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Blackened Soul wrote: ↑Tue Sep 30, 2025 10:08 am pink skulls..

for decades i’ve believed that Jaguars and i just aren’t compatible. every few years i try one out to see if anything’s changed but they never worked for me. until
today…my employer’s going into the Fender guitars business and so i attended a product training at the end of which i was asked to demo an amp with a Squier CV ‘70s Jaguar. to my surprise it was great, way better than the one i tried at GC Richmond. maybe Jags vary that much, or maybe Guitar Center still doesn’t know how to set up new guitars. anyway, now i’m interested in the less common CV ‘60s Jaguar, which has dot inlays rather than the 70s big MOTS blocks. i don’t care for block fretboard inlays even though i have several guitars with them, particularly the Guild/DeArmond bloc. if i wanted a Guild Aristocrat the blocks were compulsory. not racing out to buy one tomorrow, but now i understand what MBV see in them.

I got a Boss XS1 and being a super fan and abuser of the Digitech Drop since more than 10 years, Boss released a very cool and solid polyphonic pitch-shifter, and yes.... it's shaking the Drop!

how would you compare the two? and do you have any data comparing the Drop to the Digitech Whammy(s)? i’m not sure the demos i’m seeing capture some of the subtle stuff that doesn’t happen in their settings. i’m vaguely interested in the market segment, but suspect that trying to figure this out would make my brain hurt a lot.

dubkitty wrote: ↑Fri Oct 10, 2025 7:48 am how would you compare the two? and do you have any data comparing the Drop to the Digitech Whammy(s)? i’m not sure the demos i’m seeing capture some of the subtle stuff that doesn’t happen in their settings. i’m vaguely interested in the market segment, but suspect that trying to figure this out would make my brain hurt a lot.

The tracking on XS1 is really amazing! Especially when you go the down octaves. 3 octaves down (and up) is bananas... especially considering that I play with baritone tuned down to B

The Digitechs seams to sound a bit more boomy/dark when going down the octaves, while the XS1 has a kind of middy woodiness, that IMO helps keeping the sound more focused when down-tuning/pitching. It's a bit like the EHX Micro POG on some extent, but sounds waaaaaay better and more natural than how I remember the Micro POG I used to have, prior getting the Drop.
I did also tests with synths, and also here XS1 shines. The Blend knob is a good thing, especially if you wanna use XS1 as a classic harmonizer/pitch-shifter. The Detune delivers some cool vibes and chorus sounds.
What I am having a lot of fun with is to plug an external footswitch to access 2 extra presets! Here is where the pedal start to become a cool mad scientist tool. You can really instantly switch from one preset to the other and the math-rock kids will have tons of fun with some crazy interval jumps!

With an expression pedal it's a very cool compact replacement to a Whammy pedal. Of course it doesn't do all the harmony stuff (but.... maybe a EHX Cntl Knob or similar could help here?), and it goes either only up or only down, But it does a solid job! Also, the pedal will remind the preset saved on the aux footswitch when you plug an expression pedal, so when you need the presets again, you simply re-connect the aux switch and there you go.

So, this said... if you are new to the market and have the cash, I suggest getting the XS1 over the Drop. Not the Ricochet, as it still does some whammy stuff the XS1 can't do.

I can't speak about XS1 vs. HammerOn, but with the external footswitch I am confident to say that XS1 can cover also some of that HO features.

But I will keep all my Digitech Drop, Ricochet and Whammy, as they are still valuable pedals.

alexsga wrote: ↑Sat Oct 04, 2025 9:08 pm

Blackened Soul wrote: ↑Tue Sep 30, 2025 10:08 am pink skulls..

Looks quite doomtacular!

Blackened Soul wrote: ↑Tue Sep 30, 2025 10:08 am Ok, so the barrows came yesterday. It sounds like a fuzz. A very generic fuzzface/tonebender fuzz… do I like it? Yes. Is it better than all the others of this type of fuzz I’ve owned? No, it’s about even. But that’s what I bought it for.. I sold off all my pedals like this years ago..

So like why? The Volga! After messing with it I was like I need a fuzz face.. looked for a cheap one.. almost bought that one gc had for $64 but then I got a mailing list email from earthquaker! And saw pink skulls.. and while don’t care one way or the other about pink.. skulls are awesome! And yes with Volga much fun! It gives you that cranking it through a amp sound and lets you tweak out the stuffy midrange all this pedal type seem to have…

Sounds pretty nice to me for $129. (I've only played about half an hour on it though.)

Oh it is. The evil part of a pedal like this is it makes you wonder about all them corksniffer point to point ones made in caves that sell for multiple times these do….

Yeah, not the most versatile fuzz or the fuzz with the most character, but a fuzz I'm very happy playing.

i’m generally not looking for “versatility” in a fuzz; rather, my approach to a fuzz is to find the 1 or 2 sounds i really like and run it with other fuzzes that do other things i like. the only stuff i do more settings with is Jero’s boxes because they have an unusually wide range of sounds that appeal to me.

Maybe it’s because MK II demos always seemed less to me than the rep for the model, but because of that I would figure a good MK II would be enough to cover that zone and focus on Mk I tunings instead, which are numerous and consequential. How different does the best boutique MK II sound from this?

There is that… my last tonebender clone was a guyatone fz2000 but I am not sure what version it was suppose to be.. I find the Barrows to be a better FUZZ overall… it has some good splat and sputter when you dime the controls.. it definitely likes singles and low output buckers over metalz pickups and active basses…

i have the CMC Effects Mk II and Mk III which are fairly middle-of-the-road versions. i’m not much of a II fan, and very much prefer the III. as i’ve said before, it’s the tone control that makes it more workable. i also have his Buzzaround, which i use less than the III but love a lot.
i’ve never had a MK I which seem to be less made, used, or easily identifiable. i can’t remember the last time i saw a MK I demo.

Closest I’ve had to a mk1 is the 90s vox tone bender v829… horrible sounding thing.. sounded like playing through a telephone… I traded it for a tweak fuzz before I knew about the mod to fix them.. and before they were collectible… why are these selling for over $300?

Haven’t seen much discussion on the Hologram Chroma Console here. I recently picked one up to see what the hub bub is all aboot.

Short version is, and I don’t think it’s much of a surprise to anyone, that I prefer specific individual pedals for most of the sounds on guitar. I would assume most guitar players would say the same.

Where it’s really good is running everything else through it. I’ve had a lot of fun:

-putting it at the very end of a looping rig
-running field recordings through it
-running synths and drum machines through it

I think it works best when you’re just looking to quickly fuck something up real good. There’s not really a lot of subtlety going on here.

Re: the tonebender discussion- I had a mk.1 made by Tru Fi once. That shit was nasty AF in a good way. And it was sparkly purple. Idk why I got rid of it.