

<still astonished by the positive ground construtcion>

You live, you learn...  Thanks for the heads-up, CynicalMan...

[Projectile]

Ummm... The nano clone is positive ground. You can't daisy-chain it with negative ground pedals or it will short your power supply. Electro-Harmonix shouldn't have made it that way but I think that many of the issues are caused by people daisy-chaining it and breaking it or their power supply

Really?  *Positive ground*?  But it's the 21st Century!   

Yeah, why on earth would they do that?! Are they trying to get people to destroy their gear? Am I missing some benefit? This seems incredibly pointless and stupid.

[deadastronaut]

positive?...

no wonder a friend said his one was dodgy..weird....i didnt see it though to confirm it.......

edit: hold on..this one?..looks tip neg to me... .. click on pic..

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tNu78SMKH6I/TUk2T59AIfI/AAAAAAAAEY0/mEzXbupMtXw/s1600/EHX%2BNano%2BClone.JPG&imgrefurl=http://theguitaraddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/selling-ehx-nano-clone.html&usg=__sS5jcl_HMzQuhISw6CRBVByxuu8=&h=518&w=400&sz=81&hl=en&start=10&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GlxHkNqv1N9SvM:&tbnh=131&tbnw=101&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dehx%2Bnano%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1799%26bih%3D930%26tbm%3Disch&ei=swoaTtPSFYLOhAfWyqTMBQ

[Projectile]

positive?...

no wonder a friend said his one was dodgy..weird....i didnt see it though to confirm it.......

edit: hold on..this one?..looks tip neg to me... .. click on pic..

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tNu78SMKH6I/TUk2T59AIfI/AAAAAAAAEY0/mEzXbupMtXw/s1600/EHX%2BNano%2BClone.JPG&imgrefurl=http://theguitaraddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/selling-ehx-nano-clone.html&usg=__sS5jcl_HMzQuhISw6CRBVByxuu8=&h=518&w=400&sz=81&hl=en&start=10&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GlxHkNqv1N9SvM:&tbnh=131&tbnw=101&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dehx%2Bnano%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1799%26bih%3D930%26tbm%3Disch&ei=swoaTtPSFYLOhAfWyqTMBQ

Yeah, the terminals are the same as every other Boss type PSU (negative tip), which makes it even worse because people are likely to just connect it to their regular daisy chain. The problem is that the positive terminal is connected to ground rather than the negative terminal, so it shorts your PSU if you try to daisy chain it on another supply. It needs to have it's own separate power supply and there is no easy way around it. I couldn't believe it when I read it here, but then you search the internet and all you get are people complaining and mass amounts of confusion. They make no effort to make this fact clear in the manual, and you have people shorting out their power supplies all over the world becasue of it. I'm sure it has caused plenty of damage to gear. This is beyond stupid, almost to the point of gross negligence on the part of EHX. My respect for that company just dropped a big notch.  I can't see any reason for this.  Just flat out horrible design decision.

[deadastronaut]

weird!...

[Govmnt_Lacky]

So why does the picture that Rob linked show it as a Center-negative setup 

[nexekho]

I sort of didn't buy it but built it... well, it was my Dad's idea.  I blame him.  :]  At the time I was using an acoustic with a retrofit pickup through a terrible amp and we figured, why not try building our own distortion!  It consists of a stereo headphone preamp kit with one output looped back to the other input so you get two-stage gain.  We also tried to add diode clipping but we bought the wrong diodes and overdrove them until they broke.  Recently I found the board in a drawer alongside the project box, battery connector, 3.5mm jacks and a switch.  Finished it off, dubbed it:


Listen here!  Note the "fart" noise it sometimes makes when sliding fingers up the strings to reach the next power chord.
http://soundcloud.com/nexekho/awful-drive

And, err, I use it now.  Not to any great degree but if added softly to the end of the effects chain it adds a very subtle harsh edge to the tone which I kinda like.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Listen here!  Note the "fart" noise it sometimes makes when sliding fingers up the strings to reach the next power chord.
http://soundcloud.com/nexekho/awful-drive

CHOP YOUR BREAKFAST ON A MIRROR!!!!......