Clones and copies?

E

Eagle

Rock Star
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What do you think of things like this;
IMG_4670.jpeg

There is no particular reason that this can’t be identical to the original for a lot less.
But ;
Intellectual Property.
Nobody makes their own components so in theory a copy can be exactly the same if researched properly.
Same layout same parts.
I personally only buy original’s unless they are out of production and/or a stupid pice.
 
I'm not a huge fan of this kind of thing to be honest. I just think ripping other designs off is kind of lame. Yes I am aware that every other amp or pedal is essentially the same or mildly tweaked version of something else, but.... yeah, I dunno. Just not into the whole trade dress lifting thing.
 
This may be hypocritical, but for me personally it depends on the person or company that's being ripped off. If the original product is from a person or company I don't want to support for whatever reasons...
 
There was a case a few years back of straight up rebranding of a budget wha to a boutique brand but they were found out. ( no names but I suspect most of you know who).
Everything being a tube screamer or something is different I agree.
 

Vertex Comes Clean

From the link below...... "The Axis Wah is a rebranded BBE Ben Wah. The following things were changed: LED, Bottom Plate, Rubber Footpad, control knob, faceplate, and Wah pot on the NOS version only (changed to a different 100K S-taper pot). The silk screening was removed from the enclosures as...
www.lespaulforum.com
I don’t know what happened in the end but.
 
I don't have a huge problem with clones tbh. It'd be incredibly hypocritical if I did seeing as how my whole board is made up of them. The big difference is I never copy the trade dress of the pedals I'm cloning and I only build for myself. I'm not trying to sell them.

I know a few people who own pedal companies, most of them come from the DIY scene so all cut their teeth building clones and they're not too bothered by someone building a clone for themselves or their friends. Their bigger headache is Chinese companies selling 5000 units for £20, especially if they got the circuit wrong or use the wrong spec components. Someone tries the clone, thinks it's shit and then assumes the original must suck too even though the clone might not be a proper representation of the original.

I also know a builder who has had people try to get them to look at their faulty pedal only to find out they've got a straight up fake and didn't know it.
 
Eagle said:

Vertex Comes Clean

From the link below...... "The Axis Wah is a rebranded BBE Ben Wah. The following things were changed: LED, Bottom Plate, Rubber Footpad, control knob, faceplate, and Wah pot on the NOS version only (changed to a different 100K S-taper pot). The silk screening was removed from the enclosures as...
www.lespaulforum.com
I don’t know what happened in the end but.
Click to expand...

Mason bought a lot of the wahs back from owners who contacted him as far as I remember.
 
I wanted to buy the Freedman by DemonFX and I get all the things you said (components n stuff).

Did no buy it. I had scruples. I have no problem buying a TS-copy. It's an ancient curcuit by now. This one? This is just a rip of. Plagiarism. Can't buy it.

But I don't look down on anyone, who does. You do you as long as I don't have to follow along.
 
i mean.. what makes this different than anything lifted from mullard manuals or a williamson amplifier, or a jtm45? i mean... circuit lifting has always been a thing since they could be built from parts.

i think, in a lotta ways, intellectual property is a piece of capitalistic bullshit. if a circuit can exist, it can be found and made. now- im not gonna say AT ALL that quality is the same or that every circuit implementation is equal- but theres a million geniuses starving on streetcorners because their ideas were stolen and implemented by SatanCorp.

humans are smart and figure stuff out by 'stealing' and improving on ideas. branding is a method of profiteering on cheap parts available in hardware stores. i know the argument is 'but people should be paid for their excellent innovations'- but theyll do that shit anyhow cause we're tinkerers by nature.

pay for quality implementation and leave the circuits in the public domain after their trademarks run out. half of those are for minor mods anyhow.
 
Even if I think that 1:1 copies are pretty lame, sometimes I could justify buying them because the originals are just way over the top pricewise (fwiw, I own an original Friedman BE-OD).

In general, I have no issues with people lifting circuit designs as soon as they add their own take that might add value for me. For instance, by now I'm owning an original Xotic RC Booster and 3 clones. At least one of the clones (a Mooer Pure Boost) sounds a little better than the original (at least for my taste) and all of them (I also have one Rated Boost from Joyo and Harley Benton each, they seem to be identical) are smaller, hence more pedalboard-friendly. In addition, all accessible parts (pots and switch) aren't great on the original (scratchy and what not). So, I can't see why I shouldn't use them.
Same thing for the Fulltone OCD. Got nothing to do with Mike Fuller being a questionable guy (let's not get into it, as said, it's got nothing to do with it), but it's got all to do with the Mooer Hustle Drive sounding at least as good while coming at a better form factor.

Similar things go for wellknown circuits. IMO it's utterly stupid to buy, say, an original Klon Centaur oder TS (and fwiw, I even own a malaysian-chipped TS-808 ever since back in the days...) when the circuits are simple and the asking prices for the originals are stupid. Add to this that the original makers have made enough money from them already (yeah, blame me for that as a reasoning... I know it's halfassed).
Anyhow, again, there's pedals that are just better in many aspects (for example, the NUX Horseman combines both the golden and silver Centaurs in one smaller footprint unit, which is just a most excellent improvement). So, why would I not buy an improved version, especially as the original makers don't seem to be willing to improve their own creations while asking inacceptable prices?

What I do however find to be just superlame is to literally copy case designs. FFS, show some dignity and create a least a little bit of your own take! What are they thinking? "Oh, people will buy this and the audience will not be able to decipher the details and think it's the original!"? Does Demon FX have a side-car shop selling original looking decals?
Really, that's just lame. And one of the reasons I stay away from Demon FX (even if they seem to nail the circuits really well and hence peaked my interest before).
 
i think what irritates me more than branding is that people bring to question that their own ears cant tell the damn difference, but some label on a box is gonna somehow make it apparent that a pedal is 'better'. aint what it is, its what it does.
 
Eagle said:
I have no problem with people moving on from an existing design but straight up visual copying is unacceptable unless it’s to reissue something no longer available or stupid expensive.
Click to expand...

im inclined to agree with ya. i think its more of the same mentality of 'branding' trying to cash in on 'the thing'.... when in fact, we're supposed to be using our ears 😆 as humans, we're not at a high point of average intelligence 😁
 
Eagle said:

Vertex Comes Clean

From the link below...... "The Axis Wah is a rebranded BBE Ben Wah. The following things were changed: LED, Bottom Plate, Rubber Footpad, control knob, faceplate, and Wah pot on the NOS version only (changed to a different 100K S-taper pot). The silk screening was removed from the enclosures as...
www.lespaulforum.com
I don’t know what happened in the end but.
Click to expand...

That is totally different. I don’t think he cloned the pedal, I think he bought them and rebranded them.

As far as the clones, I am OK with copying a circuit unless it really is original and less than 20 years old, but not OK with copying trade dress and names.
 
Agree on the visuals, that falls under breaking trade dress law, I guess.

Fwiw, I bought a Demonfx "Gladiator", which straight-up copy of the v2.1 dual-channel Gladio.

My reasoning?

1) I wanted to try out AliExpress one time

2) the original was already discontinued at that point

It's a nice pedal, does exactly what you'd expect. It says "Gladio v2.1" on the PCB, meaning they didn't re-design it, but might've even gone as far as stealing the printing files (?).
 
Chocol8 said:
That is totally different. I don’t think he cloned the pedal, I think he bought them and rebranded them.

As far as the clones, I am OK with copying a circuit unless it really is original and less than 20 years old, but not OK with copying trade dress and names.
Click to expand...
Yes so know , I did actually say that in my post above.
 
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