It might be cool to hear stories about your first ever stompbox. This is likely something you purchased as a youngster but who knows. Maybe the first effect you ever used you happened to build yourself. It also might be interesting to relate what your other starting gear was. So here goes...
My first stompbox was an Ibanez UE300. I no longer have this unit but for better or worse it kind of got me addicted to that tubescreamer sound. It had four switches and 3 effects total and ran off of ac current. The fx were compressor/limiter, tubescreamer and a stereo chorus. The four switches were set up one per effect and then one master switch so you could turn on a couple of effects with one push if you wanted to. There was also a little fx loop and since it was a stereo chorus you could output two signals.
I used this with an old peavey bandit and my sweet little Martin EM18 electric that was made in 1980 or so. The guitar is the only thing that I still have of that original setup. It still sounds great.
My first ever stompbox (and it can barely be called that, because it had a SLIDE switch, not a stomp) was, and is an E-H Muff Fuzz. I still have it, though I've had to rebuild it.
It was a later one with black/orange graphics and two jacks (no plug).
Sort of like this one, but without the red replacement knob:
(http://i17.ebayimg.com/03/i/01/af/c8/3d_1_b.JPG)
I can still hear the sound of that thing run through my GAX amp with the tremolo cranked in my head.
Roger
I think my first pedal was a DOD Supra Distortion...sounded like absolute crap unless used with a solid state amp - really. :) It was kinda cool save for the horrible bypass switch, sometimes it would just stay on or off whether you stomped it or not.
After that I got some old EH stuff, an LPB-1 and a Crying Tone/Muff Fuzz huge wah thing, it produced some ungodly racket alright. :)
Jim
Seamoon Fresh Fuzz :D
National(Shin-Ei) Fuzz/Wah.
I just recently scored another one off eBay. Great octave/fuzz!
First DIY was an LPB-2, 'hanging garden' style!
RDV
Tube screamer TS-10. And I still have it (although fairly heavily modded and in a new case!)
rogue dst-5
A diode bridge that I thought would get harmonics for a friends bass. But, it sounded just the same (looked a lot different on a scope, though!)
Black Cat OD-1 clone
cascaded dod250s. Man that thing kills!
The first one that I got is a wah/fuzz with slide switches. I always thinked that the fuzz sounds cool (when I didn't knew nothing about electronics), and some time ago I opened it again, and what I saw? Three germaniun transistors!!! I think it's a Tonebender clone with wah. My father bought the pedal for him long time ago, he used it when he played guitar, now it's mine. After this one, the first that I got was a LM386 amp that I made (first working thing!!!), and then a Bazz Fuss.
My first distortion pedal was a Miniture Reel To Reel recorder that ran off 4 double A batteries, came from Japan and was about the size of a ross flanger, there were not many pedal's around in the early 60's, a friend showed me how to convert this recorder into a distortion box, I don't remember how I did it, It's been to many Moon's ago. :roll:
Would be interesting to find another and try it again,
JD
1977
Solasound/Colorsound Tonebender (3 knob)
Grey case, orange graphics.
Still got it.
No. I have resisted the urge to mod it :)
1st: EA / Babani treble boost, homebrew;
2nd: Germanium Fuzz Face, s/h, repaired, used, nicked;
3rd: Coloursound Octivider, s/h, crap (still got it though).
almost don`t dare sayin`it (Mark might read this...) but among the first :
2 beat up Schaller WahWah/YoyYoy rockers that I tore apart to only use the mechanical portion of `em. (still got the shells since over 30 years...)
My first effect was a dod supra distortion that wasn't really mine (I lent the money to my younger brother to buy iy, to use with the cheap guitar i gave him for a christmas gift. You guessed it, my parents would not buy him one :)). The supra is still in the family, and always sucked big time.
At the time i didn't even play guitar, so my brother tought me a couple of nirvana's songs, and that was the begining of the end :D
After a while i got my own gear, and then got a boss mt-2 i still own and use (less and less everyday now, since i've built a huge arsenal of dists).
Quote from: Paul MarossyBlack Cat OD-1 clone
Yeah, that's the first one you built. What's the first one you
bought?
RDV
First thing I ever did was to rip open my Bassballs, pull out the trimmers and replace them with panel mounted pots. Then I tried to build an Electra Distortion, but never got it to work. The first pedal I ever built (successfully) from scratch was this Tube Sound Fuzz...
http://www.moosapotamus.com/CA-TSF/ca-tsf.htm
~ Charlie
a ProCo RAT.
I loved that pedal....
Mine was a late 70's Big Muff...
hello there, craig anderton tube fuzz---right out of book. i went on to build just about all the projects in there and mounted them on rack mount strips in a box with a bipolar supply (also out of the book). rh
....silver hammertone Fuzz Face (with silicon trannys).....second one;Vox Tonebender....still have them....
MXR Distortion+. I liked it so much, I bought another and cascaded them. I used one for an overdrive sound, and the other for over the top distortion.....on my bass. :D
I already posted about my first stompbox to ever use...just last year I finally decided to mod a pedal for the first time...Hmm...It was a ts5 in a new case(eventually part of a half rack multi-effect) with choice of different diodes and stuff. Now I've got the bug.
My first box was a reissue TS-9... I still have it (but quite modded now...)
How's this for old cheese...
"Olson Frizzy Fuzz"...Bright red 'box' [actually two 'U's of metal, the ends could be bent open easily]. with jacks on the 'flexible' sides, and a hanging garden of about 12 parts in a cats cradle for innards.
It worked flawslessly for a full two days!!! I repaired/twisted it 'till it worked a few hundred or thousand times.
I got [somehow by magic I guess] a Broken Big Muff to work, IIRC the Olson [you guys remember when Oslons/Radio Shack competed?...good old days of Ham popularity]...Frizzy Fuzz got turned into some speaker jacks, and the slide switch was used to switch to the new Guild Humbucker that had been 'honed into' a Gibson Meloday Maker...quite the guitar [stolen...I find it, I become the HULK :evil: to whoever took it] .
I don't think there's anything left whatsoever around here from those days, except a speaker jack from the Olson Frizzy Fuzz, I hope that jack will be entered in the nearby Cleveland R&R 'Hall of Shame' someday.
My first sound effect was a Watkins Copycat, which I promptly dumped after seeing Lord Sutch & the Savages who didn't use echo, around 1962.
My first one was a Boss Heavy Metal HM-2, bought from my bro for 10$. I hated it :D It gave me the gain i wanted but so much for a good tone...it was noisy and the input jack is broken. I used it till my bro started playing bass and let me borrow his fender bullet reverb amp (love the sound of that). now my little bro's using it. Of course, now I could fix/mod it, but, heh.
(http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev2/files/fkstilt/Hm-2.jpg)
Maybe it sounds better when its buried by all the other instruments 8)
Ciao.
An Ibanez TS-5 Tube Screamer, which I am too attatched to to mod. So much so that I bought another one to mod. How sad is that? :o
So now I have one stock and one modded to 808 specs and the stock one sounds better cos the TS-5 sounds much darker than a normal Tube Screamer. :shock:
Quote from: Rodgre
I can still hear the sound of that thing run through my GAX amp with the tremolo cranked in my head.
Roger
That's funny, even after extensive mods, my head doesn't have tremolo :wink: Just distortion...
My first effect (1974) was a Thomas Organ Stereo Fuzz/Wah/Volume. I still have it, but the pots are too scratchy for use. Geoffrey Teese was nice enough to email me some info on replacing the dual pot contraption, but I have yet to ressurect it. The next two purchases were script logo Dyna-Comp and Phase 90. Those were loaned and never returned many years ago. I have tapes of the fearsome noise these pedals unleashed via my mighty Peavey Backstage 30 and '59 Guild Starfire hollowbody. <beavis>pretty cool</beavis>
Kerry M
First stompbox for me was a phase shifter.
Don't remember the brand but it had 3 letters like MXR but the box was black and the logo was script .Sounded pretty much like a 45.
PAid around $25 in 77/78.
After that it was a Colorsound Wha/Fuzz/Swell.
I don't have them anymore.
Aharon
...Ibaneze LA-Metal...oh, where is it now?...somewhere fara away I hope.. :)
Johan
1983 I built a "Superfuzz" . This might have come out of a project book as a friend copied the info and gave me the info. It worked great at the time. I still have one schematic and layout on paper from the pack of projects he gave me. Project No. 8 Compressor
Anyone know where that came from? What project book?
Arn C.
"Yeah, that's the first one you built. What's the first one you bought?"
Oh... you mean one you bought? I thought the question was about first one you built. :oops:
In that case, I believe it was an Arion SAD-1. Not actually bought, but given to me - but the first pedal I ever had. The first thing I actually bought was a DOD Compressor.
first pedal i bought was the marshal jackhammer. great pedal (Overdrive mode is nice but distortion mode sucks)
so far i havnt modded it tho i have opened it up and am about half way through working out a schematic so i can start modding
Age 15. Early 1970's fuzz effect, metal box, gold-toned with black lettering. Can't remember the brand. Sounded pretty cheezy. Would love to have it now. Jusy couldn't get it to sound like Paul Kossoff...8)
Boss DS-1 :-D
$40, c. 1996
Quote from: MartyBAge 15... Just couldn't get it to sound like Paul Kossoff..)
been smoking since "All Right Now" - still don`t sound like Paul Rodgers...
:cry:
I think the only commercial pedal I've ever owned is a DD-5.
Roger Mayer Classic Fuzz. Bought it when he first started making them. Was distributed by Guitar Galaxy of NYC. Has Abel AC128's in it. Sounded great when I got it, but the trannys are a little weak now. I should put new 128's and electro's in it, but I keep telling myself to leave it alone. Don't know why, it's not valuable or anything. Got a pic of the guts in the test section.
My second pedal was a block logo Dist.+. Still have it, looks like hell, but I replaced the components with the original types and values. Still sounds great, and I use it to compare my D+ builds against. So my first two store bought pedals also ended up being picked as my first two builds. Both are still my favorites.
Back in '75, I was a broke 13 year-old. Mom and Dad weren't too happy when I bought a Teisco PCASHT and a cheap Checkmate amp. (Probably about a 2-watter). Wanted a distortion sound, so I sliced the cone! Sounded like a weak moose farting :shock: The first effect I built was the "Ultra Fuzz" from the original EPFM. Sheer, shrill square waves with a cap bypass that dropped the treble...a tad. First effect I bought was a Crybaby wah that got ripped off years later.. along with my original Bad Stone and Mutron III. I'll never find replacements for those :evil: This thread has been fun hearing about other pedalhead "first loves" :wink:
Take care all,
Tony
Some old DOD distortion (circa 1980) that was just awful...
no idea what I ever did with it.. .just happy that I got rid of it.
after that was a DS-1 and a Crybaby...
"-)
hte mother of all cheap dist sounds
a rocktek dist pedal,, not even the metal one. that i had to put a rubber band around the knobs tightly to keep the dist on. cause it had been dropped and broken.
back then i was like wow i hope the rubberband doesnt' break this is too cool to mess up. i coudl never make somethink like this.
lol i traded it for a little amp to a guy named mike in high school, he said he fixed it.. all he did was make it a clean boost pedal which it did without the rubberband anyway.. lol
My first one was a Radio Shack delay/ reverb box. It wasn't a stomp box, but sort of a PA accessory. It had 4 sliders (time, repeat, level, and ?), and you could get a really "cool" distortion from it.
It also could handle to different inputs, so I used it to mix a Casio keyboard, and my guitar into a single amp: my home stereo....what a Rock 'n roll setup I had those days!
Boss CE-2 chorus, 1977-ish. I still use it now.
I'd seen a local band using chorus on both guitars and I wanted that sound...
i had a korg AX100G digital multi-fx pedal. i was in love with it until i started listening to hendrix and thought, hold on a tick, that jimi patch doesnt sound ANYTHING like him!!! :evil:
i finally caught on when i saw classic guitarists rigs consisted of many pedals, not just multi-fx ones.
bottom line is that they are good, but not great, at anything they do.
heres a funny story: my friend has a zoom pedal with an acoustic simulator, and it distorts on the acoustic sound :?
first build was an electra distortion that worked, bu i misread the value and had 390K at the emitter of the transistor, and after much playing, i convinced myself it was distorting. good times
cheers
Jim
First commercial pedal was a '78 E-H Small Stone. Still have it alive and kickin'.
First DIY was a sort of silicon Fuzz Face in a box a la LPB-1 for a friend in the late 70s. Got the schematic from a magazine.
Then I did another for a small organ I had :roll:
It's been a long run from that to this (http://www.pisotones.com) :wink:
First-ever effects unit, period: Ibanez PT-5 Multi-effects - about 11yrs ago when I first started playing electric; it sounded ok, wish I still had it today to play with. Sounded pretty good with headphones.
First single stompbox - DOD Envelope Filter - from back in '94, with the smaller block-style lettering. It actually was a good little unit too; bought it to play U2's 'Mysterious Ways'.
First DIY box - Anderton's Tube Sound Fuzz - built on perf-board, it actually worked, and I still have it somewhere. First thing I built out of his 'Electronic Projects...Musicians' book.
Quote from: AharonFirst stompbox for me was a phase shifter.
Don't remember the brand but it had 3 letters like MXR but the box was black and the logo was script .Sounded pretty much like a 45.
PAid around $25 in 77/78.
After that it was a Colorsound Wha/Fuzz/Swell.
I don't have them anymore.
Aharon
I just remembered that both those boxes (plus many more) and most of my early guitars(among them a 1968/9 cherry red Gibson 335 and a Fender Bronco single p/u that had one of the first ever floating bridges I'd seen that could go down AND up and I remember I blocked it with a piece of wood) where bought at Richmond's Trading Post on Church St. in downtown Toronto's pawn shop alley, just in case any canadians out thre want to to share the memory train with me.
Aharon
The first pedal I had was also the first one I built: Anderton's "Optimum Fuzz Adapter".
First pedal I bought was an mxr distortion+ I bought from a friend for $5. Many years later I essentially swapped it with someone for an arion chorus. Looking back, I think I got the better deal there. I love that chorus... Best leslie vibrato I've ever heard in a 9v pedal.
First pedal I bought in a store was an EH Bad Stone phaser. I traded in a cheap classical guitar as part of the deal and regretted that later. Loved those nylon strings... The phaser quickly sounded cheesy to me and it was the only pedal I've ever had that died on me. Cheesy folded-aluminum piece of crap.... :D :D
Doug