Reverb the pedal movie

[Zork]

...has anyone seen it yet? Is it worth it or would I basically pay for a full length promo video?

https://reverb.com/page/the-pedal-movie

[Firecat]

I'd like to see it, but it's not available here in Belgium. Based on the comments on Youtube and Facebook, it's unavailable in a lot of places, even in countries they're saying it's available. Seems like they messed up the release, but I still hope it will be available soon.

[sessylU]

I'm pretty sure I've made this joke before, but:

I think I'll wait for the Behringer version.

[Dr Tony Balls]

I'm pretty sure I've made this joke before, but:

I think I'll wait for the Behringer version.

If it doesnt have the JHS guy in it, it'll be an improvement!

[redchapterjubilee]

I watched it yesterday morning. The goods outweigh the bads, but some of it perplexes me. It doesn't appear that pedal nerds are the intended audience for the movie. The approach is very general in scope. I find it really odd that they will talk about Hendrix or Pagey or Jeff Beck and show them on screen but, likely for licensing reasons, do not play the classic recordings that the onscreen interviewee is referencing. There is plenty of original music content (some of it really good) and later in the timeline they begin to use some licensed music. I also find it odd what companies they focus on and what companies seem to be kind of brushed past. DOD and Digitech are barely mentioned. Line 6 is reduced to the DL-4. ProCo is completely unmentioned. The discussion about the '80s is pretty much only about how awful guitar tones were and that everyone carried around several racks of gear that just did one thing each. But then turn around and talk about how rad British bands of the '80s were like MBV who did use the same racks full of gear but used it in a different way. This is not the first time in the movie where the director makes a blanket statement and then goes behind his/herself to undo that argument with a different interview. I like that they worked hard to find diversity in the pedal builder ranks, and it was cool to see some of the 2010's era builders on camera. Yes, Josh Scott is on there A LOT, but so is PGS Andy and the EQD people and the Malekko guys and so many others. I do find it interesting that after shitting on digital for pretty much all the movie they then admit Boss made amazing groundbreaking digital pedals and the DL-4 ruled. And then they go on to talk a bit about the DSP explosion of the '10s and how "digital finally caught up". I too prefer BBD and analog circuitry but I'm not anti-digital and I found the "only analog" focus of the first 2/3 of the movie kinda...I dunno, weird. I suppose were I not a pedal nerd then this stuff wouldn't bother me. It just seems that for every big statement made in the movie there should have been a footnote or an aside that explained that the big blanket statement just made isn't exactly true or there's a caveat that needs further exploration. There is some focus on the "accidental businessperson" aspect of hobbyists turned to business owners and I thought that was an interesting point of view.

This movie doesn't engage me the way that the fuzz movie from 15 years ago does. That movie is esoteric and kind of quirky fun, and somewhat glorifies in the nerdiness of guitar pedal making and collecting. The Reverb movie is much more serious, and I understand why. I get that boutique pedal building and collecting has exploded since then and has mainstreamed. I played a six band outdoor gig Saturday and all the guitarists were using at least one small builder pedal on their boards. Some boards were very "forum-approved." The boutique phenomenon is now a multi-million dollar industry and deserves to be covered as such. So I think the movie is overall successful. I found myself chuckling at times, so it's definitely worth watching, but I don't think I'm going to be the only person like us who watches this and has some nits to pick.

[Trout]

I heard it was delayed

[shoule79]

I do find it interesting that after shitting on digital for pretty much all the movie they then admit Boss made amazing groundbreaking digital pedals and the DL-4 ruled. And then they go on to talk a bit about the DSP explosion of the '10s and how "digital finally caught up".

This is kind of why i'm not really interested in watching it. The other being that its basically an advertisement for Reverb and a handful of selected builders that we get the pleasure of paying for. Some of my favorite pedals of all time are 80/90's digital pedals. But they aren't "cool" and boutique builders can't/don't make clones of them.

Guitar forums always have their favorites and their whipping boys, and this sounds like its just going to reinforce the same cliche posts you read on TGP. For a while if it wasn't true bypass it was garbage, digital sucked and analog ruled, if it doesn't have NOS transistors you can't get that sound, Boss was junk, now its great, unless its the Metal Zone, which is now the best pedal ever, etc.

I'll wager the content is like sponsored reviews where they don't talk about issues either (for active companies anyway). The JHS DOD episode talked about all the good, but left out the crappy buffers, temperamental switches and bad buffers. I'd love to hear PGS Andy talk about volume drops, digital artifacts or hiss. Anyway, going off topic...

[zhivago]

I was initially very excited to watch this...about 12 months ago or so...maybe longer...

...the movie release was delayed so much I just went cold on it in the end. I just can't see myself paying to see this one, especially as, let's face it, if you're into effects you probably already know all the historical facts. Of course, for beginners in the effects journey it is great to have everything in one film, so I kinda feel I am not really the target audience. The second part with the builders would be nice to watch, I must admit.

To be honest, I can't see how it can be better than "Fuzz", which basically features all the builders I've ever been into interviewed in their prime.


Having said all that, kudos to Reverb for making it.

[ElephantDNA]

I bought it the first day. It's cool, but almost literally just a longer JHS show done less well. There's nothing wrong about it, it's just the generic music documentary thing "I remember the time x y and z happened and I was there." It's not the most engaging format. The "Rock docs" that are the best are ones that are either have a genuinely interesting angle - such as "It's Gonna Blow" about San Diego as the failed "Next Seattle," or where there is some type of a plot involved - Mudhoney going indie/major/indie is a good example of this.

Unfortunately this one is kind of a film without an audience. I'm not upset that I bought it. It's neat to have and I may rewatch it at some point. It's just if you already know about this subject, you're not going to learn a whole lot more. And if you don't care about the subject, you probably wouldn't watch it to begin with. Like I said, it reminded me about the million rock docs coming out nowadays about a club or a scene or a band. It's not that any single person interviewed is bad, it's just uninteresting to hear the same thing about how cool something is/was from a bunch of different people. It just felt like this needed a stronger narrative or organization to it.

It just had that type of nepotism feel of "let's make a movie about our buddies" instead of getting a real filmmaker for this project who could have contextualized the information and cut some of the redundant interviews into something more compelling.

If you haven't seen the above 2 docs - San Diego and Mudhoney, I'd recommend you spend your time watching those instead

[marqueemoon]

I was already tired of the hype. Then I found out it cost actual money.

But I guess it still worked because I bought a pedal today. Not on Reverb though.

[HosaMogami]

I watched this a couple of nights ago. Unfortunately, I did not gain $10 worth of additional knowledge. However, in my current time & place, I did happily absorb the $10 cost of entertainment. So my advice would be, enjoy it if you can like any film.

[soggy mittens]

[jvin248]

.

The real question is ... how many new pedals do you need to chase down to own now that you've seen the movie?
That is why Reverb did it.
Their choices of which pedals to document most likely came from which pedals are the most active/popular on their site.

.

[jorri]

Is it about "making music with pedals" or "folks who watch pedal demos as a full time hobby"?

[s_mcsleazy]

no doubt every pedal mentioned in that movie will now be inflated on reverb by 50%

in all seriousness, i've been on the fence if i want to watch this or not. i really liked the one from 2007 but what i quickly realised was a lot of pedal builders seem kinda..... uneasy on screen and the ones that didn't were mostly good but a few kinda rubbed me the wrong way. plus the dude from jhs pedals is a personality i can only stand for maybe 5 mins total. if i hear him talk about that pearl jam ticket story one more time in a video, i'm gonna vomit.