What are you thoughts on cloners?

[grygrx]

I hate the idea, I try to buy unique pedals whenever possible. That said, how many muff clones have I purchased over the years? More than I care to mention.

[guitarslinger21]

Is there somebody cloning SSBS pedals, or was that just an example?

(btw, I wouldn't buy a SSBS clone. I already own most of the lineup, and mojo is in individual pedals, not copying the schematic of one.)

[fever606]

I'm gonna go ahead and quote myself...

I'm just fucking sick of clones, period. Give it up, the pedal world doesn't need another anything. You are not special, you are not a unique snowflake, stop trying to pawn off "I changed one resistor in the schematic and covered this Hammond 1590bb with angel jizz" Fuzz Face clones for four hundred damn dollars.

... My only point is that the last thing the world needs is another Tube Screamer, another Super Fuzz, another whateverthefuck. I don't care if you salvaged the caps from downed MIG fighters to give your Black Russian Big Muff (clone) "teh m0j0z", it's just a fucking Big Muff. Just stop. Make something interesting - if the collective pants-wetting over the RM1N and Count To 5 has proven anything, it's that people want new and different.

Oh, and "cloning" something that's currently in production? Get fucked and go bag groceries.

... I'm talking about pedal businesses. You wanna build a Fuzz Face clone to learn how it works, to learn how to solder and how to tweak a circuit? Get on with your bad self. You wanna sell it for the cost of parts to fund building something else and learning more? Boss. Study up, experiment, and build the next ILF Boner Bringer. I'll buy one - or at least drool over the demo vids!

[D.o.S.]

Get fucked and go bag groceries.

[Inconuucl]

I would only get a clone of something that's not available anymore, like my Meatball. Or if the pedal was changed drastically, like a Palisades vs a Tubescreamer.

[Barracuda]

There are two things in cloning I am against:

1) Trying to pass of the pedal as an actual unit from a given manufacturer.
2. Directly using the same pcb layout. Which is of course illegal.

Everything else is A-ok in my books.

I'm about here I think as a builder. It's shady when you do rip a current production unique unit from a small builder, but the law is on your side if you aren't stealing names, artwork, PCB design, etc. As a buyer though, it's just boring as hell if you're going to spend all your effort cloning a rat or slightly tweak a fuzz face. Why the fuck did you start building pedals in the first place if you're not going to make them do new things?

[CyaNitrate]

You wanna build a Fuzz Face clone to learn how it works, to learn how to solder and how to tweak a circuit? Get on with your bad self. You wanna sell it for the cost of parts to fund building something else and learning more? Boss. Study up, experiment, and build the next ILF Boner Bringer. I'll buy one - or at least drool over the demo vids!

This so much. This is where I am between building my Devi kits and modding my blue box.

[goroth]

When does s circuit become "public property"?
When is a circuit old enough that it's ok to use yourself?
When is a manufacturer big enough that it's fair game?

In my mind they're rhetorical questions. As soon as the pedal leaves the workbench it's fair game.

All the sounds at our disposal wouldn't exist without the voluntary or involuntary sharing of information. Trying to avoid cloned circuits is not possible.

Stealing another company's brand identity or artwork is super wrong.

I would also agree that dudes casually churning out 1:1 clones of stuff (with their own pcbs and what not) and charging anything more than a paltry sum is bullshit. As is the lazy "super special mod with 3 way diode clipping switch" thing. I think originality is difficult to talk about in the pedal world, but at least offer me something I can't get 10 other nobodies with a soldering iron.

On rereading this I'm not as aggro as my choice of language would indicate.

I've got my builders I like, and I pretty much shop ilf only (if our Canadian brethren would get off their asses and join ilf - cough, guillaume - cough)

[sonidero]

I saw someone talking about a Fuzzhugger clone they were making and I had a sad...

[Barracuda]

It also doesn't help that a ton of circuits are straight out of data sheets / text books. I mean the SHO is just a linearly biased MOSFET transistor, there's nothing new, original, or magical about it... circuits with op amps are usually just textbook application of a non-inverting or inverting gain stage... all the classic tube amps are from the tube data sheets, etc. Even when builders are making 'unique' circuits, they use circuit blocks that are not their own creation like tonestacks, gain stages, etc. What are you going to do though? Invent a new tonestack every time you build a pedal? Hell no, you're going to assess if you want a single control, or more, and then you're going to slap a SWTC, or a big muff tone control, or a FMV tonestack in there. There's nothing wrong with that. Is it technically any different than cloning a whole pedal in terms of the intellectual property? I don't think so. Cloning whole pedals as a business model is boring as fuck though, but unfortunately, a profitable one (JHS, and many others, but mostly I hate JHS).

[Eivind August]

^This is true. Kinda like how alot of riffs just build on stuff done in the sixties, but still manages to make it «new».

Morals are hard, eh? Like everyone else I wouldn't buy a clone of a current pedal, and would only buy a clone of a vintage pedal if it's hard to come by, like my c-bread Echorec. People with solder skills etc. can do whatever they want.

I do get a bit sickened by a lot of peoples sense of entitlement to stuff they don't own though, be it pedals, pirated music or whatever.

[Gone Fission]

This stuff has come up at the DIY forums for personal use, like what are the ethics of not giving a sale for an in-production pedal. A lot of times people's gut responses go towards antipathy or indifference to larger companies (some of which employ great people worth feeding) and whether or not they like a particular small builder. The best vero-layout purveyor will often tell you to go ahead and buy the original for a lot of products that they give you the layout for, since they're well done and fairly priced, but that may be more about pragmatism than ethics. And no one patents this stuff, so only names and trade dress create legal issues unless you're stealing code on a digital device.

Clonable small production stuff where the savings are huge for personal-use cloning is a weird space. You want to reward some creativity and originality in coming up with great sounding products, especially when they may not be right for a mass market and a person has to eat. Stuff I would personally almost certainly not buy for over $200 for a fuzz, I'm not really depriving anyone of a sale. At the same time, if I build one and fall head over heels, I might be a better market when the right deal comes along for another of their products. Or is that just rationalizing being a cheap bastard?

[goroth]

Cloning whole pedals as a business model is boring as fuck though, but unfortunately, a profitable one (JHS, and many others, but mostly I hate JHS).

Your whole post was good dude, but this part is a sad indictment of how many guitarists approach their instrument.

[Jwar]

I saw someone talking about a Fuzzhugger clone they were making and I had a sad...

Well then you know who I'm referring to. Such bs dude.

[grygrx]

I also get irritated by people saying they know what a pedal sounds like when all they have played is a shitty clone they may have put together right.