How often do you A/B in a store?

[Mark Hammer]

I had the pleasure of hosting a "pedal party" this past weekend, with three very pleasant guys, who brought over their gear.  Given the sheer number of pedals I have, it turned out to be more my gear than theirs that we fired up, but it started to get interesting when we were able to  plug in several pedals at once and A/B them to hear the differences.

It occurred to me that I simply could not recall ANY time in the past 35 years when I had gone into a store, and asked to try out two or more pedals at once so that I could compare them.  Maybe that was more a question of the number of available patch cords, or the availability of a working battery in both pedals to be tried, than it was glares from sales staff.  With the glut of redundant (though occasionally innovative and unique) pedals out there, it struck me that things like "pedal parties", where several people get together to collectively compare pedals from different manufacturers or with different mods, could be a very advantageous and instructive thing.  Given how many players seem to be flashing boutique pedals on their boards which typically don't show up at the local music store, it prompts one to wonder, "Just exactly how different IS my DOD Bad Monkey from a pricier TS derivative?", "Is the Danelectro French Toast really a Foxx Tone Machine in a cheap box?",  "Packaging aside, how do the FAB pedals compare soundwise to their pricier sturdier-packaged counterparts?".  These are the sorts of questions, and legitimate musings, that one ought to be able to put to the test in relaxed unbiased surroundings.

So, is it just me, or do other people find themselves typically trying out pedals one at a time in stores?

[96ecss]

Back when I used to buy pedals in stores, I would always A/B two or more of them. The guys at my local store didn't mind because they knew I was serious and not just a tire kicker. On more than one occasion, I ended up buying a different pedal than the one I originally wanted. I also would ask them if I could take two pedals home and try them with my equipment. I would take them to band practice and hear how they sounded with my band too. The store would charge my credit card for both pedals and then refund the money for the one I returned. They would usually give me three days to return the pedal I didn't want for a full refund. I did that with guitars and amps too. It helps to have a good working relationship with your local music store.

Dave

[DiamondDog]

Absolutely agree.

Lucky we dont have big music chain stores with millions of items like walmarts or whatever you call them over here, because, part two of your rumination- how many people try it in a shop with nothing like their own gear?

If I try a pedal out, it is with one of my guitars, and if I can't have one of my amps, preferably with something remotely like my amps. I'm not talking about bringing in my entire rig, but want to know about pedal when it's surrounded with tones I know. So one guitar and one jammin' amp is de rigeur. Take of 73% for the lousy acoustics in the shop, and that's my starting point.

Which is another point too- the acoustics in a shop are not representative of you bedroom/studio/club gig/stadium. I prefer to grab one of their 'quiet rooms' and listen in there.

Lucky I'm known in the stores around here, isn't it (for positive reasons... ). And they have good parking.

[iaresee]

So, is it just me, or do other people find themselves typically trying out pedals one at a time in stores?

How often do I even A at a store? Seriously: I rarely, if at all, plug in to stuff at stores. Not amps. Not guitars. Not pedals. Not unless the store has a little room with a door I can hide away in (like the 12th Fret or Lauzon's). It's useless to try and demo stuff in the din and chaos of a mainstream music store like Steve's or L&M. If I'm buying from one of them I'll read online, make up my mind, buy it, keep in mint and use their return policy for credit if I don't like it. Case in point: I've got a Carbon Copy on order from Steve's. Never heard it. Never played it. Won't even attempt to try it out there before handing over my cash. Those stores are just setup to be uncomfortable.

Actually, interesting tangent here: I picked up a guitar from Lauzon's on Friday where it was in a for a big setup. It was an LP Special and it needed a neck tweak to fix the string buzz on the higher strings and I'm just not comfortable turning truss rods. The guy plugged me in to a Suhr Badger in the back room to check the setup and stupid, stupid me: I let him dial it in with a little overdrive. The guitar felt good but it wasn't until I got it home and played in on a spanking clean amp that I realized the buzz was still there. Argh. I blame it on my inherent nervousness whenever I'm forced to play in a music store. I rushed checking the setup because it's uncomfortable to sit down and play in a store.

[kurtlives]

So, is it just me, or do other people find themselves typically trying out pedals one at a time in stores?

How often do I even A at a store? Seriously: I rarely, if at all, plug in to stuff at stores. Not amps. Not guitars. Not pedals. Not unless the store has a little room with a door I can hide away in (like the 12th Fret or Lauzon's). It's useless to try and demo stuff in the din and chaos of a mainstream music store like Steve's or L&M. If I'm buying from one of them I'll read online, make up my mind, buy it, keep in mint and use their return policy for credit if I don't like it. Case in point: I've got a Carbon Copy on order from Steve's. Never heard it. Never played it. Won't even attempt to try it out there before handing over my cash. Those stores are just setup to be uncomfortable.

Actually, interesting tangent here: I picked up a guitar from Lauzon's on Friday where it was in a for a big setup. It was an LP Special and it needed a neck tweak to fix the string buzz on the higher strings and I'm just not comfortable turning truss rods. The guy plugged me in to a Suhr Badger in the back room to check the setup and stupid, stupid me: I let him dial it in with a little overdrive. The guitar felt good but it wasn't until I got it home and played in on a spanking clean amp that I realized the buzz was still there. Argh. I blame it on my inherent nervousness whenever I'm forced to play in a music store. I rushed checking the setup because it's uncomfortable to sit down and play in a store.

They have terrible grounding issues...One of the guys there was telling me about it. Has to do with the subway running under there or something. I like that store, good pedals. Not just your boring old Boss and Ibanez. You in Toronto?

[iaresee]

They have terrible grounding issues...One of the guys there was telling me about it. Has to do with the subway running under there or something. I like that store, good pedals. Not just your boring old Boss and Ibanez. You in Toronto?

Who? The Fret? I'd buy that. I plugged in an old BFDR with a 2-prong one afternoon when I was amp shopping and it was humming like crazy. Actually turned me off the amp! Bought a Koch that day from them instead. Clearly I had no idea what I was looking for if I started out BFDR and ended up Koch. They don't usually stock a lot of pedals, but what they have is nice, if not overpriced. I love The Fret for the used guitars and the amps (for those of you not familiar with The 12th Fret in Toronto check out http://www.12fret.com/used/ -- you'll be hooked in no time -- or check out the solid body section: http://www.12fret.com/used/index.html#SOLIDBODY -- '60's lefty Teles, original gold top LPs, 50's LP Jr.'s, it's nuts...). And they have the best guitar repair shop of any store I've ever used -- just an incredibly long wait time to get stuff done.

I used to live in The Beach and they were right on my way to and from work at Woodbine Station -- deadly bad on pay day. But we moved to Ottawa last summer. Still kind of reeling from the shock of that move...

[DougH]

I can't remember the last time I plugged in a distortion pedal at a store for the purpose of checking it out. (I have plugged in distortions to add some grit when checking out, say, a flanger or something.) It probably hasn't been since I was 15 and checked out a Big Muff Pi. I was in a guitar center the other day and was almost tempted to try out a BOR and OCD, just out of curiosity. Then I thought, "Nawwww... I've got better things to do with my time today".

(edit: Actually now that I think about it, I did try out an sd-1 and one of those zach wylde mxr d+ things out of curiosity once- forgot about those...)

I do think that people tend to fall in love with idea of one thing and want to check it out, to the exclusion of others. And I agree that A/B-ing would be an eye-opening experience for a lot of people. I suspect if there was a lot more of that there would be a lot less "boutique mystique". But hey, we can't have that... What am I saying? That's crazy talk!

[jasonsmusicgear]

"Just exactly how different IS my DOD Bad Monkey from a pricier TS derivative?",

Hi Mark, just curious if you have an answer to this question.  I also have a Bad Monkey and was wondering if building a TS would be much better or not.

Jason

[Mark Hammer]

Well the answer is, I don't know.  What I do know is that whenever people start yacking about Tbe Screamers and derivatives, somebody often pops up indicating that they like their Bad Monkey pedal.  Apparently, it seeks the same market.  That does not necessarily mean it uses the same basic structure (although who knows), just that it is intended to appeal to the folks who might like that sort of sound.

The question arises, has anyone ever A/B'd a Bad Monkey and Tube Screamer derivative?

[Mick Bailey]

In the UK Sounds Great at Heald Green (South of Manchester) will let you A/B pedals. I actually buy stuff from them, which helps. They have lots of rare, interesting (expensive!) pedals as well as more commonplace items. Avoid Saturdays.

[sshrugg]

I can't ever demo music gear in the store.  All we have is imperial superstores like Sam Ash and Guitar Center around here.  It's insanely noisy, the staff doesn't want to help, and you can't hear what you're demoing over all the kids trying to plunk out "Crazy Train" or "Smoke on the Water".  It sucks.  I've gone into the store on several occasions with the intention to hear how this pedal compares to that, and it never worked out.  Especially now that so many stores have seperate displays for different pedal brands, and are not willing to pull one out of the box    The last time I got to demo a pedal for comparison was the Small Stone 5 years ago.  I wanted to test the Russian and the New York re-issues side by side.

I was really bummed I couldn't be at your pedal party, Mark.  It's a long trip from Chicago 

[afrogoose]

Well, I'm slowly adding more pedals to my setup and I find that through the years I've gone looking for a specific type of effect.  Like for example if I was looking to buy a tremolo, I would go and play as many tremolo's as I could find.  There are a few nice music stores in Boston so I would go and A/B ones in the store, as well as playing any models that a friend might have.  I'm sort of a deadbeat though, because I would usually try about 5 pedals out in a store and then go home and buy the one I liked off of ebay.  I think the big box stores like Guitar Center et al are actually great places to tryout gear, because once you get a salesperson to actually give you an instrument cable, you can pretty much have your run of the store without any further attention.  The downside has always been the aforementioned difficulty getting any attention form a salesperson, and that they didn't always have a great selection of pedals, but they seem to be expanding. 

[JHS]

If you're in a big shop check out 5 Bad Monkeys, TS or whatever and you'll will be surprised how different those FX can sound due to the part tolerances A good reason not to buy pedals online.

JHS

[DougH]

I would say that's a good reason to build your own stuff and breadboard it up first.

[demonstar]

There are loads of guitar shops around where I live and I find most of them are really good.  If you're trying guitars they get a bunch down and set them all up on stands for you so you can easily swap between them as you please. All the pedals are permanently set up ready to AB any of them in one particular shop I've got in mind. Although I've never bought pedals from them, that method appears to make it dead easy to compare pedals. There are so many guitar shops around where I live, I never have to deal with poor service. If one just isn't cutting it I just walk out and go to the next. The shops are very aware of all the competition which leads to the good service such as the permanently set up pedal boards etc. They do all they can to offer good service. They ask what amp you'd like to use and will put you through virtually whatever you have at home. I don't inconvenience them to do this usually unless I feel it's necessary for the comparison but it's nice for them to offer.

With my experiences with the above I must ask how long must it take you to decide on the best purchase without direct comparisons via the AB method. I couldn't cope. AB is essential. In terms of guitar everything should be at your side to AB to your hearts content. 

I can't imagine not AB-ing any guitar, pedal or amp before purchase.

[afrogoose]

If you're in a big shop check out 5 Bad Monkeys, TS or whatever and you'll will be surprised how different those FX can sound due to the part tolerances A good reason not to buy pedals online.

JHS

This is true.  A while back I started thinking that my Fulldrive was sounding a bit off, so I started A/Bing it against other Fulldrives, and they all sounded a bit different.  I was actually pretty dismayed by this because I'm already a bit OCD as it is, and I didn't want to fall further down the rabbit hole of "perfect tone."   

[frank_p]

Hi Mark,
The only time I a/b-ed two pedals, it was for buying an overdrive.  At that time I did not have any stompbox of that flavor and was very perplex about what overdrive to choose.  I remember that I kept reading the October 1992 Guitar Player Magazine where they evaluated 31 distortions.  In this article they referred to The TS-9 as a calibration point, basically a standard.  ALL THE BOSS AND DOD OVERDRIVES had bad points in the paper in question.  So from that magazine perspective, the only option was the Tubescreamer.  When I went to the store I asked the saleman if I could try the TS and if there were any other options.  So the guy gave me A Zoom Powerdrive.  I have played the two side-by-side for two hours through many amps and guitars and at the end I was VERY confused.  I was asking myself, what is similar and what is different between the two boxes in the "fundamental" sound.  I was really mixed.  I remember feeling that the TS-9 was sounding a tad more "bouncy".  A bit like the sound of steel balls knocking at each other or rubbery feeling.  But I remember that the conception of the Zoom was more what I was referring as an overdrive in my mind.  You could go from no distortion with a big volume boost to a sound similar of the TS, and this was a big plus.  You also had Bass and Treble adjustment which was an other point for the flexibility of the effect.  The Zoom box was also different in the look and there was great effort that was putted on the design of the enclosure.  But I really did not know which one to choose because of that slight "rebound" feeling that I had with the TS.  Finally, I ended with the Zoom PD.  And I did not played a lot with it since I have it.  I NEVER found what was corresponding to an "ideal" overdrive.  I bought an used TS-9 latter and I acknowledge that it is a good sound, but I am bored of listening to it on the Classic Rock Radio Station.  It is too conventional for me.

Later I bought a tube preamp (King Tone Generator - Seymour Duncan)  and used it more as an overdrive.  At that time I was playing only with a Les Paul and a Twin Silverface.  So those boxes were "taking away" what I liked about that rig.  The smooth bottom of the Les Paul and the glassy shine of the Silverface.  Since I have other amps and guitars my stompboxes are comming out of the closet.

I like the ROG Prof. Tweed a lot more than those overdrives, even more than the tube preamp.

For Digitech stuff, the only one I have is the Grunge distortion.  I hate the name but I really like the raspy sound I can get out of this thing.

I may a/b tomorrow again.  But what I think is: that all this varies with weather conditions...

[frank_p]

a/b-ed between TS-9 and Zoom Power Drive like said yesterday.  The Zoom is much more clean and flexible.  The TS-9 have more distortion with less tonal and volume flexibility.  So they are on their own territory I guess.  The bad point about the Zoom is that you get more distortion on a very small domain of the drive pot. travel.