Critical Mass

[warwick.hoy]

Have we reached the pinnacle of the effects world yet?

In the mid 90's when I was starting out the only effects offerings that were available to me in Virginia Beach VA were the usual offerings from Boss, Digitech, EHX...etc etc. Sure there were tons of boutique bass makers but not so much for effects; enough that all I really ever used back then was a brown Boss GE-7B and for a brief while the TS-9.

I'm sure there were other makers out there but not like it seems today. Perhaps back then I was unaware for all this time that there was an underground of boutique effects builders lurking behind the shadows but today,...if you pay any kind of attention there seems to be a new boutique builder coming out of the woodwork everyday and for any one that may fall out of favor or give up out of frustration there is another one to take his/her/their place.

Are we reaching a zenith? Is there a point where electrical limitations won't let us go any further? At what point is all we are doing just a rehashing and improving upon circuits that already exist as opposed to coming up with something completely new?

Perhaps it's my fault for not being able to recognize an original from a copy and I'm sure there are some geniuses out there that are completely original. But whom? Aen? Devi? Really what they've done is askew what a fuzz can do, add a starve function too it, but strip it down and it's still a fuzz. Are some their creations incredible? Yes!

Is there a point to my inane rambling of a thread. Well this isn't some sort of easy out of the FX world. I can do what I do because of effects so in that sense the limitation is null. I do find myself overwhelmed by the shear volume of choices available to me. Well if anything I hope someone will point out my flaws and expose me for the philistine I am, or tell me I'm on to something (which I hoping not).

[Eric!]

SS/BS is original
There're a few among the masses, still creating new stuff.
Look at the new Subdecay! Sure, it's just a revamped Quasar, but still!
Cusack Tap-A-things are neat, and a few other boutiques are going it: digitally-controlled analog signal paths. I sometimes wonder the same thing. Is there an end? It's like the universe!

James, I think you need bedtime. Come back and read your post in the morning

[somegeezer]

Do you mean like a fuzz is a fuzz, a chorus is a chorus, when will anyone bring out a completely new effect? I think if that's what you mean, then yes, we are at the pinnacle and can only refine and make other adjustments to what is already there.

[Eric!]

Originally Posted by somegeezer

Do you mean like a fuzz is a fuzz, a chorus is a chorus, when will anyone bring out a completely new effect? I think if that's what you mean, then yes, we are at the pinnacle and can only refine and make other adjustments to what is already there.

Oh, yeah. Maybe Iiiii need bedtime.

[geezerjpj]

I don't do Critical Mass because even though I support cyclists' rights I don't like getting arrested or tackled by rookie a**hole cops

[warwick.hoy]

Originally Posted by Eric!

James, I think you need bedtime. Come back and read your post in the morning

If you had seen my FB post from yesterday afternoon you'd think that. I hate to sound like Fassa here but the past two days have been interesting. I got the ick from a migraine along with expressive aphasia. Luckily I didn't get ick or e. aphasia on any of my gear.

I guess I just trying to be a little less overwhelmed by what seems to be a chaotic array of choices by telling myself that no one has had an original thought since someone distorted a board channel and got a fuzz tone out of it. EDIT: I'm just trying to figure out if I should be as jazzed about obscure effects as I initially was.

Also,...I get the bicycle joke,...har har.

[Eric!]

oh, so E.A. is like that Tono Tono guy? Not to be a jerk or anything, just something I can link it to in my head.
A new genre of effect WOULD be nice...I'm fairly fuzz-addicted right now, so a good chorus and delay, and everything else I have is fuzz-related
I don't get the joke =[

[Mudfuzz]

Originally Posted by warwick.hoy

I'm just trying to figure out if I should be as jazzed about obscure effects as I initially was.

This is a good question. It's hard to get jazzed after awhile particularly when you have already found stuff that works for you. I love a lot of what new builders are doing, I think the fun factor plays a bigger roll now then ever and I like that. But yeah after awhile it's hard to get excited about every new pedal when it's yeah a fuzz, a chorus, a trem, a delay, a ect..

[warwick.hoy]

Originally Posted by Eric!

oh, so E.A. is like that Tono Tono guy? Not to be a jerk or anything, just something I can link it to in my head.
A new genre of effect WOULD be nice...I'm fairly fuzz-addicted right now, so a good chorus and delay, and everything else I have is fuzz-related
I don't get the joke =[

Well,...I don't intend to say that Mark doesn't have a voice. I mean I bought one of his fuzz pedals,...it's always on,...I've never owned any other Muff circuit but the features the Supercollider offered were right for me; especially the mids switch. To me that's a viable improvement on an old design; that was intended for stoner doom guitarists but found a niche with bass players.

Take something like the 442 Red. It's a great filter but just a bass optimized version of the DOD440,...well why wouldn't I just find out which caps to replace, get some skillz and solder the right caps in a DOD440? Or just buying an envelope filter NOT based on the 440 but based on something that works better for bass.

How many TS-808 or TS-9 clones are out there for another example,...some made by big brands and some made by DIY guys. Some make no bones about their pedal being; if not complete at least in part clones of a Tube Screamer. Then you open up those that say just get an original because nothing sounds like it. To someone untrained of ear they all probably sound the same.

Why does it have to be so convoluted? I'm sure all these guys have their reasons. Perhaps the 442 Red was market researched and Boomstick/Mojohand/Tonefactor had discovered a market for these pedals. Perhaps BBE and Visual Sound know people want to buy Tube Screamer clones whose only improvement might be 3PDT switch.

I don't intend to hinder on choices but as someone that is trying not to get sucked into the American Dream of consumerism and debt,...I try to draw a line on things that make me go oooooooo and wondering if I should have the same skepticism with some of these FX makers. That said I'd rather feed a guy in NJ than line the pockets of some yacht jockey in Malaysia.

Originally Posted by Mudfuzz

This is a good question. It's hard to get jazzed after awhile particularly when you have already found stuff that works for you. I love a lot of what new builders are doing, I think the fun factor plays a bigger roll now then ever and I like that. But yeah after awhile it's hard to get excited about every new pedal when it's yeah a fuzz, a chorus, a trem, a delay, a ect..

Unfortunately I've don't think I've scratched the surface both in the effects world or even creatively what I can do with chorus,...trem,...delay....

[Eric!]

I didn't mean Earthbound Audio, I meant Expressive Aphasia :P
You DO need some rest, sir!

I understand where you're going, and it irks me too. I was just reading a thread on ILF, talking about how Mike at EHX is like Willy Wonka, always with new crazy stuff heck even the Big Muff? Their idea. But yet they're so hugely-marketed and everyone, even nonmusicians, know EHX. Well dang it all, he got one over on me. Love me an SMMH..

[warwick.hoy]

Originally Posted by Eric!

I didn't mean Earthbound Audio, I meant Expressive Aphasia :P
You DO need some rest, sir!

I understand where you're going, and it irks me too. I was just reading a thread on ILF, talking about how Mike at EHX is like Willy Wonka, always with new crazy stuff heck even the Big Muff? Their idea. But yet they're so hugely-marketed and everyone, even nonmusicians, know EHX. Well dang it all, he got one over on me. Love me an SMMH..

Okay my wife just said the same come to bed refrain between me giggling at my gaffe. Maybe I should take tomorrow off too.

Here is the Copy and Paste of my status update before we went to the ER around 6:30 on Sunday (I'll probably regret this)

Something both around with me, allowed tell put together coherence thought. Took about 5 tries to put together words like aluminum and linoleum. Word about 15 minutes to write these four sentences and needed to use word check to kept to get most these wrote right. What the **** is write with me.

By non musicians knowing EHX you mean Rockbanders and Guitard Heroes right.

[Eric!]

Can you please explain the bicycle joke?

Funny story, I've asked groups of people if any played instruments, and some hockeyhead had the balls to ask if G****r Hero counted. Wanted to deck him.

[warwick.hoy]

Critical Mass is the term for a bicycle ride. I first heard it uttered by this guy named Puck and he talked about it on a TV show called the Real World San Francisco (I have a feeling I might regret that as well but in my defense I was young and bored and the rents had TV).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass

[Eric!]

I've seen early Real World...i'm not THAT young! I actually have some old VHS of them, maybe of San Fran, actually!!!

[warwick.hoy]

Originally Posted by Eric!

I've seen early Real World...i'm not THAT young! I actually have some old VHS of them, maybe of San Fran, actually!!!

VHS maybe,...but I was watching them as they aired as opposed to going out and enjoying the actual real world, and by real world I mean boobies. CURSE YOU TV!!!!! I'm going to bed for realz now. G will deal with us in the morning.

[Silent Fly]

Originally Posted by warwick.hoy

Have we reached the pinnacle of the effects world yet?

Good question but unless someone invented a time machine that can show us what will happen in the next 50 years, I am not sure we know the answer

Originally Posted by warwick.hoy

(...) Is there a point where electrical limitations won't let us go any further? At what point is all we are doing just a rehashing and improving upon circuits that already exist as opposed to coming up with something completely new? (...)

I don’t think that if there are limitations they are electrical. It is a little bit like saying that architecture is at its zenith because brick limitations don't allow architecture to go further.

If anything, electronics is evolving at incredible speed and it offers innovative solutions like never before in history.

Having said that, I think there is some truth in what you say. New products don't seem that new after all. There are new brand/models of fuzz with different flavours and tones but they are still fuzzes. The same apply to chorus, distortion, overdrive...

I think the interesting question is not if reached the zenith but if we did is why...

As an audio device designer I see the production of new products as a two way process.

Pedals are tools. They have reason to exist only if they are used to produce music. As it happens in other fields, the greater the success of the final product, the greater the success of the tools used.

Ferrari might build good cars but not so many people would buy them if they arrived last in every F1 race.

Sadowsky basses are great but would they be equally successful if Will Lee, Marcus Miller and a few others would not play great music with them?

No pedal builder comes up with a new design from the thin air. Successful products are always the combination of creativity on both sides.

I can build almost everything I like but the question is not how I can design it but what music will musicians make with it. I don't think am an exception – I would be surprised if other pedal builders used another approach.

Everything I design and I build, starts with the idea of a musician playing with it ...and most of the time the design idea comes from a musician.

In the end, pedal builders are commercial enterprises that sell what musicians ask.

So my suggestion is simple. Do you need something new to make great music? Ask for it.

[john turner]

i think there's a boat load of potential new sound-modifications that are yet to be explored. i think the reason that some of them might not have been yet is because the modifications they perform might not be considered musical by most folks right now.

then again, in 1950 popping a fuzz on a guitar and cranking it to 11 would not have been considered musical either.

also, i've been playing around with my geiger counter a lot, and to call it just a fuzz/distortion is an injustice, sorta like calling moby dick a fish - a severe understatement as well as inaccurate at its core.

in other words, when do various developments on traditional archtypes deserve their own niche? in the 60's there were just 'rock bands' - does that mean that mastodon and air supply should both be considered the same kind of band?

as effects are refined and further developed they can, and should, be considered their own thing.

[theunknowndude]

Iagree with the above post but at the same time can see where people can get jaded by the 'fuzz is a fuzz, chorus is a chorus' etc...

I have mostly found the sounds I like and use in my music... only recent addition is the soon to be on its way tentacle love cos it frees up a power spot on my pedalboard, and dual fuzz channels with one of them being an octave fuzz and a clean blend? hello ultimate fuzz pedal!

the only things I can think of that have totally grabbed me the past few years (aside from the ooo shiny must buy, and then dont use two seconds later) are things that have combined types of effects yet are still simply controlled ie the subdecay noise box. Alot of stuff has generally been bought by me with a goal in mind ie a feedback loop pedal, or the DL8 cos it has delay and looping... or the PS3 pedal cos its nutso... or experimenting with lots of different gain pedals to find that one that suits the song in my band...

there will be a lot of refining but I guess most of the audio spectrum of effects has already been discovered so there wont be any discoveries? will still have awesome products available tho...