eventually i’ll be doing reviews with audio to combat the blues bros. ugly sounds are just as important (if not more so) as “good” guitar sounds.
my latest obsession is with pedals that sound kinda broken.
these aren’t reviews per sé, just initial impressions.
the EQD hummingbird is not one of the broken sounds i’d been intrigued with, i just felt the need to have a vox repeat percussion sounding tremolo. the hummingbird does the vox thing, but it also gets so fast it can sound like a ring modulator (which sounds kinda broken, fine). it made it to the board. strangely, not where i’d generally place a tremolo, prior to my distortion/fuzzes. ordinarily it’d be placed last-ish. whateva, guy.
i’d been looking for a MWFX judder on and off for a bit. one finally came up in my reverb feed for a good price and i jumped on it. the judder does some weird stuff. i put it on my pedalboard, and it just kinda didn’t make me excited. yes, i i probably didn’t give it the 100%, but i couldn’t really hear it in a song i would write. back to reverb it went. it was fun, just not super intuitive. i should’ve tried it on my moog sub 37. whoops, i done goofed.
i was so excited the first time i saw the malekko charlie foxtrot. it’s glitchy, broken, pitchy, weirdness. whilst in the city of lights (#joke), i stopped into chicago music exchange and they had one. as i was trying it, i was cracking up. everyone that heard me playing it kinda had a look on their face like it was broken and/or sucked. why would you want that thing? i did. i do. it’s on the board. i love it.
after seeing a ton of montreal assembly count to 5 videos, i decided i’d check it out. the idea of paying $300+ for a pedal (as basically all the used ones on reverb are) leaves me cold, but i signed up for the waiting list. a couple months later i was notified that there were some available from the manufacturer, for lo and behold: $250 + shipping. so dudes are basically buying them just to mark them up. classy. if you watched the video, you’ve heard SOME of what it can do. i played with it for a couple days. it’s neat. for me, it’s overly complicated. i’m sure many will make very cool noises with this thing. the more i played with it, the more i felt like it’d be difficult to manipulate during a show. i didn’t feel instantly inspired. off to reverb it went. (for $275.00 shipping included, pedal jerks)
the catalinbread pedals are brothers, or maybe cousins. both are delay based effects (my weakness), the csidman (pronounced discman) is easily the cooler of the two (IMHO). it’s a glitchy, slicer delay. it acts SUPER randomly. sometimes it provides feedback (in key with what you played), sometimes it’s just a delay, sometimes it’s both, and sometimes it does nothing. it’s like having a second guitar player kind of mimic your part. i love it. an absolute keeper. the bicycle delay is much more predictable, but also does some interesting things unto itself. you can set the repeats to pitch up or down, but they’re kind of ring modulated. it goes into self oscillation really, really easily. it’s neat. i got it today so i don’t have a fully formed opinion, but it was absolutely inspiring. used in between an EHX superego and the hummingbird, there was some cool movement with the pitch shifting via the bd. very synthy and creepy.
sorry for my stream of consciousness rambling. #ymmv
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