Old pedals: Info thread

[newpedals]

Will it be ok if we have a thread on here about old, interesting pedals and their info/ history?

It will be fascinating to read about old pedals (Dod, Ibanez, Maxon, Boss etc).

I stumbled upon some information about these old multi effects units. One of them also has tube(s) in it. I am guessing it will be in the preamp section of that device.

I request someone also to start a thread in the Amp section of this forum about old amps with the mods permission.

We see a lot of old guitars somewhere sometimes. But old amps, pedals and their history will be nice to know.

 

[holoholo]

Speaking of old pedal history. Whenever I think about pedals this classic comes to mind. This story is so old but I still think about it now and then.

The Hype 'bout Boutique Guitar Effects...(the clay jones story)

The Clay Jones story........... (A real account by the man himself) The Goose, the Middleman, the Idolmaker and Gomer Pyle. Now that I look ...

shadowerk.blogspot.com

 

[newpedals]

Boss ME-5 Guitar Multi-Effects Unit

Whilst the Boss ME-5 guitar multi-effects unit has served me perfectly well since autumn 1988 when I acquired it brand new, I’ve built up...

planetbotch.blogspot.com

 

[newpedals]

 

[Fishbulb]

For some reason I was feeling nostalgic and watched a few sets from Woodstock 99 a couple weeks back - Ross Childress in Collective Soul (really amazing player) was plugged into one of those Ibanez PUE5s, with a few other pedals into a pair of Fender Twins. REALLY uncommon rig for the time but he rips and it sounded pretty good!

 

[newpedals]

For some reason I was feeling nostalgic and watched a few sets from Woodstock 99 a couple weeks back - Ross Childress in Collective Soul (really amazing player) was plugged into one of those Ibanez PUE5s, with a few other pedals into a pair of Fender Twins. REALLY uncommon rig for the time but he rips and it sounded pretty good!

Thank you.

It will be nice if people post some info about old pedals which they knew/ played sometime back.

 

[Aelred]

A long time ago, the info page for the MXR Flanger with the cord attached recommended listening to JuJu by Siouxsie and the Banshees to hear how John McGeoch used two of them (one on a microphone stand so he could tweak it live).

Most associate the old MXR with Eddie, but McGeoch was one of my inspirations. The new ones don't do it. I read somewhere online awhile ago that you can get close with a Strymon Deco, so I bought a Deco II.

 

[newpedals]

A long time ago, the info page for the MXR Flanger with the cord attached recommended listening to JuJu by Siouxsie and the Banshees to hear how John McGeoch used two of them (one on a microphone stand so he could tweak it live).

Most associate the old MXR with Eddie, but McGeoch was one of my inspirations. The new ones don't do it. I read somewhere online awhile ago that you can get close with a Strymon Deco, so I bought a Deco II.

I am guessing if it had a weird power supply, it must have resembled the old DMMs in size.

It would be kind if you can source a pic from the internet.

Flangers are inherently hard to dial in. I have limited experience with them, a friend has a two knob on her board. I always thought that some pedals which have a "manual" knob are the key to fine tuning it as per our needs.

It makes us less experienced people to produce sounds other than the aeroplane sounds, though I had heard an old song which used the aeroplane sound on a solo musically.

 

[unix-guy]

I had the BOSS ME-5 way back in the day.

I really liked it.

My first experience using an expression pedal and been hooked on them ever since.

 

[Aelred]

 

[maguchi]

I used a Boss ME-5 back around 1989 or so and remember liking the sounds a lot. By today's standards it was a little clunky getting around from one patch to another. But I just wrote down the patch numbers for each song and would click to them just before the song. No wall wart or batteries on the ME-5, it had a 120 volt cord hard wired into the unit.

10 years later I switched over to a Digitech RP-100. It had some nice sounds, but on some, not all of the patches where I liked the sound, I could feel the latency. That is there was like a very slight delay between the time I picked the string(s) before I'd hear the sound. The audience probly couln't tell but it could be a little distracting or disturbing to the person playing guitar with one of these.

That was the early days of multi-effects and we thought we were really stylin'. It was good stuff for it's day though. I still got both these units and whip 'em out every once in awhile and play through them.

 

[david57strat]

Talk about a trip down Memory Lane :-).

I played guitar for sixteen years, before ever purchasing a multi-effects unit. It was a BOSS GX-700. I suppose the oldest pedas I would still have (had I not sold them) would be an MXR Micro Flanger that I bought from a friend, the Digitech Preamp 250 that I bought for twenty bucks at Guitar Center, on sale, in 1983 (?) LOL. Then, a BOSS CE-3 chorus. The CE-3 was my first "expensive" pedal.

I've been hooked on pedals, ever since.

My first pedal version of a multi-effects unit (as opposed to rack) was a BOSS GT-3, that I picked up, for a song, through a music store here in town, that had it listed on eBay. It didn't come with the power supply, but I already had one (their 14 Volt AC power supplies that I used for my DR-880 drum machine and my GX-700 rack processor). I brought one of those in to test the GT-3 out in the store, while still in the bidding process. It worked perfectly fine. I was fortunate enough to have the winning bid). '

I believe that may have been the last BOSS processor to still have analog drives (dirt) in it. I think they went all-digital, after that.

I used that as part of my acoustic system, for a long while.

It was later replaced with the GT-10 and that ran into some rack gear, for a while.

I remember the amp and cab sim's on the earlier processors was pretty bad. But that was back in the days when I was always using live amps, so it didn't matter, at the time. A Walrus AC-3 has solved that problem now, when I have to go amp-less (which is most of the time), and it has a decent headphone amp, too!

The last multi-effects purchases were a GT-1000 Core and Line 6 HX Stomp. But, I really prefer dedicated pedals, in spite of the additional weight, complexity, real estate it occupies on the floor, and price. There's something to be said about the instant gratification you get when you tweak a single knob (or a couple of knobs simultaneously) and sound changes immediately, without digging through layers of menus.

That's why I went back to dedicated pedals :-).

 

[david57strat]

I am guessing if it had a weird power supply, it must have resembled the old DMMs in size.

It would be kind if you can source a pic from the internet.

Flangers are inherently hard to dial in. I have limited experience with them, a friend has a two knob on her board. I always thought that some pedals which have a "manual" knob are the key to fine tuning it as per our needs.

It makes us less experienced people to produce sounds other than the aeroplane sounds, though I had heard an old song which used the aeroplane sound on a solo musically.

I'm not a fan of the airplane sounds - especially with dirt. But, some very beautiful envelop filter type sounds can be achieved, that's glorious on clean tones. Just beautiful. This is what I particularly loved about the old BF-2 Flanger. It had that sound. It was unmistakable. That's why I had to get my hands on the one I just got, after selling my old one, decades ago and regretting it ever since.

Reportedly, Andy Summers got some very beautiful chorus-like sounds with a flanger. Who'd have guessed?

Agreed - the manual knob is the magic knob :-).

 

[laxu]

Reportedly, Andy Summers got some very beautiful chorus-like sounds with a flanger. Who'd have guessed?

Chorus is basically a flanger with more delay.

This is why e.g the Strymon Deco can be turned from flanging to chorus by just increasing the Lag Time knob which adds delay to the 2nd "tape deck" in it.

 

[FuzzyAce]

At one point in the late 90's my board consisted of these 3 oldies. Add in a Crybaby wah and that was my whole board.

Only one I still have is the tube driver, which was my very first OD/distortion pedal I got in a trade.
The PT9 and FX60 were great, wish I still had them. Only phaser I currently have that can capture some of the same qualities is a Moog MF-103.