I've been gone for 5 years...

[jimtaka]

So stuff happened, priorities shifted, blah blah blah. I haven't been around here in over 5 years. I currently own zero electric guitars or effects pedals. I've been itching to get back into playing electric lately, and I remembered this place.

I have looked through the first 15 pages of the 2016 pedal board pics thread. Here are my observations on what has changed since I was a pedal hound 5 years ago, and some "back in my day" comments...

1. The polytune seems to be the thing now. Back in my day, you weren't cool unless you had a Sonic Research Turbo Tuner.
2. The Diamond Compressor is still popular, but it's in a smaller box now. Back in my day, that sucker was twice that size. I had to carry it uphill both ways in 3 feet of snow barefoot.
3. Strymon has some new pedals that are popular. Back in my day, Strymon was just getting started. I think they had a flanger and a reverb, but we were all waiting impatiently for their tape delay pedal to come out.
4. The Timmy is still a popular choice. Back in my day, the Timmy was also a popular choice. That really is a freaking sweet pedal.
5. I don't see any Empress pedals at all. Back in my day, the Empress Vintage Modified Superdelay was the business.
6. I don't see many of the big Eventide pedals. I tried several of them, but they weren't really for me. But back in my day, they were everywhere.
7. BJFE/Mad Professor pedals seem to have fallen from popularity. Back in my day, we would all jump at the chance to drop $400 on some rare BJFE pedal. That tone though... I'm shocked these aren't popular anymore. What happened?
8. See number 7, but insert Skreddy. Back in my day, you couldn't get your David Gilmour on without some Skreddy goodness.

 

[Billy Moss]

Welcome back and the all new Sonic Research Turbo Tuner is the rage here.

Rockett pedals are awesome.

 

[jimtaka]

Welcome back and the all new Sonic Research Turbo Tuner is the rage here.

Rockett pedals are awesome.

Thanks. I see there is an ST-300 now. Is that brand new? It was the ST-200 back in my day I believe. I just noticed it seems like everyone is using the polytune in the pics thread.

 

[Powderfinger]

So stuff happened, priorities shifted, blah blah blah. I haven't been around here in over 5 years. I currently own zero electric guitars or effects pedals. I've been itching to get back into playing electric lately, and I remembered this place.

I have looked through the first 15 pages of the 2016 pedal board pics thread. Here are my observations on what has changed since I was a pedal hound 5 years ago, and some "back in my day" comments...

1. The polytune seems to be the thing now. Back in my day, you weren't cool unless you had a Sonic Research Turbo Tuner.
2. The Diamond Compressor is still popular, but it's in a smaller box now. Back in my day, that sucker was twice that size. I had to carry it uphill both ways in 3 feet of snow barefoot.
3. Strymon has some new pedals that are popular. Back in my day, Strymon was just getting started. I think they had a flanger and a reverb, but we were all waiting impatiently for their tape delay pedal to come out.
4. The Timmy is still a popular choice. Back in my day, the Timmy was also a popular choice. That really is a freaking sweet pedal.
5. I don't see any Empress pedals at all. Back in my day, the Empress Vintage Modified Superdelay was the business.
6. I don't see many of the big Eventide pedals. I tried several of them, but they weren't really for me. But back in my day, they were everywhere.
7. BJFE/Mad Professor pedals seem to have fallen from popularity. Back in my day, we would all jump at the chance to drop $400 on some rare BJFE pedal. That tone though... I'm shocked these aren't popular anymore. What happened?
8. See number 7, but insert Skreddy. Back in my day, you couldn't get your David Gilmour on without some Skreddy goodness.

Re#7--Bearfoot pedals. Bjfe/Mad professor designs at lower prices.

 

[guitarslinger21]

Pretty sure the turbo tuner is still the bees knees.

Bjfe mad prof bear foot etc= never really appealed to me. I showed up after they were popular. Had the sweet honey, and wasn't impressed.

You're right about skreddy though. They used to be astronomically priced on the secondary market. These days, I guess there are just too many nice pedals available. Supply and demand. I still love my skreddies though. Since Marc is switching to smd, I predict the prices will gradually increase again.

 

[jimtaka]

Re#7--Bearfoot pedals. Bjfe/Mad professor designs at lower prices.

Right around when I got out of playing, Mad Professor was beginning to release PCB versions of their pedals at much cheaper prices. Most of them were $169 I believe. Is this basically Bearfoot now or is this something different?

 

[Mark.B]

... I just noticed it seems like everyone is using the polytune in the pics thread.

I tried the polytune and didn't work well for me (poly would show out of tune but single string would show in tune). The Sonic Research ST-300 mini is perfect though. ST-300 is well worth the extra $40.

 

[geek-mo]

7. BJFE/Mad Professor pedals seem to have fallen from popularity. Back in my day, we would all jump at the chance to drop $400 on some rare BJFE pedal. That tone though... I'm shocked these aren't popular anymore. What happened?

Go back and re-read the first part of your sentence. $400 is a lot of money for a pedal, even for a "good" one. With the competition in this market and the sheer variety available, it doesn't make economic sense to most people to drop $400 into a pedal when you can get three or more great pedals for that much money.

 

[Powderfinger]

Right around when I got out of playing, Mad Professor was beginning to release PCB versions of their pedals at much cheaper prices. Most of them were $169 I believe. Is this basically Bearfoot now or is this something different?

Mad Professor is made in Finland. Bearfoot is made in the US.

 

[goodglynes]

Ignore all the boutique crap and stick to mode 7. It's still cool.

 

[goodhonk]

You probably missed most of the major pedal scammers, search "vertex" - "freekish blues" cant remember any others atm.

 

[bobbyatomic]

Surprised you didn't mention the Klon, I remember a few years ago they were the prestige must have pedal of choice for the more affluent members, thread after thread of how nothing came close to the Klon. Then the KTR was released as well as a myriad of clones and the Klon became available to the masses and they dropped off boards quicker than you could say "I'm just don't feel special anymore."

 

[gripweed]

Grumpy old man!

I had to stop looking at the pedalboard threads. All of the boards look the same. I have nothing against Strymon, but it does get tiresome to see 3 Strymon pedals on every board.

 

[critter74]

When I first came on board you could still get a Klon for about $450. And people were thinking that was crazy and the prices coukd t possibly get much higher.

Silly rabbits.

And I still think the Klon is barely worth the original $249 asking price.

 

[bobbradley]

FYI Tag no longer knows tone

 

[nkt275]

Still use my Mad Professor Little Green Wonder as my main overdrive! Don't change a winning team.

 

[drbob1]

Bjorn Juhl (Mad Professor, BJFE, Bearfoot etc) entered into some licensing agreements that perhaps didn't work out the way he planned. Mad Professor uses him a consultant but as I understand it he has little impact on their priorities. They've sold a bunch of pedals thru MF, and the value has dropped since it's hard to convince someone that your MP SHOD is somehow more valuable than the one they picked up used for less than $100.

The Bearfoot pedals have gone well for Donner (remember Donner Box painted enclosures?) and Bjorn-lots of cool stuff coming out, tour boxes to keep the interest up. A good mid-priced pedal line.

The real problem has been for the handwired BJFE pedals. Those that got em back when you were here love them, the rest of us don't understand why they were so much more money. I'm not sure that the market has collapsed, you can still sell them, it's just shrunk so that it'd take a long time.

Empress has some great stuff, but somehow it hasn't caught on recently. Strymon is big but Source Audio is nipping at their heals. And Eventide came out with the H9, with the result that the big boxes got a lot less attractive. Pigtronix has been killing it (see the Echolution 2 Deluxe threads). Lovepedal has created a cult that meets to sacrifice ham sandwiches on Saturday night. PaulC threatens to come with a new pedal every once in a while, we all say "take my money" but so far it hasn't happened. Everybody and their dog are making little, tiny pedals although Henretta does it betta (you can have that one for free, Kevin)! And everyone is still passionate about their choice of pedals, guitar, amps, cables, tubes, pedalboards, genres, venues and friends.

Welcome back!

 

[InAbsentia]

It's funny you posted this, I had a similar occurrence. I was barely playing guitar for the past four years or so. (Was drumming mostly, and changing careers so time was at a minimum.) but I came to a lot of the same conclusions you did. A lot of the big dogs were replaced with different guys, brands are shifting a bit in their main focus, and people have moved on to the newest greatest stuff. Not surprising, really. Ebb and flow and that's how these things go. Interesting catching up in everything we missed, though!

 

[papersun]

empress announced a reverb pedal at namm that has a "beer" setting.

 

[goodhonk]

Visual sound is now called truetone.

Tgp's still not biting though.