Crap items in your sound

[oZZma]

My favourite piece from my drummer's set is a seriously crappy 16" crash cymbal from a beginners' set he bought (used) when he started playing.
I think it started sounding so good only when it began to bend (now it's totally deformed), and now I'm worried because it has become something like our "signature drums sound" and if we break It (which will most likely happen very soon, being low quality) we will never find a crash with THAT scrap metal sound, unless we buy the whole f*#ing three piece set (which is also quite hard to find)
True band drama.
Maybe some of you have some "hidden gems from the junk" too?

 

[Bryan R. Tyler]

I don’t have one anymore, but I used to love this thin, guitar-like distortion I would get out of a Boss VF-1, a really cheap half rack effects unit from the mid-80s. I’m still looking to properly mimic it.

 

[oZZma]

Bump for Metal Muff
I'm really digging this crappy unsophisticated distortion. I dare to say that no fancy boutique pedal ever got so close to what I was looking for. I have borrowed it for now but for 40€ used...

 

[PWRL]

I wouldn't call it junk, but I use a Boss CEB-3 Chorus pedal, and I love it. Again, not junk, but definitely "affordable". Sounds great with a Jazz bass, heavy on the bridge pickup.

When I was doing more keyboard recording, I found this little, brandless keyboard for like two bucks. It was little but with a massive sound, and it had an input. I had an old mic in a big plastic horn, and I would plug it into that input and hang it over stuff, like other keyboards or things I wanted to record. It produced this weird, distorted reverb that was just spooky. I eventually gave it to a friend who circuit-bent it, but it's still a great little impliment.

I should add that the mic stuffed into the end of the plastic horn is also a neat toy I made out of junk.

 

[Michedelic]

In my sound? Depending on the night, it could be the person playing the bass.

 

[oZZma]

In my sound? Depending on the night, it could be the person playing the bass.

 

[Winslow]

My favourite piece from my drummer's set is a seriously crappy 16" crash cymbal from a beginners' set he bought (used) when he started playing.

I've got some cymbals like that I inherited from my father's drum set, which make them easily 50+ years old. One of them is a thin crash given the DIY rivet treatment. It sizzles at the slightest touch, which makes it fantastic for a cocktail-hour jazz setting. The other is actually the top half of an old set of hi-hats, which, when crashed, gives a low, dark swashing sound that's amazingly similar to some of the dark crash cymbals in 1920's jazz recordings. Nothing made today sounds anything remotely like them.

 

[marqueemoon]

Do super dead old roundwounds count?

 

[FilterFunk]

Roland TR-505 Rhythm Composer (drum machine).

Do I think it's "crap"? Absolutely NOT!!! But for many, it's soulless, sterile, cheap-sounding, etc.

For me, it just has a bunch of good, generic sounds that sound tight on their own, and pairing it with my Korg DRV-1000 rack reverb, I have gotten a huge variety of tones out of it for 30+ years. I like that the TR-505 doesn't have an obvious, baked-in sound of its own; that allows me to be more creative with it.