Pedal Mythbusters

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

As I've mentioned many times, the blindfold test never fails.

[youtube=425,350]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bpTv2jAree8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bpTv2jAree8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]

 

[Xplorervoodoo]

Awesome video.

I love how discussions like this can border on debunking religion...  It's frightening to me how people listen to the "experts" rather than their own ears.

:rock-on:

 

[imminentG]

lol
whoever debunks religion must not understand what the word means

 

[erogenousjones17]

Debunk: transitive verb 1. show the good reputation or aspirations of a person, institution, etc. to be spurious. 2) expose the falseness of a claim, etc.  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[mayfly]

This is typical of the mythology around guitar amps as well.  People say stupid stuff about the bobbins of power transformers (for christ sake) and the tonal properties of vintage carbon comp resistors.

It's pretty funny - and also drives up the cost of boutique amps.  Can't argue with that since it's good for amp builders  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[Patrick from Davis]

The one about the true bypass is a little misleading.  It shows the benefit of a FET flip flop switch and the required buffer but not the drawbacks.  Of course they are selling a product...  They use a lot of cable to induce cable capacitance, which true bypass does nothing for.  But they do not put 6 or seven pedals with FET switching in a row where the switching transistors can really sound bad.  It is nice that they mention in them that the mojo of these things depends a lot on the mix (of component tolerances) in the box that you get.
Patrick

 

[Superlizard]

Speaking in general:

Undoubtedly there are countless myths perpetuated (usually for monetary gain)...

However, just because said myths do exist, does not automatically prove that anything you hear of,
which you haven't heard of before, is BS.

As well, the same goes for some concepts which you may have actually heard of, but you don't know much about.

Make sure you're knowledgeable about the item in question before making a judgment call.

 

[Superlizard]

The one about the true bypass is a little misleading.  It shows the benefit of a FET flip flop switch and the required buffer but not the drawbacks.  Of course they are selling a product...  They use a lot of cable to induce cable capacitance, which true bypass does nothing for.  But they do not put 6 or seven pedals with FET switching in a row where the switching transistors can really sound bad.  It is nice that they mention in them that the mojo of these things depends a lot on the mix (of component tolerances) in the box that you get.
Patrick

Agreed - they did a poor job with the true bypass vid.

As well, it would be nice to know what pickups, amp (and settings) and speaker they were using during the tests... some amps put
so much crap on top of the tone that you can't tell the difference between 2 pedals, etc... .

 

[taez555]

There's definitely a mythology to some pedal components, but you always have to look at the bigger picture.  Does a vintage, or modded TS9 overall sound better than a stock TS9?    One chip, probably not, but when you start changing 10-20 other componets, then....  maybe there is something to it. 

Unfortunatly you can't sell the mythology of a better signal chain, or a replacing a cheap 10 cent cap.  A vintage JRC 23234234693245123748 from 1969(the same Hendrix used) sounds a hell of a lot cooler.

 

[PitchShifter]

I will agree with all that has been said, but with one caveat. If I can use colour as a metaphor, changing the op-amp will not change the hue of your tone, but it will affect the saturation to a degree.  I have about a dozen different op-amps I picked up and switched them through a couple of overdrives I have here. There was a change in sound, but it was like a slightly brighter or faded picture compared the original.  LoL..now I sound like the Grateful Dead..I'm gonna go record me some clean air...haha. However, I did do this in a bedroom, with a Direct Input via PC with a set of Alessandro headphones. I could have heard a cricket fart.

This is also remins me of that thread on Harmony Central with the shootout between the Suhr pickups and the GFS...

 

[Vol. Knob]

Blasphemy!!!!!  I love it.

More evidence that L. Ron Hubbard was right, if you really want to make money, start a religion.  Obviously there are those out there who worship SRV so much that they'll spend $200 on an overdrive pedal.

 

[whitebison66]

Thought I'd share my own Tube Screamer story...

One time in Nashville, around 2004, I was helping Warner Hodges go through his old gear, with an eye towards liquidating some of it. Out of nowhere, he comes up with a Tube Screamer that's just beat to death. I asked him why he had it, since I'd never known him to use one. Well, Jason and the Scorchers toured with SRV in 1985 for about 6 months, and Stevie gave Warner this pedal. He used it off and on, but found that people (i.e. low-life guitar players) in the crowd would literally try and steal it out of his pedalboard at club gigs. So he put it in a drawer and promptly forgot about it until it showed up during this inventory. "Throw it on eBay, we can maybe get 20 bucks for it..." I told him that we could very likely get a lot more than that. I wrote up the listing, telling the story. I didn't have any CoA, and I had emailed Rene Martinez, but he didn't remember anything of the sort (not that I blame him). But I said that neither Warner nor I had no reason to lie about it, and feel free to not bid if you didn't believe me.

You should have seen some of the emails I got...

I had people from Japan emailing me about it, asking about the chips. They had to send me instructions to take the darn thing apart to look at it.

Even worse were the creepy "I have an SRV tattoo and I feel his spirit" emails. Especially since they usually wanted me to end the auction early for a ridiculously small amount of money: "I'll send you $50... once its lawn-mowing season again and my Dad gets the mower out of hock..."

Just nauseating.

Eventually, it sold to a Japanese man.

In Dallas.

For over $400.00.

I hope it got his 'mojo' working.*

* Not sure why, but I really hate that word. Remember the No Bozos t-shirt? I wish I had one that said 'No Mojo Bozos'

 

[stubhead]

I always thought it would be fun to line up Larry DiMarzio, Seymour Duncan, Lindy Fralin, Jason Lollar etc; and especially people like Greg Kinman who tout their own pickups' differences so highly - hook up a pile of pickups in factory Strats out of the the same production run, put blindfolds on 'em and ask them to name their own products.... not gonna happen, huh? :toothy12: