Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

[blacktiger]

The new Soft Focus pedal seems to reach a new level of giving us something that we could easily achieve with existing pedals in a single-tasking stand-alone format. Isn’t there already a programmable Zoom pedal that can get you there (and do lots of other things) for under $100? Don’t get me wrong, I have been a fan of shoegaze and dream pop since the ‘80s, and I certainly gravitate toward that style, but the number of “shoegaze in a box” pedals that are aimed at a specific band/record/song seems to be ridiculous. Do people really want to sound exactly like Slowdive or MBV? Is that any better than trying to sound exactly like EVH or SRV? For me, shoegaze was an escape from trying to sound like everyone else, but it seems like shoegaze/ambient guitar players ARE everyone else these days [rant over\].

[Trout]

It's not just you

[JSett]

Yeah, it's not just you. And a lot of people are calling some music "shoegaze" that very definitely is not Shoegaze.

[MrShake]

I agree with all this. And a few years ago, at their lowest point, I scooped up the O.G.s for all the original effects.

That Soft Focus sound though. I wouldn't track with it or write around it, would be too slavish. I did take it out a few gigs for between song interludey "how'd he do that?" stuff.

Our band tries to hoe our own garagegaze row. Influences are there, but not the mimicry of so many of the YouTube Shoegaze crowd. It's even more militantly conformist than my teenage '90s punk scene.

But when everyone's asleep and I plug into the FX500...

... damn it, I hate myself for wanting one of these. Just don't tell anybody.

[blacktiger]

But when everyone's asleep and I plug into the FX500...

... damn it, I hate myself for wanting one of these. Just don't tell anybody.

Don’t get me wrong, I could see myself having lots of fun with it at home alone (which is where I’m at most of the time anyway), but I couldn’t see myself writing a song around it and using it on a recording. I have an RV-7, and as much as I love the reverse reverb on that thing, I really can’t see myself making it a significant part of “my sound” because it’s pretty much impossible to not sound like a cheap Kevin Shields knock-off with it on.

[MrShake]

Don’t get me wrong, I could see myself having lots of fun with it at home alone (which is where I’m at most of the time anyway), but I couldn’t see myself writing a song around it and using it on a recording. I have an RV-7, and as much as I love the reverse reverb on that thing, I really can’t see myself making it a significant part of “my sound” because it’s pretty much impossible to not sound like a cheap Kevin Shields knock-off with it on.

Absolutely agreed, and same on the RV-7. I did a couple of tracks that use "that" sound, and I take it out live to use for a few bits in a noise storm, but geez, I'm so sheepish someone will notice, lol.

Frankly, for me, the appeal of this new one is THAT sound, but more importantly, the much more convenient form factor. I wouldn't need to balance the FX500 on my amp if I ever take it out again, run it to a TB looper in my chain, etc. That's really it. If I want that at home, I switch a couple cables in back of my mixer and plug it in. The draw for me would be portability and easy modularity.

But then I'd sound like everybody else who buys one of these.

The Loomer was the one that really made my eyes roll. If you're targeting the specific MBV glide thing, you should have to learn the damn picking/trem technique. The auto-vibrato thing seemed like a tan pants engineer "solution" to a problem that didn't exist.

[marqueemoon]

Hopefully people are using tools like this as jumping off points for further experimentation.

What’s so compelling about the shoegaze stuff I like is the songwriting and the melodies and chord progressions, particularly when there are open tunings/interesting chord voicings happening.

A boring song with some vibrato action and a fancy pedal is still a boring song.

[blacktiger]

A boring song with some vibrato action and a fancy pedal is still a boring song.

Amen.

For the Soft Focus, you can clearly change it up so that you don’t sound just like Slowdive, but it seems like there are lots of other pedals that can do that and a lot more. It seems silly to drop over $200 on something based around a single sound. Most plate reverbs with modulation can pretty much get you there and also offer a boatload of other settings.

[windmill]

Hopefully people are using tools like this as jumping off points for further experimentation.

Well said, everything comes from somewhere

(...looks across room at brand new Loomer pedal...)

You could look at it as standing on the shoulders of giants.

[panoramic]

you're not alone on this. I get a little grossed out by the pedals that are 100% marketed as "loveless in a box" or "Souvllaki in a box" .
I mean, you can get a quadraverb for $50 and actually sound like souvlaki if you really want but I guess paying like $400 for some cool boutique version is more amazing?
whatever, i would probably watch the demos of it on youtube 1000 times and almost buy it over and over again.

[marqueemoon]

A boring song with some vibrato action and a fancy pedal is still a boring song.

Amen.

For the Soft Focus, you can clearly change it up so that you don’t sound just like Slowdive, but it seems like there are lots of other pedals that can do that and a lot more. It seems silly to drop over $200 on something based around a single sound. Most plate reverbs with modulation can pretty much get you there and also offer a boatload of other settings.

…or just take inspiration from music you love and put your own spin on it and worry less about copying specific toanz.

[MrShake]

…or just take inspiration from music you love and put your own spin on it and worry less about copying specific toanz.

Bingo. When I went on my quest for that MBV style, it was because I wanted that shade for my own palette, not just to recreate "Soon" over and over. I ballparked the settings and got to work seeing how I could apply it to my own sounds and arrangements. I've been able to do it a few times.

The Soft Focus sound was a lot harder for ME to add to the stew without it being just a straight up Slowdive knockoff, but I'd like to think there are MOMENTS that aren't totally just mimicry. But damn it was so satisfying to be surfing that EXACT wave after hearing that sound for so many years I've been trying to make it work more honestly for me. I haven't quite gotten there. But I could see myself experimenting even more if I had one of these new boxes.

The Spirit Three - "Silverleaf" (Backing Track)

But I also paid $70 and got the satisfaction of the genuine article, no wondering. Not a builder's limited edition reimagining of how to make that sound, at a collectible price.

And that's the thing that gets me, is the high-end, fancypants nature of it. It takes away the shoegaze aspect of repurposed junk. Finding new sounds in old boxes. Now so much of it is "Band In A Box" that the generations younger than me are codifying that shitty blues boomer "you NEED (x) to make (y) or else you're not legit" and applying it to the Boutique Shoegaze Starter Kit, but forgetting the "find new sounds and textures" part. And just minting endless slowcore bands calling themselves shoegaze. Whatever, I'm not hung up on labels, but words and meanings still matter a little, right?

All these pedals in question are neutral. They're tools to be utilized. And many of them are great tools. I just hate that "minimum barrier to entry".

Use whatever tools you want to inspire you or realize the sounds in your head/heart. Seriously. No shame or negativity if a particular tool speaks to you. After all, "overdriven guitar" is one of those sounds. It's the myopic narrowing of definitions that bothers me, just like hyper-orthodox punkers or the loss of junk-diving adventure in shoegaze stuff.

But also, a lot of the "collectible toys" aspects of shoegaze pedal culture are getting stupider and stupider, as a whole, right?

And luckily for me, "Lush Strings" on my FX500 is still a secret. Shhhhhh.

[jorri]

Yeh i honestly thought the Pink Floyd pedal was more inspiring and the Loveless one wasn't. I play in a Shoegaze band so it would make me feel lik having to cover it with duck tape to avoid the #cringe.

I make some of those effects with the wrong kit...not really aiming for it, like i wrote a song so why would i use an effect programmed for another band's song. I even tried the yamaha and didn't like. I can see how the zoom or digitech are good imitators but its not that great and went off it quick. Hey maybe there was not a lot available in 1990 so they used the option of about 3 rack units and it worked DESPITE of them....i think that's like most gear obsessions in any genre. I saw the Fairlight CMI being suddenly revered as if you'd actually need that today to make Running Up that Hill. Or people buying a real TS808, or Hendrix's exact fuzz face. (To imitate pioneering musicians by being retrospective...they'd use something more pioneering today!)

I don't like how nu-gaze all sounds like the same 3 bands over and pver but less interesting. I don't losten to many shoegaze bnds either and liked the original ones because they had an experimentalism that was never quite fullfilled so i would rather keep to that than just do the 'netflix remake of shoegaze' that many bands do today and listen to the boundaries around the genre.

Samplers and drum machines are more fun to me now.

[cestlamort]

And luckily for me, "Lush Strings" on my FX500 is still a secret. Shhhhhh.

good choice! I used that as my default reverb for years and years, with a couple tiny tweaks (and resaved as "PLush Strings" with bad capitalization because I was lazy with the interface).

Boring shoegaze is all too prevalent, and one of the worst musical things out there (both then and now). (I very well may have contributed there, as well)
Great songs under a sheen of effects? Sounds great!
A heavy sheen of effects to hide the lack of songs? Pass. (And makes me dislike the sheen itself).

From the demos I've heard for the new Catalinbread pedal, it (like the Loomer) doesn't really reproduce the original FX500 patch: not enough compression, mono (!).

The joy of the original effect is that it obliterated whatever you ran into it, creating this squashed (but still huge) stereo image.

[MrShake]

From the demos I've heard for the new Catalinbread pedal, it (like the Loomer) doesn't really reproduce the original FX500 patch: not enough compression, mono (!).

The joy of the original effect is that it obliterated whatever you ran into it, creating this squashed (but still huge) stereo image.

I hear you. It does something special in stereo.

If you hunt for a deal you can find an FX500 for about $120.

The cheapest solid-state amp with a stereo effects return (Crate, Behringer) would run you, what, $50 on craigslist?

That leaves you money to buy a cheap Rat or TS clone and have the OG setup. Drive into the front end of the FX500 into anything that can take stereo (or into preamp with stereo loop).

I do get it, it fills a need some people have, and I refuse to dump on anybody that wants one. The ear wants what it wants. I don't speak for everybody, but I think a lot of the grousing in the thread is more the idea of pre-digested "band/genre in a box" pedals, and how they rarely seem to perfectly nail what they're aiming for, whether they're objectively good tools on their own or not.

Which is ironic to me, as I feel like they're boxes marketed to and purchased largely by people who want "exactly a very specific thing, exactly" and won't settle for less than perfect. Then these things come out, at sometimes crazy prices, and purists (maybe rightly) aren't happy, and they're not something with as much appeal to everybody else.

Just confusing is all.