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What should not be my first pedal?

#22
I think you guys are missing the point.

Think back to when you first started getting money at about 15 or 16. All you have is an Ibanez, a cable, and a used Hartke combo.

Now you want an effect pedal because all the guitar players have one and nothings going to stop you from getting one. You don't want to hear about spending money on lessons or strings or super tone power cables. You just want to rock.

You are whipping through Sam Ash online and listening to a million demos on Youtube that all use guitars to demo the box rather than bass.

So you you waste three months of grass cutting money on used pedal called the WMD Geiger Counter. And you can't find a singal thing to do with it. Boy, I wished I wouldn't have spent all that money and now have to deal with getting rid of this thing that sucks.

Sure, some of us more experienced effect users and tool-arounders might know exactly what we are getting ourself into, and that the EQD Rainbow Machine is right up our alley, but the newbie might just get distracted by all the cool knobs and pretty color.




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You see, I'm trying to make a somewhat helpful thread that promotes the joy of a new hobby. If someone trips up and gets to this thread I would rather them not get terrible comments and end up buying the legendary Deep Impact as their first pedal because the everyone in the effects forum says it's great eventhough that might be a bit much for someone who isn't quite clear on what a "Gain" knob does.

Cyrus987987, bkbirge, johnk_10, etc. Thank you for maybe putting a little bit of doubt in a beginners mind about jumping into the deep end before knowing how to swim.
 
#25
icecycle66 said:
I think you guys are missing the point.

Think back to when you first started getting money at about 15 or 16. All you have is an Ibanez, a cable, and a used Hartke combo.

Now you want an effect pedal because all the guitar players have one and nothings going to stop you from getting one. You don't want to hear about spending money on lessons or strings or super tone power cables. You just want to rock.

You are whipping through Sam Ash online and listening to a million demos on Youtube that all use guitars to demo the box rather than bass.

So you you waste three months of grass cutting money on used pedal called the WMD Geiger Counter. And you can't find a singal thing to do with it. Boy, I wished I wouldn't have spent all that money and now have to deal with getting rid of this thing that sucks.

Sure, some of us more experienced effect users and tool-arounders might know exactly what we are getting ourself into, and that the EQD Rainbow Machine is right up our alley, but the newbie might just get distracted by all the cool knobs and pretty color.




-----

You see, I'm trying to make a somewhat helpful thread that promotes the joy of a new hobby. If someone trips up and gets to this thread I would rather them not get terrible comments and end up buying the legendary Deep Impact as their first pedal because the everyone in the effects forum says it's great eventhough that might be a bit much for someone who isn't quite clear on what a "Gain" knob does.

Cyrus987987, bkbirge, johnk_10, etc. Thank you for maybe putting a little bit of doubt in a beginners mind about jumping into the deep end before knowing how to swim.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I meant. :hiding:
 
#26
Kazoo_Legend said:
I don't think your dry humor and entertainment factor are getting across. ;)

So moving on to play along, WMD Geiger Counter. Worst first pedal ever........unless munchin on a few shrooms before plugging in is as much a part of your playing as tuning, in which case DMT-like lucidity mixed with bad-acid-trip awareness would render the pedal useful
Click to expand...

So youre saying I should get a Geiger Counter?
 
#27
JimmyM said:
Good thing you're in the effects forum.

Why questions like these always draw non-effects people to the effects forum, I will never know.
Click to expand...

There are some people on this forum that can't stand the thought of anyone doing something different than they way they do it. They seem to delight in trying to make everyone else as anal-retentive and brain-constipated as they are.
 
#34
I actually, in all seriousness, completely disagree that a synth is the worst "first" pedal. Synths are fun. I could easily see it being someone's only pedal, and therefore why not the first?

I stick by my answers from earlier. The worst pedal would be a line selector or bypass looper, since you wouldn't have any other pedals. The second worst pedal would be something you don't understand. The third worst would probably be something too subtle to be worth your time.
 
#36
When I got to bass, my brother and I bought a full pedal board from a guy who really needs money... there was a flanger, chorus, overdrives, distortions, reverb, octaver, eq, mostly boss pedals... all for 60$... and as a beginner the most useless to my eye at that time was the eq, since I didn't know how to use them I didn't find it help me to get a good sound at all (damn smiley curve !!)... all the other were cool to a certain point, and to mix them and see how they sound was a cool thing to experiment. but in a band context it was an other thing...

As a beginner, I must say you can crap your sound easily using compression or eq since you don't know how they works...

A nice overdrive, fuzz and other kind of distortion has been the more usefull to me to shape my sound in a band context. I loved and use some autowha too for the more funky things...

Before to buy and effect you can try most type of effects using computer recording software and plug ins... it may be a good trick to try them and experiment what they do to your sound and then you can narrow your choice and buy something that would be usefull to you... this or a cheap used multi effect...
 
#39
Any pedal that isn't doing exactly what you want, but was cheap, so you thought "meh why not it super cheap?"

I made that mistake, more than once. (usually buying used).

I think the blue box would actually have been a good "first pedal" - I ended up with a modded OC-2 - always in "synth-mode" instead... and a ton of more or less useless modulation pedals.
 
#40
bad first pedal: EHX H.O.G. with expression control and presets. (I've owned one for over a year and still discover new things with it).

my first pedal was a EHX Q-Tron followed VERY quickly with a Boss LMB-3 Limiter for those crazy peaks!

and I have a WMD Geiger Counter but didn't get one until a few months ago and that's with years of bass, effects and the mix between the two.
 

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