Pedals that are all kinds of wrong for you

[soggy mittens]

to the chorus haters...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqI0LiWT2vM

...still hate it?

[Pacafeliz]

flangers

flangers are wrong. kill 'em all.

We should do a flanger genocide!

I will had Chorus to the list. Chorus are bad.

nope, not always. i mean, we have The Cure and New Order bass chorus sounds = great!

over 80'd chorus on guitar = shit

[Singlebladepickup]

add me to the group that thinks all flangers should be exterminated.

I can't personally deal with wah or whammy pedals, and I won't use anything to try to sound like keys. I'm messing with actual keys at the moment, which I enjoy, and I don't think I could play guitar in a way that would sound like it actually came from keys. I'd probably make an exception for chiptune or videogame-sounding stuff. I can't see myself ever really wanting a phaser, but I had one on a multi-fx back in the day and they're pretty cool.

Chorus is the effect I use almost exclusively, besides the trem/verb on my amp.

[Jaguar018]

I have avoided Chorus pedals since the early 90s. I think I might try one just to see what it was that I didn't like.

I love Flangers and Phasers. I don't use them too much, but I like to have them around. Same with Fuzz. Fuzz is mostly an effect that I use while noodling and never live.

The main pedals that I don't care for are the ones that sound too unique, like the POG and the Whammy. They are cool, but they only seem to have one major sound to my ears no matter how much you fiddle with them.

[CHILDISHGAMBINO]

Pedals that make your guitar sound like an organ (or any other instrument for that matter). While it's pretty amazing what can be done these days I'd much rather try'n learn to play the real thing, or some kind of emulator. There are plenty of apps out there that work perfectly well with external keyboards. Some will say it's all about playing in a live situation but it's just not for me.

And...that fucking pedal that sounds all cutesy & Japanese. I can't even remember what it was called, or what it did. I just remember hating it from the get go.

EDIT - Miku Stomp!

A lot of people don't want to learn keys and want those sounds. I think it's great. Keyboards have hundreds of non-piano/organ sounds that sound like other instruments.

Miku is just silly. Looks like fun though.

[Squirrel]

crybaby wah's. yeah, this is a personal complaint but i've found them to be un-reliable tone suckers. i had one i used from time to time. i broke a switch every 3 months. i had the inductors fail, jacks fail and a few other things. it got to the point where i converted it to true bypass and replaced the inductors and all the broken parts and i realised "i still dont like how it sounds" so i replaced it with a coloursound circuit. liked that much better.

I've never owned one personally but I know what you mean. If it wasn't for replacing broken switches and inductors on Crybabys I'd practically be out of a job. They're probably the most common thing I have to repair, along with replacing burnt PCBs on Fender Blues Juniors and removing those tone-sucking capacitor/resistor combo thingies from '60s Gibson amps. Vintage Crybabys naturally have way better hardware but ugh, I still don't like how they sound at all.

[CHILDISHGAMBINO]

I don't understand how you wouldn't know what to do with fuzz. Listen to some rock music. There's fuzz all over the place. For me it's envelope filters. I like them in theory but eventually something about them pisses me off and then they're gone.

Totally! And I have a fuzz that I use but depending on what your'e writing you can lose an awful lot of string definition with the fuzz. I don't write a lot of riff rock stuff and if your'e using jazz-type chords the fuzz just tends to swallow everything. But yeah if I was writing heavy power chord stuff or playing lead the fuzz would be on all the time.

I have an Orpheum/Mosrite Fuzz that gets that 60's vibe but it cleans up really well. I love that Big Muff sound but I just can't use it with my ideas.

Have you ever tried a fuzz with a blend? It might be something that could work for you.

[Mike S]

These are specific pedals that I've tried or owned that are absolute horseshit:

-Digitech Digital Multi-Chorus: A messy refrigerator in a compact blue box.
-EHX Clone Theory: To me it's as bad as the Digitech.
-Death By Audio Soundwave Breakdown: Yeah, let's take a pedal that's desperately trying and failing at being a good 60's fuzz and add glitchy radio interference/vaguely microphonic feedbackish noises to it...
-EHX Cock Fight: A mediocre fuzz with an unusable cocked wah knob that's completely unnecessary for anyone that either has a wah pedal or a phase swith on their guitar. It might actually be cheaper and more satisfying to wire in a phase switch.
-Dead(fx) I Can't Feel My Face Super-Fuzz: A miniaturized, adaptor-only Super-Fuzz clone that uses zener diodes in place of germanium and breaks at the drop of a hat.
Boss XT-2 Xtortion: For anyone who wants to combine the sounds of an angry beehive and a muffled fart all in one pedal.

[cestlamort]

I only get along with chorus, flangers, delays (and reverbs)....

But beware of many out there, some just sound terrible (or too overpowering).

Clone theory on bass is amazing.

[Mike S]

The current EHX Polychorus XO is bullshit and sounds nothing like the big box ones. It does not give you precise control for the sweep rate. Of course it's going to sound different. They switched from 24v to 9v.

[Ursa Minor]

Ok, so first I'll get the aesthetic rants out of the way:

1) Pedals that look like terrible graphic tees from the aughts.

2) We literally have nine billion different effects brands, makers, artisanal pedals these days and the vast majority of them still use boring ass hammond style enclosures! Would it kill somebody to do a little foundry or bend some steel?!

Soundwise:

1) Big Muffs. This is a sad one for me. I really want to make one work. Love how they sound. Just doesn't work for my playing.

2) Whammy. Too specific, too gimmicky, sounds annoying. Tom Morello and Jack White killed this pedal to absolute death.

3) Digital Reverb. Big Nope.

4) Shimmer verb or other heaven inspired tonz. No thanks.

5) Drippy phasers. Ones that sound uber funky and or vocal are just....no.

I could go on. But I think these are the top all kind of wrong ones for me at least. With bonus rant spilling over into pedal enclosure designs that are all kinds of wrong!

[burntumber]

Strymon pedals because of the price tags.

EHX pedals because something always breaks on any I've owned.

[Kristerkk]

fuck wah pedals

[SadFuzz]

I never use a wah in the traditional way. I always have it fully heel down in conjunction with distortion. Really unconventional tone.
I hate-
Phasers - like flangers, but not as interesting.
Compression - I don't see the point in squashing dynamics, unless you're Kevin Parker.
Flangers- fun but get boring quickly.
Overdrive - I get it but I prefer a backed off fuzz.
Behringer pedals- plastic enclosure????

Pedals I do like-
Octave fuzz/fuzz in general- I rarely play leads and wanted an unconventional sound for my chords, usually invented, in alternate tunings or open chords half way up the neck and a fuzz backed off really gets the tone for me.
Analog delay- one of the most enjoyable and usable effects ever. MXR Carbon Copy for the win.
EQ- usually dismissed but VERY useful.

And finally...

Hands- I don't know what I'd do without these in the signal chain.

[mackerelmint]

Here to hate on crybabies. God only knows how anyone can get along with them. I'm not big on wah, but the vox 847 really should have stopped the production of crybabies in its tracks.

Most flanging effects hate me, and I curse the day the Leslie simulator was born. What a worthless effect.