Ever built a pedal that didn't fit your playing style?

[Chris S]

Hello all,

For the past few years I've been trying to build a perfect fuzz face having been such a fan of many guitarists - Hendrix through to the Black Keys - that have used it. I've built a couple of germanium based fuzzes and the highly interchangeable "many faces of fuzz" from Run Off Groove (ROG). Then on a whim after nostalgically listening to some Stevie Ray Vaughn I built ROG's Tubes Reamer. I felt like I'd come home. This was it this was the sound I should have been going for all this time. I think it's probably because I learnt to play on a not so great sounding ts-10 and for a while I have been listening to some great fuzz players and trying to emulate their sound. However, no matter how much I love their sound it just doesn't "fit" my playing but the TS does, particularly ROG's Tube Reamer. I had a similar experience with delay pedals many years ago too. So I started thinking who else has built a pedal that sounded right but just didn't fit their playing style?

I debated wether I should post this or not as I'm sure the answer would be yes for lots of people but I am kind of interested to hear the stories.

Thanks.

[Scruffie]

I think it has to be a right of passage while your finding yourself, I've still got the bad Marshall amp & bad guitars from when I was finding myself when learning cause I've never been able to afford to upgrade them, thankfully since then I've made my own guitars (even though I now only own my favourite of the lot, had to sell the rest  ) but even that was a rocky process that took alot of touching up... & I still only have the crappy practice amp and no nice tube amp to play on.

I think a common thing is to immitate an artists equipment that you like and I really think while it seems to make perfect sense, this isn't the way to go, just an example using the obvious not that this happen but it could be that I could love playing hendrix and bought a strat but then it turned out that a les paul made it easier for me to play it and I think the same applies to effects... you need to find your own tone and own feel and that can take a long time and alot of mistakes... then again there are those annoying people who can take something terribly and make it sound great... but I try to pretend there not there...

Not quite pedal based but following my ideas on the concept, I don't think i've build enough to decide yet, the 2 pedals I am most happy with though have to be the micro pog... even though I didn't make that (even if I didn't have a guitar to use it with i'd still keep it) and my dr boogey... and technically my highly modded GCB-95 wah & my java boost... but thats another story, I try to be as careful as I can when commiting to a build to make sure i'l be happy with the tone, but it's not always gunna end well.

Just my highly extensive £0.02

[Paul Marossy]

I've built several things that didn't really fit my playing style. It took several years to weed thru things that work for me from the things that don't work for me.

[Taylor]

Since I started building a modular synth/effects thing, I've built lots of stuff I'll probably never use. Since I have a lot of parts around, and my case format is just one big box, it's really easy to perf a circuit up, mount it on the panel, and try it out. I don't have to use 3PDTs or individual enclosures for each circuit, so there's not much to lose in trying something out.

In particular, I don't really use much distortion/OD/fuzz, but I've built several and plan to build a few more. I think of it this way: at some point, maybe, for example, the glitchy sound of the Random Number Generator will be exactly what I need, even if just for that one moment. Why not have it available? If I was building in Hammond boxes with stomp switches, though, I'd be a little more conservative.

[neilnil]

I have 20 different dirt boxes I've built so far and play a hollow body archtop straight to amp most of the time...
My next build would be Clari(not).
Jun

[edd101]

i've built FoxxTone Machine about 2 years ago, when i was in a grunge band and i had no need for it at that time! But everything changes and now i started to experiment with the sound, so at present it is my No1 fuzz/octave pedal!!! the only pedal that was built just for fun is guv'nor

btw i'm still looking for the perfect fuzz

Cheers,
Ed

[newfish]

Yes.  Four Fuzz Pedals in *, I suddenly understood what all the 'Rangemaster' fuss was about.

Three variations ** later, I'm finally happy with a JFET booster into a 30W Valve amp (maybe using 11s on my Telecaster help too)..

I sometimes forget I own anything else.  It just sits there and works - and sounds great - to the point where everything else (Delay, Tremolo, Pitch Shifter etc) go on a bypass loop.





*Ge Face. Si Face. Tonebender. Home-spun Si.
** Ge Rangemaster.  High gain Si RM.  Home-spun Si. JFET Boost.

[petemoore]

  I have a pile of fuzz/od/distortion boards that became 'salvage' boards.
  Also I've had fuzzboxes that sit around being 'second' or third, that all of a sudden become my #1 fuzz. All it takes is something else to change, and the box that was dirty socks all of a sudden locks in a certain sound like you'd never expect it to.
  Very similar experiences with guitars too. Strat for instance, great clean, but being a HB>distortion user for so long, well a Strat is just a steeper learning or luck curve and doesnt just 'do' nice easy fat distortion right into the box [of course the boxes were tweeked with HB's].
  The Tele laid around here for more than a year before I discovered the ways it can do so well what it does, and become my #1 for 'wide pallette' use.
 

[Andi]

Quite a few fuzzes, but all for other people. I can't quite "work" them in the way that others can.

[Thomeeque]

Omnidrive

[The Iron Chef]

Oh Boy! Yes.
The past year or two I have built a lot of circuits and pedals and have learned a LOT. Except how to play guitar. fml  I am getting better tho.


-Keith

[connie_c]

my problem was that i used to buy pedals that didnt fit my playing style, building something i dont use still feels good to me.

[chuckmoose]

It's the opposite for me.  I have been searching for a fuzz for some time now, trying to find something I could uze and I could not find anything that fit my style at all.  Recently I built this "guy":


and now I'm a fuzz user.  This was a case of modifying a pedal design until it finally worked for me.  It's still very much a fuzz, but just different enough that it fits my distinctly non-fuzz style.

[vondran]

Actually all of my builds have ended up not being used.  I've built a few TS and a Ross compressor.   I tweaked things endlessly to get the absolute best sound of out each.  In the end I discovered I was only using the TS for a clean boost and always had the compressor off.  It was well worth it because I fully understand what I can get out of these pedals.  Much better than if I just bought a pedal. 

[liddokun]

Apart from my ts808, all the pedals I've ever built, I actually don't use. I just like to build things. 

[Mugshot]

wow, in my case i seem to like all fuzzes i have built. if i dont like it at first (like in the case of some pretty low gain fuzzes and sometimes the FF), i try to find a way to eventually use it. come on, some variation in your tones wont hurt 

so far i really like a tweaked FF silicon circuit ive just built (sweet!). and - gasp! - a Mosrite Fuzz rite.

[Chris S]

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

Mugshot re: "some variation in your tones" you'll be glad to know I'm all for it. In fact I do still have a germanium fuzz face on my board it's just got a 500k volume pot infront of it to give it a stonesish crunchy sound rather than the classic wailing fuzz sound. It's a setting I use a fair bit and would never have discovered it if I wasn't searching for that illusive fuzz sound that I'm yet to find 

[Mugshot]

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

Mugshot re: "some variation in your tones" you'll be glad to know I'm all for it. In fact I do still have a germanium fuzz face on my board it's just got a 500k volume pot infront of it to give it a stonesish crunchy sound rather than the classic wailing fuzz sound. It's a setting I use a fair bit and would never have discovered it if I wasn't searching for that illusive fuzz sound that I'm yet to find 

haha, the very first time i built my first fuzz i knew this was what i was chasing for. to specifically weed out which fuzz tone i like best, i decided to build other circuits. so far i have been liking what i have been hearing.


ive yet to build a pedal that wont suit my playing style. and im guessing it's either an OD or an all-out Distortion. idk, just not a big fan, i realized, although i have a Rat copy and a Sparkle Drive clone and i like them a lot, but i think the next OD wont give me a big fat hard on the way fuzzes do.

[ode2no1]

when it comes to building i'm pretty stupid in that out of the 9 or so pedals i've made in the last few months i knew that only one of them was actually going to be useful to me. the rest i just built because i think they're cool haha. it's silly. i think getting that many pedals built up in like 2 months got the "cool" factor of certain circuits out of my system though and now i can focus on making stuff that could potentially replace some current pedals on my board.

[Strategy]

I built a Blue Clipper because I liked the Orange Squeezer and figured that other stuff from that Dan Armstrong design series was probably cool. I couldn't get into it, so I brought it to my heavy-playing friend who has a Sunn head/Orange cab setup, really roaring sound. He's enjoying it a ton. He's making that pedal worth the work.

Building the pedal was less about achieving the useable sound for myself, and more just about enjoying the process of building it for its own sake. The only projects I've regretted are a few of the ones which I just could not debug. I'd rather build something and know that someone in my group of friends will get use out of it, if not me, than build something and have it be a complete dud. Happily I can say that there's only one thing that really fits this category (not a pedal, a synth thing)

- Strategy