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I dislike blue LEDs.

Red lights look obviously different than green ones. I personally wouldn't call them green--they look white to me--but I can tell which is which. I've driven in states like New Mexico where the semaphores are mounted horzontally. I can easily tell the red from the green. Where it gets interesting is at night, when some lights switch from the green-yellow-red cycle to flashing red--or flashing yellow. Those are harder to tell apart. I do two things; one, base my guess on the fact that the yellow lights are annoyingly bright from a lot farther away than the red ones, and two, never trust my guess. Slow down and look for cars before crossing.

What bugs me about the situation is that they could solve the whole problem with a bit of blue; a blue border around stop signs, a single blue LED in the center of a red LED stop light. Ever seen a blue dot taillight on, say, a '55 Chevy? Last time I saw one, his brake lights were attention-grabbing a good half-mile farther than the plain red brake lights around him. Seems like an easy fix; but in my state, blue lights are reserved for emergency vehicles only.

Hey, it's illegal for me to drive with headphones on... but deaf people drive. Guess they figure that your other senses compensate.

from my understanding of street lights, the green bulb's color is supposed to be have been chosen to have some blue in it, and the red had some orange in it, to make it a bit more obvious. Is that true?

i like how we've turned this into "20 questions for color-blind people!"

on topic, i love bright LEDs. the brighter the better. I've modded my TS-9 to put a brighter LED in it. I like being able to have a pedal-playing noise fest in my living room with all the lights off, and i can see from the light from all the pedals that are on :hyper:

also, i must really have cheap pedals, because all of mine are red (with the exception of the TS-9, which i put a purple one in). You silly boutique pedal owners and your blue LEDs. :p
 
I had a DD-20 and I found the flashing blue tempo LED really distracting and irritating. I understand about red LED's disappearing, I have a hard time seeing the light on my cordless drill's battery charger in natural light, but I haven't had occasion to have that problem with any pedals.
 
I love the bright blue LED on my Pork Loin... it illuminates my entire room and makes my bass look awesome :p

I'll try and get my mate to snap a pick a the next practice :D

+1... the blues lights on my IE Oxide and Xero are bright enough to burn holes in the ceiling... they also illuminate my aquateal jazz bass, providing an on-stage glow that's very cool.

:D
 
you're not alone, and there's apparently [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

OK, so it's not just me.

I've had to mute several blue LED's. The one on my power amp was driving me nuts. A little dot of silver Sharpie on the dome, better.

I diffused the LED on my Swollen Pickle with a glob of silicone.

Blue is OK, retina-searing blue is intolerable.
 
Seriously though,...is it that difficult to just not look at the bright LEDs? Does a pedal really require that much concentration and attention?

I mean you don't stare directly at the Sun and then complain about it. Or do you?
 
Not an effect mind you...

DSC05485.jpg
 
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]used to make most blue LEDs “lends itself to incorporating quantum wells into the structure”, according to Barney O'Meara, of Canadian LED manufacturer, the Fox Group. “These quantum wells, together with the incorporation of indium in the epitaxy, are features [that help make] high brightness LEDs.”

Well crap. First I have to ditch my flux capacitor because of the 60-cycle hum it made, and now I find my pedalboard is overrun with quantum. All I want is to make my bass sound like BRROOMMMVRAPPPPPP!!! I DO NOT NEED QUANTUM!

Someone should link this into the post-your-pedalboard threads.... some of us have a lot of quantum-blue LEDs and are probably in danger of collapsing their pedalboards into a microsingularity.
 
Seriously though,...is it that difficult to just not look at the bright LEDs? Does a pedal really require that much concentration and attention?

Out of 16 pedals I only have one with blue LED's and while I may not stare at it, it is coincidently the only pedal I regularly change the settings on (pitch shifter/harmonizer) and when that little blue light is on I cant see the settings. Even the two knobs next to the LED are blurred out by the light.
 
Seriously though,...is it that difficult to just not look at the bright LEDs? Does a pedal really require that much concentration and attention?

I mean you don't stare directly at the Sun and then complain about it. Or do you?
You don't have to look directly at blue LEDs.
Just having them illuminated while I'm looking down to switch an effect on or off is enough to realize how irritating the blue laser pointers built into my pedals are.


And you don't stare directly into the sun while you're driving, but you still put the shades down.

Edit:

And from walterw's link:

"The Purkinje shift also noticeably brightens blue or green lights in our peripheral vision under medium to low light conditions, because there are comparatively more rods towards the edge of the retina – hence complaints that blue LEDs are distracting even when they're not the focus of attention."
 

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