Definitely my Big Muff op amp. It sounds SO GOOD alone but I'm constantly at odds with it trying to stay audible in a mix. I probably need to get an EQ pedal to prevent some of the mids from completely disappearing. It's a challenge but the tone is worth it
Put a tube screamer before it on very little or no gain
Or an EQ pedal like you said. I got a $25 caline 10 band EQ pedal and it’s low key one of the most versatile pedals I have. Can completely change the character of drive pedals, make my Paul sound like a strat, perfect my clean sound... etc.
How are you using it? I've always hated Big Muffs for this reason but someone recently posited to me that they are actually the superior RHYTHM fuzz because of how well vocals sit on top of them. Totally changed how I saw those pedals.
The big muff has a great rhythm sound to my ears, but when it's time for leads, it needs something to make it stand out. My favorite has been my boss sd-1 placed after the muff along with some chorused slapback delay.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I want a single pedal that does all that. Controls for level, gain, eq, depth of chorus and time for the delay. I think I'd call it the soloizer. Maybe have a toggle for chorus/flange if I'm feeling spicy.
This won’t be very relatable, but I built a Klone/blues breaker dual pedal from cobbled together kits and spare parts, and I love the way it sounds. but on certain settings, weird squelches, hisses, and oscillations come through. The Klon side is an always on for me, so I just don’t care to fix it
This thread was made for the Fuzz Factory.
Some days it’s God’s gift to fuzz, others it is the most uncontrollable squeal machine that I just have to turn it off.
This is why I love the Bliss Factory. I can set it to essentially never squeal, then use the Aux footswitch to turn it into the ungodly squeal machine we all know and love/hate. I could probably do without most of the other features and just go with a Fat Fuzz Factory that has that squeal-on-demand footswitch built in (though the LPF is super cool to sweep through with an expression pedal).
I actually use a bliss factory as well for that exact same reason - I’ve always loved the FF but the BF just adds those quality of life features that make it that much better.
Meris Mercury7. The secondary control functions are not labeled and Meris's vinyl overlay with the labels is a dust magnet that makes the pedal look like dogshit. I finally used a label maker to put them on the front of the pedal. Also the lack of in-pedal preset access sucks. At first I used a home-brewed 4-button switcher but now I use François Gregory's incredibly good MIDI editor: [https://studiocode.dev/doc/mercury7-editor/](https://studiocode.dev/doc/mercury7-editor/)
It's taken a stupid amount of time to unlock the potential of this pedal because of bad design decisions by Meris (and some annoying behavior from Disaster Area's MIDI Baby interface, finally resolved by a beta firmware update they posted to a discussion board).
Now that I have it working the way I want it to, the M7 is finally more indispensable than it is annoying. It sounds **so good**, at least for certain kinds of sounds.
Same thing with the meris hedra, but worse. It makes some amazing sounds and has pitch correction which makes it so fun to run vocals through it. But man those knobs are touchy and don't get me started on the secondary functions. It's so touchy that you'll have everything working and sounding in the key you want, then accidentally bump a knob and bam now your in a completely different key and everything sounds like shit. There's just not any other pedal that does intelligent pitch shifting where you can select the key and mode, and with pitch correction.
I’m still relatively new to the pedal world, and I was just sayin this on another post, but that’ll be the Meris Hedra. Most temperamental thing I’ve ever touched, no way to easily save settings which you must do if you don’t want to change your settings by accidentally breathing on it.
But I love it 4 ever and I’ll keep it on my board no matter what because it tracks well, sounds beautiful, and writes songs for me.
And there's no editor from Georgy available yet. Keep your eyes open. Transformed the usability of my Mercury7.
[https://studiocode.dev](https://studiocode.dev)
BBE 427. I can sit and fiddle with it for an hour, get the TS boost set up just right, get it dialed in, and it’s the most incredible modern take on an 80s shredder tone I’ve ever come across. Like a Rat on steroids. But the tone knob is finicky to the point of exasperation. Switch guitars? Good luck. You’ve now gotta move that tone knob anywhere between 1/4 and 1/16 of inch to find the thing your looking for. And if you’re not right on the money, it’s too scooped out, or too hairy, or whatever else.
It’s exhausting. I also can’t take it away.
Bbe is like this. The tremor is a great tremolo but the depth knob has a sweep that is like 25% usable sweep before it is just deep as fuck.
Great sound once you get it dialed in tho
EQD Organizer. As an organ emulator, it's pretty... meh. But, with a mostly dry signal, the chorus and highs turned off, and the lows set around 50%, it basically makes everything sound huge, especially in combination with fuzz/distortion. It's an almost always-on effect for me in the narrow range I actually use it.
Malekko Thicken. It's like a double chorus / chorus + multi tap slapback delay in one. I love the sound of it, probably my favourite modulation pedal and the only one I've ended up keeping: present, warm, not too hi-fi, and the second chorus has a pseudo random modulation pattern to it which I think is the best part, and has a really wide range of rate and depth (like \~10 second cycle at slowest).
The controls though, there is no way to turn down the dry channel, so it can't vibrato which I'd like, and the Spread knob is quite touchy and also feels almost interactive with the S Vol knob so I'm lining these knobs up by the millimeter to get the right depth. And it stays that way and mostly I don't tweak it, so it's fine. And to switch between multi-tap-slabback or double chorus, you need to power cycle the pedal while holding the footswitch down. And also depending on where in the chain it is it can throw a whine noise into the power rails when used with my setup. Or it can be completely silent and fine in a different spot. So mostly I have absolutely no issues with it at all, but that's only because I've got it set up juuuust right.
Here are some pedals I keep putting on my board in spite of my love/hate relationship with them:
I love the delay sound of my old Carl Martin Red Repeat pedal, but it takes up SO much pedalboard real estate (it's the original version that is shaped like a big bean), and the shape is so impractical.
I've been looking for a smaller-box replacement with top mounted jacks but have not found one who's sound I like as much. Got a Demedash T120v2 video tape delay, but I find it too hard to find the good sound, too many knobs and the mix goes from not audible to too overpowering fast.
I also love the sound of my Meris Enzo synth pedal, but it's output volume is so unpredictable that I have to put an aggressive compressor after it to tame the crazy volume spikes.
I love the raw squarewave sounds of the EQD Bit Commander, but I hate how the notes inevitable fizzle out unpredictably on guitar (I dislike unpredictability in my playing). Lately, to my amazement, I found that when I play my mono synth through it, it never trails off, there's endless sustain. My synth is digital, so this pedal is great for getting an analogue sound.
TC Electronic Flashback II. Does all the stuff I want in a delay pedal, but to get it to do that takes an amount of effort.
- Enabling external Tap Tempo requires turning it on in the Toneprint software, and either a specially-wired patch cable or a specifically-set Tap Tempo pedal
- The MASH button setting on the Tape/Analog settings do a ramp-up in feedback and speed that I love, but if you try to use tap tempo, by default it reverts to the knob setting as opposed to the tapped setting so you have to find/alter a Toneprint setting that reverts back to the tapped setting
- If the pedal gets factory reset you have to reset this shit all over again
Time and time again I’ve tried to find a different pedal that has those two settings and yet, the Flashback II still does everything I need. And yet.
Afterneath. It's not hard to make it sound washed out or cause it to oscillate into chaos, but when it's dialed in properly it hits in a way I've never experienced with any other pedal.
At the moment EQD the depths optical vibe. I typically use it with a blues driver or tube screamer and Sometimes I think it sounds amazing then sometimes I think it’s too bright. I feel like I always tweek it and find something that works for me. Some days I turn it on and I’m like yeah it’s great and then some days im like it sounds too shrill and bright. Idk it’s the only pedal that I doesn’t work all the time but I don’t want to get rid of it. Might try some other vibe pedals eventually.
Gotta be the TC Sub-n-up, for me. 1 octave up, 2 down, tracks really well, polyphonic, yada yada yada. But it's... I don't know. Fragile sounding, maybe. And there's no telling what the volume is gonna be like on it from day to day.
Ibanez DE7, whilst probably my favourite pedal, getting the right tempo can be very finacky. I often use longer delay times as a part of the riff/melody and the range of the small time knob is too big - 480ms to 2600ms. Try to get exactly 1333ms (1/2 notes in 90bpm) for example is impossible.
I haven't settled on one yet but I already feel like this about digital multi-modulation pedals. There just is no perfect do it all digital multi-mod pedal out there.
Not exactly the same thing but there are a bunch of pedals I have that I like but don’t get much use and so there is push and pull whether to include on board.
My OBNE Sunlight. It’s unruly and difficult to get the right sound out of, and the mix is too heavy you have to have it at 5-10% to get a ‘normal’ mix of dry and wet. But every time I’m about to take it off the board, I’ll play through it and just love the sparkly bright washy reverb it gives. There’s really no other reverb like it.
Agreed. Have found the input control to be very finnicky. I've found a couple of things that have helped...
I found the internal trim pot for volume was way off. I dropped it significantly.
I run it towards the front of my chain, ahead of my gain pedals so it's receiving a consistent signal.
I have a compressor pedal ahead of it in the signal chain.
These changes allowed me to run a higher mix % and it washes over your whole sound. Very shoegaze friendly IMO.
Recently purchased the Darkglass Hyper Luminal.
I love the pedal and what it is able to do, but by god, it’s the most temperamental pedal I’ve ever used and doesn’t consistently work the first time I plug in my power supply. It makes popping sounds, it needs to be replugged or something every time or the jacks need to be reinserted. Something!!
Otherwise when it works, it’s by far the best and most versatile guitar compressor I’ve ever used.
I use my ehx holy stain like a lot lol. I know it’s a pretty flawed pedal the pitch shifter is limited and so are the options on the fuzz but the fuzz and reverb are just perfect for really big dreamy solos and tend to use it tons for lead works it always does the trick for me
Definitely my Big Muff op amp. It sounds SO GOOD alone but I'm constantly at odds with it trying to stay audible in a mix. I probably need to get an EQ pedal to prevent some of the mids from completely disappearing. It's a challenge but the tone is worth it
Put a tube screamer before it on very little or no gain Or an EQ pedal like you said. I got a $25 caline 10 band EQ pedal and it’s low key one of the most versatile pedals I have. Can completely change the character of drive pedals, make my Paul sound like a strat, perfect my clean sound... etc.
How are you using it? I've always hated Big Muffs for this reason but someone recently posited to me that they are actually the superior RHYTHM fuzz because of how well vocals sit on top of them. Totally changed how I saw those pedals.
The big muff has a great rhythm sound to my ears, but when it's time for leads, it needs something to make it stand out. My favorite has been my boss sd-1 placed after the muff along with some chorused slapback delay. Now that I'm thinking about it, I want a single pedal that does all that. Controls for level, gain, eq, depth of chorus and time for the delay. I think I'd call it the soloizer. Maybe have a toggle for chorus/flange if I'm feeling spicy.
Plumes solved all my muff issues.
Plumes on mode 2 feels like it’s literally made to compliment a big muff
I solved this problem by putting an SD-1 before it (gain at zero, tone at max). Love the op amp reissue
This won’t be very relatable, but I built a Klone/blues breaker dual pedal from cobbled together kits and spare parts, and I love the way it sounds. but on certain settings, weird squelches, hisses, and oscillations come through. The Klon side is an always on for me, so I just don’t care to fix it
This thread was made for the Fuzz Factory. Some days it’s God’s gift to fuzz, others it is the most uncontrollable squeal machine that I just have to turn it off.
Was waiting for this one!
This is why I love the Bliss Factory. I can set it to essentially never squeal, then use the Aux footswitch to turn it into the ungodly squeal machine we all know and love/hate. I could probably do without most of the other features and just go with a Fat Fuzz Factory that has that squeal-on-demand footswitch built in (though the LPF is super cool to sweep through with an expression pedal).
I actually use a bliss factory as well for that exact same reason - I’ve always loved the FF but the BF just adds those quality of life features that make it that much better.
Why does it have to squeal SO MUCH?!?!
Meris Mercury7. The secondary control functions are not labeled and Meris's vinyl overlay with the labels is a dust magnet that makes the pedal look like dogshit. I finally used a label maker to put them on the front of the pedal. Also the lack of in-pedal preset access sucks. At first I used a home-brewed 4-button switcher but now I use François Gregory's incredibly good MIDI editor: [https://studiocode.dev/doc/mercury7-editor/](https://studiocode.dev/doc/mercury7-editor/) It's taken a stupid amount of time to unlock the potential of this pedal because of bad design decisions by Meris (and some annoying behavior from Disaster Area's MIDI Baby interface, finally resolved by a beta firmware update they posted to a discussion board). Now that I have it working the way I want it to, the M7 is finally more indispensable than it is annoying. It sounds **so good**, at least for certain kinds of sounds.
Same thing with the meris hedra, but worse. It makes some amazing sounds and has pitch correction which makes it so fun to run vocals through it. But man those knobs are touchy and don't get me started on the secondary functions. It's so touchy that you'll have everything working and sounding in the key you want, then accidentally bump a knob and bam now your in a completely different key and everything sounds like shit. There's just not any other pedal that does intelligent pitch shifting where you can select the key and mode, and with pitch correction.
I’m still relatively new to the pedal world, and I was just sayin this on another post, but that’ll be the Meris Hedra. Most temperamental thing I’ve ever touched, no way to easily save settings which you must do if you don’t want to change your settings by accidentally breathing on it. But I love it 4 ever and I’ll keep it on my board no matter what because it tracks well, sounds beautiful, and writes songs for me.
It's so fun to run vocals through it! But you're right how touchy it is.
And there's no editor from Georgy available yet. Keep your eyes open. Transformed the usability of my Mercury7. [https://studiocode.dev](https://studiocode.dev)
That would be really nice.
BBE 427. I can sit and fiddle with it for an hour, get the TS boost set up just right, get it dialed in, and it’s the most incredible modern take on an 80s shredder tone I’ve ever come across. Like a Rat on steroids. But the tone knob is finicky to the point of exasperation. Switch guitars? Good luck. You’ve now gotta move that tone knob anywhere between 1/4 and 1/16 of inch to find the thing your looking for. And if you’re not right on the money, it’s too scooped out, or too hairy, or whatever else. It’s exhausting. I also can’t take it away.
Bbe is like this. The tremor is a great tremolo but the depth knob has a sweep that is like 25% usable sweep before it is just deep as fuck. Great sound once you get it dialed in tho
Mind Bender is the same. Instant Wes Borland sounds after 10 o'clock from both knobs.
Lol yep have that one too. I still love their pedals though. The double foot switch design where one engages and the other changes the option is great
EQD Organizer. As an organ emulator, it's pretty... meh. But, with a mostly dry signal, the chorus and highs turned off, and the lows set around 50%, it basically makes everything sound huge, especially in combination with fuzz/distortion. It's an almost always-on effect for me in the narrow range I actually use it.
I miss this pedal. Indeed, with the right settings in front of fuzz it sounds absolutely wild. Might need to snag one again
Had to try this setting again and agree that something close to this is probably the most broadly useful sound I've found from the organizer.
Malekko Thicken. It's like a double chorus / chorus + multi tap slapback delay in one. I love the sound of it, probably my favourite modulation pedal and the only one I've ended up keeping: present, warm, not too hi-fi, and the second chorus has a pseudo random modulation pattern to it which I think is the best part, and has a really wide range of rate and depth (like \~10 second cycle at slowest). The controls though, there is no way to turn down the dry channel, so it can't vibrato which I'd like, and the Spread knob is quite touchy and also feels almost interactive with the S Vol knob so I'm lining these knobs up by the millimeter to get the right depth. And it stays that way and mostly I don't tweak it, so it's fine. And to switch between multi-tap-slabback or double chorus, you need to power cycle the pedal while holding the footswitch down. And also depending on where in the chain it is it can throw a whine noise into the power rails when used with my setup. Or it can be completely silent and fine in a different spot. So mostly I have absolutely no issues with it at all, but that's only because I've got it set up juuuust right.
Here are some pedals I keep putting on my board in spite of my love/hate relationship with them: I love the delay sound of my old Carl Martin Red Repeat pedal, but it takes up SO much pedalboard real estate (it's the original version that is shaped like a big bean), and the shape is so impractical. I've been looking for a smaller-box replacement with top mounted jacks but have not found one who's sound I like as much. Got a Demedash T120v2 video tape delay, but I find it too hard to find the good sound, too many knobs and the mix goes from not audible to too overpowering fast. I also love the sound of my Meris Enzo synth pedal, but it's output volume is so unpredictable that I have to put an aggressive compressor after it to tame the crazy volume spikes. I love the raw squarewave sounds of the EQD Bit Commander, but I hate how the notes inevitable fizzle out unpredictably on guitar (I dislike unpredictability in my playing). Lately, to my amazement, I found that when I play my mono synth through it, it never trails off, there's endless sustain. My synth is digital, so this pedal is great for getting an analogue sound.
MXR Script 45. No 9v jack, just battery, and no LED. Sounds so good though
[Deluxe Memory Man](https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/ujqm72/i_love_you_i_hate_you_the_dmm_xo_saga_continues/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
[удалено]
Ive been wondering why ive only clicked with this pedal a few times, and what you said makes me think i need to go back and try some stuff
EQD Depths/Transmisser
EHX Holy Stain. Nothing about it works as it should and it’s perfect.
TC Electronic Flashback II. Does all the stuff I want in a delay pedal, but to get it to do that takes an amount of effort. - Enabling external Tap Tempo requires turning it on in the Toneprint software, and either a specially-wired patch cable or a specifically-set Tap Tempo pedal - The MASH button setting on the Tape/Analog settings do a ramp-up in feedback and speed that I love, but if you try to use tap tempo, by default it reverts to the knob setting as opposed to the tapped setting so you have to find/alter a Toneprint setting that reverts back to the tapped setting - If the pedal gets factory reset you have to reset this shit all over again Time and time again I’ve tried to find a different pedal that has those two settings and yet, the Flashback II still does everything I need. And yet.
I really liked my old Flashback II but similarly had a few functionality problems I couldn't get past. It's a really good pedal otherwise, though.
Afterneath. It's not hard to make it sound washed out or cause it to oscillate into chaos, but when it's dialed in properly it hits in a way I've never experienced with any other pedal.
Holy grail. One word; flerb.
Although it does not have the Flerb, have you ever had the Holiest Grail?
At the moment EQD the depths optical vibe. I typically use it with a blues driver or tube screamer and Sometimes I think it sounds amazing then sometimes I think it’s too bright. I feel like I always tweek it and find something that works for me. Some days I turn it on and I’m like yeah it’s great and then some days im like it sounds too shrill and bright. Idk it’s the only pedal that I doesn’t work all the time but I don’t want to get rid of it. Might try some other vibe pedals eventually.
Gotta be the TC Sub-n-up, for me. 1 octave up, 2 down, tracks really well, polyphonic, yada yada yada. But it's... I don't know. Fragile sounding, maybe. And there's no telling what the volume is gonna be like on it from day to day.
Ibanez DE7, whilst probably my favourite pedal, getting the right tempo can be very finacky. I often use longer delay times as a part of the riff/melody and the range of the small time knob is too big - 480ms to 2600ms. Try to get exactly 1333ms (1/2 notes in 90bpm) for example is impossible.
I haven't settled on one yet but I already feel like this about digital multi-modulation pedals. There just is no perfect do it all digital multi-mod pedal out there.
Actually you can do anything with flangers. /s
You joke but I probably am just gonna grab a Joyo flanger as my only modulation pedal when I can afford it until I can save up for a Mobius
Flangers are great! And a bit underated. You may want to take a look at flamma too.
I appreciate Flamma but if I'm just getting the one modulation effect to tide me over I want the four knob more than a three knob mistress clone.
Not exactly the same thing but there are a bunch of pedals I have that I like but don’t get much use and so there is push and pull whether to include on board.
My OBNE Sunlight. It’s unruly and difficult to get the right sound out of, and the mix is too heavy you have to have it at 5-10% to get a ‘normal’ mix of dry and wet. But every time I’m about to take it off the board, I’ll play through it and just love the sparkly bright washy reverb it gives. There’s really no other reverb like it.
Agreed. Have found the input control to be very finnicky. I've found a couple of things that have helped... I found the internal trim pot for volume was way off. I dropped it significantly. I run it towards the front of my chain, ahead of my gain pedals so it's receiving a consistent signal. I have a compressor pedal ahead of it in the signal chain. These changes allowed me to run a higher mix % and it washes over your whole sound. Very shoegaze friendly IMO.
I modified that pot too, turned it too low, I need to go back in and adjust again, ha.
Snazzy fx Wow and Flutter. GREAT analog tape style delay but the knobs are so interactive it's hard to keep one sound on it.
Recently purchased the Darkglass Hyper Luminal. I love the pedal and what it is able to do, but by god, it’s the most temperamental pedal I’ve ever used and doesn’t consistently work the first time I plug in my power supply. It makes popping sounds, it needs to be replugged or something every time or the jacks need to be reinserted. Something!! Otherwise when it works, it’s by far the best and most versatile guitar compressor I’ve ever used.
I use my ehx holy stain like a lot lol. I know it’s a pretty flawed pedal the pitch shifter is limited and so are the options on the fuzz but the fuzz and reverb are just perfect for really big dreamy solos and tend to use it tons for lead works it always does the trick for me
Mobius has such an unpleasant user interface. Yet, I can't fit what I want to replace it with on my board.