worst commercial stompbox design

[knealebrown]

I don't own one, but Morley wah pedals. They are GIGANTIC!

Add most of the older EHX line to that pile. Wasted enclosure space means wasted board space to me. They did it with gusto.

But EHX stuff looks so damn good  morley pedals are big AND boring

[Tonemonger]

I once had to repair one of the early Boss multi-effects boards ( ME-5 perhaps ?) that had taken a stage dive.
Simple enough repair as all I had to do was pop some buttons back up and replace a board mounted socket.
I just remember that it involved 43 screws ! -I needed a bigger lid or ashtray to hold them all !

[jkokura]

I never thought of jacks on the bottom!  it would be awesome if you're as pedantic about neatness as me.  I can't wait to get a pedaltrain, or make one based on their design, and when i do i'll consider putting the jacks on the bottom, imagine that - no cables!  just pedal after pedal     thanks for the idea.

http://img713.imageshack.us/i/img0918og.jpg/

@philbinator, I didn't want to re-post the image, as it's already in the pedalboard picture thread, but you can go look at this version of my pedalboard (which is constantly changing). This shows you how it's easy to get tonnes of pedals on when you use top jacks (bottom jacks would be the same). I honestly have a hard time powering everything because I can get so many pedals on my Pedaltrain 2 with jacks on the 'top' rather than the sides! Notice how much more room the boss pedals take up with the side jacks compared to the 1590BB's, 125B's, and 1790NS in the bottom row.

@RG, thank you for understanding my intent. It is truly about personal preference. I love Visual Sounds as a company, you have fantastic products, and I will never disparage the contents of the pedals - they sound good, are workhorse quality, and engineered by the best in the Biz!!!?!

I will say that, along with the goofy design shape, I think it's funny that you didn't go for jacks on top with those big double pedals. They seem like prime candidates for it.

Also, Chief Engineer of a one man engineering team sounds remarkably like you're living out childhood dreams of being like Scotty on the Enterprise...

I watched the Tubescreamer blind test, actually I watched all of those videos on You Tube. I thought to myself during the blind test that you must have had a huge hand in that design, especially considering how much info I have read on your website that seems to show up in practice on that Tubescreamer clone Visual Sound has released. Kudos and such, I think it's a great step to have the only pedal beat out the VS one be that Klon.

Jacob

[MikeH]

I don't own one, but Morley wah pedals. They are GIGANTIC!

Add most of the older EHX line to that pile. Wasted enclosure space means wasted board space to me. They did it with gusto.

Sad but true.  I have a small 'collection' of older EHX stuff.  I love the pedals, but I can never justify the amount of pedal board real estate they take up enough to actually put one on my board.  Except the smaller guys; Holy Grail, Small Stone/Clone, etc

[Paul Marossy]

I don't own one, but Morley wah pedals. They are GIGANTIC!

Add most of the older EHX line to that pile. Wasted enclosure space means wasted board space to me. They did it with gusto.

But EHX stuff looks so damn good  morley pedals are big AND boring

I would love to have the original version of the EH POG on my pedalboard, but it would take up 25% of the available area I have to use. 

[jkokura]

 I would love to have the original version of the EH POG on my pedalboard, but it would take up 25% of the available area I have to use. 
[/quote]

I'd way rather have that POG 2. I saw a guy who was using an original POG in series with a Boss RV-3 Reverb on full wet in using a mini blender to blend the original signal back in - super cool effect, very ambient and keyboard pad like. I think it'd be even cooler to through a delay in there too.

Jacob

[walker]

@jkokura  I think RG meant the bottom, as in the underside, in other words the side you put the velcro on.   Which I think is an amazing idea.  I have a slotted riser (made of wood, i built myself) on my pedalboard, and I wish I heard that idea sooner!   I would design all of my pedals in conjunction with designing the pedal board itself.    That could quickly turn into something like a pete cornish/david gilmour thing. 

Actually, I want to redesign my riser with acrylic instead of wood.  Maybe I should learn how to rehouse all of my boss pedals..... oh man so many ideas swirling in my head now, which I'll never actually do! 

[R.G.]

... hmmm...
if it's for your personal pedalboard, maybe put 1/8" inch phone jacks on the bottom plate in parallel with the 1/4" jacks that already exist. They're smaller, and can be installed in addition to the existing ones, maybe.

[Paul Marossy]

I'd way rather have that POG 2. I saw a guy who was using an original POG in series with a Boss RV-3 Reverb on full wet in using a mini blender to blend the original signal back in - super cool effect, very ambient and keyboard pad like. I think it'd be even cooler to through a delay in there too.

Jacob

I haven't tried it. I just know it's a very cool effect.

[petemoore]

  Effects don't sound by themselves.    

[knealebrown]

 The only thing I've heard effects boxes sound like is a clicking tone.
 But I actually heard an effect circuit in a dream once.
 During waking hours though, the only times I hear effect circuits is when I have an amplifier driving a speaker, sometimes it is a very clean amplifier and I feel that most of what I'm hearing is 'just' the effect.
 Other times it's through a small tube amp and these tones are very fun to play through, at these times it is very difficult to determine how close to reality my thoughts on where the 'effect' is coming from, the 'effect' or the amp or speaker.
 Then I'll often plug in a guitar with a different number of coils per pickup, often a middle switch setting with guitar volumes cut back...it gets complicated here, treble bleed caps on vols, volumes 'balanced' so the bridge pickup 'gonks' during attacks, then there's a rolling towards bridge as the string finds a sympathetic swing.
 When I switch amps, or guitars, the effects that 'work' or just 'sound bad' tend to switch places.
 To feel secure in saying an effect is on any scale, knowing exactly why it 'just sounds bad' is not only empowering [find one that sounds good, or fix the 'bad' one], but makes it easier to define 'bad'.
 "Bad":
 Wah Pots
 Junky jacks precariously placed in pcb's
 Transformer in the line...becomes the 'hammock' weight.
 Plastic shaft knobs 1'' tall, all across the dufus designed front of the Fender mixer/amp/PA...let meee look over the designs, fellas.
 "Good": Track record proves it reliably peforms the intended functions [or sometimes when the keen eye spots design foresight and excellence].
   

sorry pete, i never understand a word you say, although strangely enough i get the feeling you have a endless amount of electronics knowledge 

[Hides-His-Eyes]

I don't own one, but Morley wah pedals. They are GIGANTIC!

Add most of the older EHX line to that pile. Wasted enclosure space means wasted board space to me. They did it with gusto.

I've got a gutshot of a Behringer VM1 somewhere on here and MY GOD is that enclosure empty. If you're gonna use surface mount components to make things cheaply, you can at least scale the enclosure appropriately. If it wasnt for the knobs they could fit that circuit in a BB (probably most people here could even with the knobs) but it's in an EHX old style case.

[petemoore]

  Many similar statements start with something like "It just sounds bad".
 Keyword which denotes missing subcontext being "sound".
 Effects need amp, speaker and guitar to 'sound, this alone implies that relevant, important to 'sound' context is missing or partial.
 Mostly missing context, it is very easy to just say ''this tire sucks" without stating whether it is downtown bug missions, high speed bumpy corner racing, very high speed racing, or truck shipments involved with ''the tire'' usage.
 When partial-context, a very detailed account of amplifer, speaker, guitar, settings, cabinet type and everything else that ''it sounds'' require.
 When reading about 'a tire' and wondering about the needed contexts to understand anything about the tire usage, I assign the same relevance to 'it' when it refers to the sound someone is hearing through some stuff which is making it sound that way.
 Could very well be the treble control or the speaker limitations make 'it' sound bad, my contention is that since there is no relevant context to most of these 'complaints, it is just as easy for me to think there's more than likely someone who is say, getting a very likable, smooth sounding Fuzz with a 'sponge effect' they might say "sounds absolutely fabulous".
 One persons "Bad sounding" it is another persons 1rst string go to Fuzz.
 This is definitely true of distortions, Fuzzface in particular, but I've seen sounds bad tags put on about 1/2 of them from time to time.
 Just sayin' it's really no matter, [and even with an attempt to subcontext, things like room, surfaces, recording methods...countless scenarios such as a booster in front of the Green Ringer, or setting the input levels of an envelope filter to even make it sound like it 'works'..get left out of the reference to 'it', an effect] for me to just say any time you read 'it sucks' or it just sounds bad, a grain of salt is probably a bit heavy on the creedence, without at least an attempt at capturing a lions share of the rediculously detailed and thorough subcontexts, I find it easy to just say 'probably doesn't suck'.
 Understanding the actual circuit shortcoming in a specific application and scenario is where 'it sucks' would tend toward having measurable 'weight' [IME], or "isn't optimally set up for", or is simply "an inferior design by existing standard".
  Anything less, to my reading skill, is simply truck tires on a bug or some other vehicle, my apoligies to any bug or other vehicle desiner/owners for the analogy.

[philbinator1]

@philbinator, I didn't want to re-post the image, as it's already in the pedalboard picture thread, but you can go look at this version of my pedalboard (which is constantly changing). This shows you how it's easy to get tonnes of pedals on when you use top jacks (bottom jacks would be the same). I honestly have a hard time powering everything because I can get so many pedals on my Pedaltrain 2 with jacks on the 'top' rather than the sides! Notice how much more room the boss pedals take up with the side jacks compared to the 1590BB's, 125B's, and 1790NS in the bottom row.

wow i see what you mean!  maybe i'll look into starting to do that next build.  what patch cables do you use?  i use hot lines, and they are generally too long and get in the way.

[knealebrown]

wow i see what you mean!  maybe i'll look into starting to do that next build.  what patch cables do you use?  i use hot lines, and they are generally too long and get in the way.

D.I.Y your own, much better than buying some.

[Paul Marossy]

wow i see what you mean!  maybe i'll look into starting to do that next build.  what patch cables do you use?  i use hot lines, and they are generally too long and get in the way.

D.I.Y your own, much better than buying some.

I've done that before. Especially when I want something to be an exact length and/or configuration.

[philbinator1]

wow i see what you mean!  maybe i'll look into starting to do that next build.  what patch cables do you use?  i use hot lines, and they are generally too long and get in the way.

D.I.Y your own, much better than buying some.

I've done that before. Especially when I want something to be an exact length and/or configuration.

i ended up doing that with some hot lines patch cables the other day...will probably just do it to most of the others.  i don't like how i have to squish them in between pedals so the aren't flailing all around the place 

[jkokura]

wow i see what you mean!  maybe i'll look into starting to do that next build.  what patch cables do you use?  i use hot lines, and they are generally too long and get in the way.

D.I.Y your own, much better than buying some.

+1. I generally use Canare GS-6 and American Neutrik Plugs. I would be happy using a Lava Cable kit too, but when you work out the cost, I save a few bucks going my way. I think it works out to be about 16-18 dollars (Canadian) a cable with Lava Cables, and about 12-14 with the Canare and Neutrik. I would love to find a solderable plug the size of the George L's/Lava Cable plugs - just for the sheer difference in size compared to the Massive Neutrik plugs. It would be way easier routing and assembling a pedal board.

Perhaps I should just offer up all my patch cables at 10 bucks a piece and invest in 15-20 Lava Cables... But that's 3-4 kits!

Jacob

[Ronsonic]

What is good, bad? RG is wise to ask for definitions. But, I think there are some general, if not universal criteria.

Every design is a compromise, a trade-off between competing goods. The traditional triangle of "good, cheap or fast; pick two"  is the usual expression. For us it might be "toneful (as subjective as that is), rugged, inexpensive."

But, whatever desiderata relate to a class of products or are personal to you, it's inevitable that trade-offs be made. It isn't the compromises that make for bad design, it's like any other question of taste, you can't really blame someone for having different priorities than you. I mean that's a good thing, otherwise we'd all be trying to date the same girl   and only one pedal of each type would ever sell on ebay and the price would be thousands  . So it isn't the compromises that make for crap design. It's the stuff that is bad in every possible way, and for no particular reason that is bad.  

Sure trading off price for durability makes sense for a guy who's on a budget and isn't even sure if he wants a particular class of pedals. But there's no reason for it to sound bad, since it takes just as many parts to make a good one as a bad one. Good buffers and switchers don't cost more than bad ones. Now, maybe from the corporate POV a good trade-off was struck "yeah, this one contract designer wanted 60K on a 12 month deal and we just hired someone direct for less and fired him when it was done anyway." But I'll just declare that bottom-feeding and reject it. Good design with intelligent trade-offs doesn't cost that much more.

Anyway, bad is bad and defines itself.

[jkokura]

I don't disagree with you, but I think the point of this thread is less "what is bad/good design" and more "what bugs you about specific commercial pedals."

We all need to realize why pedals out there suck, but I really dislike how marketing has taken place over good design.

Jacob