The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Have you recently bought a guitar pedal and found it to be disappointing? Can you share it so maybe others won't make the same mistake?

    My big regret was the Digitech Trio Pedal Band Creator (not the "Plus" model). Like Greentone (a longtime forum member) wrote in another thread, it really wants to play country or pop music - not Jazz. I tried to use it again the other day and I could not get past the bass lines. They just did not appeal to me.

    So much for having a quick backing band in a pedal. I am back to using Band-in-a-Box or my old Boss Looper Pedal.

    How about you?
    Last edited by AlsoRan; 12-05-2019 at 08:44 AM.

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  3. #2

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    I couple of years ago I bought one of those Ernie Ball volume pedals that lets you switch between high/low impedance (active/passive?), in front of the amp or in the efx loop. Nothing really bad about it, but I just needed that feature for one particular performance with a symphony, and now I wish I had just bought one of those Dunlop Minis to fit on my pedalboard.

    Also, I have gone through a few flangers and I can't seem to find one that has the nice, long, even sweep like my big old mxr that is now long gone.
    Last edited by Woody Sound; 12-03-2019 at 01:17 PM.

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Woody Sound
    Also, I have gone through a few flangers and I can't seem to find one that has the nice, long, even sweep like my big old mxr that is now long gone.
    I have heard similar stories from other people about gear they used to own, and still wish they owned. The old saying, "They don't make them like they used to," can probably be used here.

  5. #4

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    I recently bought an Xotic EP Booster based on it's popularity with others. Umm.. no. Not for me. To my ears, the upper mid boost seems to go out of it's way to destroy the timbre of a rich acoustic archtop. Much prefer a straight boost that supports the effort I've put in to preserve the acoustic sound in an amplified environment.

  6. #5

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    Everything by chase bliss.

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
    Everything by chase bliss.
    Wow, those pedals are expensive! It's shocking to hear that you could not find one that you liked. This is my first time hearing of them.

    https://chaseblissaudio.com/product-category/pedals/

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spook410
    I recently bought an Xotic EP Booster based on it's popularity with others. Umm.. no. Not for me. To my ears, the upper mid boost seems to go out of it's way to destroy the timbre of a rich acoustic archtop. Much prefer a straight boost that supports the effort I've put in to preserve the acoustic sound in an amplified environment.
    I have heard these pedals with semi-hollows. I can understand what you are saying about the acoustic sound possibly being lost. To my old ears, while it does increase the "fullness" a guitar's tone, the sound also seems to be more "electric," in my opinion.

    After reading feet's (a forum member) review a few years back. I was wanting one badly. Now, I am not so sure as I am a fan of that acoustic sound coming through as well.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by AlsoRan
    Wow, those pedals are expensive! It's shocking to hear that you could not find one that you liked. This is my first time hearing of them.

    https://chaseblissaudio.com/product-category/pedals/
    Which one(s) did you regret buying?

  10. #9

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    I got the gravitas, tonal recall, and mood.

    Mood just feels like a really badly designed sampler with terrible audio quality. It feels like they just slapped together a bunch of unrelated junk features and called it a pedal, to be honest.

    Gravitas and Tonal Recall both suffer from the same problem. They're both very cool in theory: you can set an oscillator to modulate any parameter in the pedal. This can create some very interesting textures. The problem with both is that the modulation just isn't very useful. You can only ramp between the user setting and either min or max. It might be useful to modulate with a variance parameter instead like the Montreal Assembly Count to Five. Not that hard to program, since all you're doing is changing internal voltages through an algorithm. I think the interface for their pedals are very badly designed in general. Also, for the amount of money you pay, I would expect better tones. In fact, you just pay for the features - the tone of the pedals is nothing special.

    I sold the mood and gravitas but I kept the tonal recall for one reason: momentary delay. It's hard to describe exactly why this is useful but Teemu viinkikainen demos the kind of sound you can get (useless in most contexts but fun for solo playing or practice). His set up is actually very complex: he has an fx loop pedal into a volume pedal into a delay pedal. With momentary delay, you can do this with just one pedal. My interest in it is to use something that can sustain a chord while I play a line over it but does so with a more interesting rhythmic texture than the 'freeze'-type pedals. I find the super-wet always on reverb-delay combo that a some "modern" players use very corny, but momentary delay is a useful effect for me depending on the genre of music and on the ensemble.


  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by AlsoRan
    I have heard similar stories from other people about gear they used to own, and still wish they owned. The old saying, "They don't make them like they used to," can probably be used here.
    And then there may be the "Momma's cooking syndrome." (It doesn't taste as good as what you grew up with, even though it might really be better to others.)

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Woody Sound
    Which one(s) did you regret buying?
    I had never heard of those pedals. But after seeing their prices, I just figured they had to have some value.

    Last Christmas, I bought the Digitech Trio and that was the one that I regretted. This year, I bought the Digitech Drop Pedal and it meets my needs. Downtune a half-step or more with the turn of a knob.

    I was looking at an Acoustic Simulator Pedal, but the two that I am looking at were shot down in the reviews.

    So for this holiday season, I won't be taking further advantage of the many Christmas sales. No more gear, for now.

  13. #12

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    I ordered a boutique wah pedal from France called Le Supa-Jimi Wah, and it really didn't give me the great sound I was hoping for.


  14. #13

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    I had some Earthquaker Devices pedals that were ok... the phaser was pretty blah, the hoof fuzz was pretty good though, but very wooly more for sabbath.
    I had EHX electric mistress and small stone which were both excellent. In the end i just got rid of them all; too much stuff not getting used.
    I've heard a lot of the contemporary boutique pedals contain about $5-10 or so worth of lower quality components. They certainly look cool.... Some ingenuity/renovation sure, mostly advertising.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    I ordered a boutique wah pedal from France called Le Supa-Jimi Wah, and it really didn't give me the great sound I was hoping for.


    I'd imagine that it produces a very wooden type of tone? No?

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    I ordered a boutique wah pedal from France called Le Supa-Jimi Wah, and it really didn't give me the great sound I was hoping for.


  17. #16

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    EH Holy Grail reverb. It was soooooo noisy, untamable even. Took it back to Guitar Center and traded it for a used Hall of Fame 2 and haven’t looked back.

  18. #17

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    I vote for a Boss PS-6 Harmonist. Hard to use and weird sounds in a negative way. I don’t recommend anyone to buy it.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by arielcee
    I had some Earthquaker Devices pedals that were ok... the phaser was pretty blah, the hoof fuzz was pretty good though, but very wooly more for sabbath.
    I had EHX electric mistress and small stone which were both excellent. In the end i just got rid of them all; too much stuff not getting used.
    I've heard a lot of the contemporary boutique pedals contain about $5-10 or so worth of lower quality components. They certainly look cool.... Some ingenuity/renovation sure, mostly advertising.
    I got rid of all (or almost) all of mine too. I still need a reverb pedal, but that's all.
    I got rid of lots of nice stuff -- Full tone, Real McCoy Wah, boutique fuzz, Boss Waza-craft, etc.
    I climbed up out of that rabbit hole. The guys at GC were droolin' when I brought the pile in to sell . . .

  20. #19

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    Malekko 616 and Mad Prof. Deep Blue Delay (DBD) -- I didn't regret either until they broke... I think the 616 had an issue with one of the pots, and the DBD started getting a distortion in the delay. The 616 lasted much less than the DBD. I was sad about the DBD as it was one of my favorites but the cost to fix was almost as much as the pedal itself.

    I tried a dispatch master in between there somewhere, and I liked it for a time but found it lacking in some ways, and I think it made a slight hiss too.

    Using a carbon copy now, so far so good.

  21. #20

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    Ernie Ball Volume pedal, the smaller one. The response of the pedal is hardly smooth and as a result useless for playing and more of a turn the volume down or off for tuning pedal. I hate it and not even close to the old one I had from them.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spook410
    I recently bought an Xotic EP Booster based on it's popularity with others. Umm.. no. Not for me. To my ears, the upper mid boost seems to go out of it's way to destroy the timbre of a rich acoustic archtop. Much prefer a straight boost that supports the effort I've put in to preserve the acoustic sound in an amplified environment.

    I play solid bodies and love my EP Booster. There are internal dip switches in later versions of the EP Booster that lets you change EQ settings. The "unity" gain setting might be what you are after bright switch on...3db gain off.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by arielcee
    I had some Earthquaker Devices pedals that were ok... the phaser was pretty blah, the hoof fuzz was pretty good though, but very wooly more for sabbath.
    I had EHX electric mistress and small stone which were both excellent. In the end i just got rid of them all; too much stuff not getting used.
    I've heard a lot of the contemporary boutique pedals contain about $5-10 or so worth of lower quality components. They certainly look cool.... Some ingenuity/renovation sure, mostly advertising.
    I have an Earthquaker Device Dispatch Master and love it. I have two actually..one for acoustic board...one for electric...it is a delay/reverb combo and it is difficult to get a bad sound out of it. Very transparent........I know a very overused word in the world of pedal talk...sort of like artisanal in the world of food.

    For those that like spring reverb and amp tremolo the Mr. Black Deluxe Plus is a great pedal. Like many Fender amps though the reverb has a cliff that goes from subtle to surf.
    Perfect pedal for a non-reverb amp.

  24. #23

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    This one:



    I returned it, it did not do as promised....

  25. #24

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    I sold all my guitars and got this ‘all-in-one’ model, I’m still not sure about it though.

    Do you have a recent Pedal or Gear Purchase Regret?-1d0cb2bf-483f-41ce-983c-e4306dacf04c-jpg

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Little Jay
    This one:



    I returned it, it did not do as promised....
    Well, this one didn't work much better, either:



    Do you have a recent Pedal or Gear Purchase Regret?-35976-1298227455-5d000f37d54fc5b867556a28e1f41325-jpeg