UGLIEST GEAR

[blakestree]

Dude, black tuck n roll....sexy as hell.
Get your Lily Munster on.

All of that tuck-n-roll is sexy. Anybody who say not, don't know sexy.

[popvulture]

Also guys, this is the thread you're looking for:

http://www.ilovefuzz.com/viewtopic.php? ... it=Tortuga

Yes, that's it!

Have we talked about this before? I feel like there's some reallllll ugly stuff out there. What do you think is the ugliest?

Nailed it. Type of ugly I'd expect to see in a sleazy off-strip casino.

Man, you people don't know how to live!

I'm with you Chank. I've always wanted to own a Kustom organ for the sheer novelty of how esoteric they are. This is retro-futurism near its peak.

Dude I've always loved the Kustoms. To me it's basically glam, strip club and roller rink combined into a glorious, sparkly bubble.

[pd~]

It sucks to see the digitech hate. The guy is super nice and his pedals are really great too. I don't particularly like the art but it's far from terrible imo

You're living in a fantasy, Hobbes. What do you mean "the guy"? Digitech is a corporate outfit, owned by Harman. Just because they have 1-2 people posting on social media, that doesn't make them some mom & pop outfit, run out of a garage.

This is an excerpt from a 2011 press release.

[HARMAN has a workforce of about 11,800 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported sales of $3.5 billion for the last twelve months ended December 31, 2010. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYSE:HAR.]

Like I said in an earlier post, I've never started one of these threads, because egos will get bruised and you can't fix someone else's taste. I think those pedals are disgusting---inexcusably hideous and I'd fire someone if they brought me work like that. That's the difference between a corporate outfit with a graphics guy and a design firm. A design firm has a support team and bad work gets thrown out. When you're a solo designer in a corporate building, and your boss never took an art class, you can get away with less impressive work.

That's a lot of assumptions. I'll let Chris from Shoe speak for us:

Yeah, Tom is VERY legit and an excellent person to work with/all around great guy. I think a lot of people probably don't realize that the core of Digitech and DOD is basically a very small group of people who are really passionate about music and effects. No other industry I've worked in has had people who legitimately love their product the way these guys do (of course this is very true in general in the musical instrument industry where basically everyone is a musician and gearhead just like you). Tom has also actually been with Digitech/DOD for a very long time and worked his way up through the ranks.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about things that were discontinued. In case you hadn't noticed, Digitech/DOD is releasing an absolute ton of pedals right now and have improved their format for the Digitech pedals a lot. I doubt anyone will get left out in the cold.

Harman actually has 29,000 employees as of 2016. Literally less than 0.1% of that is dedicated to DigiTech/DOD. Tom is very much "the guy" running DigiTech.

[rfurtkamp]

I could care less about font and graphic choice. When it's good, great.

When it's not, doesn't stop me from buying it if the price is right and the sound is good.

And most of the market the folks are gunning for aren't typography hipsters or art students.

They just want it to stand out on the shelf of stuff (good or bad), draw in attention, and be functional I expect.

[waltdogg]

so far i love this thread.

[D.o.S.]

It sucks to see the digitech hate. The guy is super nice and his pedals are really great too. I don't particularly like the art but it's far from terrible imo

You're living in a fantasy, Hobbes. What do you mean "the guy"? Digitech is a corporate outfit, owned by Harman. Just because they have 1-2 people posting on social media, that doesn't make them some mom & pop outfit, run out of a garage.

This is an excerpt from a 2011 press release.

[HARMAN has a workforce of about 11,800 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported sales of $3.5 billion for the last twelve months ended December 31, 2010. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYSE:HAR.]

Like I said in an earlier post, I've never started one of these threads, because egos will get bruised and you can't fix someone else's taste. I think those pedals are disgusting---inexcusably hideous and I'd fire someone if they brought me work like that. That's the difference between a corporate outfit with a graphics guy and a design firm. A design firm has a support team and bad work gets thrown out. When you're a solo designer in a corporate building, and your boss never took an art class, you can get away with less impressive work.

That's a lot of assumptions. I'll let Chris from Shoe speak for us:

Yeah, Tom is VERY legit and an excellent person to work with/all around great guy. I think a lot of people probably don't realize that the core of Digitech and DOD is basically a very small group of people who are really passionate about music and effects. No other industry I've worked in has had people who legitimately love their product the way these guys do (of course this is very true in general in the musical instrument industry where basically everyone is a musician and gearhead just like you). Tom has also actually been with Digitech/DOD for a very long time and worked his way up through the ranks.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about things that were discontinued. In case you hadn't noticed, Digitech/DOD is releasing an absolute ton of pedals right now and have improved their format for the Digitech pedals a lot. I doubt anyone will get left out in the cold.

Harman actually has 29,000 employees as of 2016. Literally less than 0.1% of that is dedicated to DigiTech/DOD. Tom is very much "the guy" running DigiTech.

Yeah but who are you anyway?

[backwardsvoyager]

It sucks to see the digitech hate. The guy is super nice and his pedals are really great too. I don't particularly like the art but it's far from terrible imo

You're living in a fantasy, Hobbes. What do you mean "the guy"? Digitech is a corporate outfit, owned by Harman. Just because they have 1-2 people posting on social media, that doesn't make them some mom & pop outfit, run out of a garage.

This is an excerpt from a 2011 press release.

[HARMAN has a workforce of about 11,800 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported sales of $3.5 billion for the last twelve months ended December 31, 2010. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYSE:HAR.]

Like I said in an earlier post, I've never started one of these threads, because egos will get bruised and you can't fix someone else's taste. I think those pedals are disgusting---inexcusably hideous and I'd fire someone if they brought me work like that. That's the difference between a corporate outfit with a graphics guy and a design firm. A design firm has a support team and bad work gets thrown out. When you're a solo designer in a corporate building, and your boss never took an art class, you can get away with less impressive work.

that was a bit harsh. i can't say i disagree though.
there are thousands and thousands of phenomenal artists alive right now who could fill pedals with amazing graphics for those who don't like the minimalist approach, but somehow we still end up with cringeworthy visual clutter like that.

[popvulture]

When it's not, doesn't stop me from buying it if the price is right and the sound is good.

Oh I'm with you most of the way there—I have an RC Booster on one of my boards, after all. I do, however, draw the line sometimes. There are plenty out there that I wouldn't buy due to their looks.

To me it's just a shame that some companies don't try harder. After all there are probably more than a few designers out there who'd trade design work for a pedal, as I ended up inadvertently doing for Keeley.

That's the thing though, quite possibly THE most annoying thing about being a designer: when a client with zero training thinks they can do it better than you can. To that, I usually say fine—go make a piece of total dogshit design if you want. Sure—people will still buy it because looks of course aren't everything, but having good design on top of a good product usually doesn't do anything but help.

ANYWAY. I think SS/BS, OBNE, EAR, Fairfield and Stone Deaf make some particularly attractive looking pedals, just to name a few.

[repoman]

[popvulture]

NOICE DEPARDIEUCASTER!

Edited to add:

[pd~]

Yeah but who are you anyway?

I am the 0.1%.

I have my own thoughts on our stuff and I honestly don't like some of it, but I trust Tom to do his job and he lets me do mine. Opinions aside, the new stuff is moving a lot more units than Hardwire ever did, so

[D.o.S.]

Does your boss know you like Sparta?

[repoman]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRqIH5sJmTY[/youtube]

This guys channel is awesome.

These Kustoms are so ugly they become cool.

[aholidayatthesea]

To me it's just a shame that some companies don't try harder. After all there are probably more than a few designers out there who'd trade design work for a pedal, as I ended up inadvertently doing for Keeley.

That's the thing though, quite possibly THE most annoying thing about being a designer: when a client with zero training thinks they can do it better than you can. To that, I usually say fine—go make a piece of total dogshit design if you want. Sure—people will still buy it because looks of course aren't everything, but having good design on top of a good product usually doesn't do anything but help.

ANYWAY. I think SS/BS, OBNE, EAR, Fairfield and Stone Deaf make some particularly attractive looking pedals, just to name a few.

Yeah agreed. It'd be great to have more pedal companies using artists and designers.

SS/BB pedals look awesome. If Brian's doing the designs himself then that's crazy. That's too much talent.

[pd~]

Does your boss know you like Sparta?

I don't think he has an opinion on Sparta. He listens to dadrock all day every day.