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frigid midget wrote:
A stock dynacomp is boring as fuck.

Dynacomps make pretty good drive/boost pedals if you crank the output and pull the sensitivity way back

Oh fo sho @vid. I get the fun factor.
Treadle-pitching, harmonizing, glitching, modulating are super fun. Anything with a treadle is stimulating, self-indulgent.
I can see potential with fixed settings in the fx loop of a delay pedal. It's a case of personal pref, whammy doesn't do anything for me sonically.
I still have respect for it. The concept.
It dominates signal, so powerful you can make the timbre of multiple instruments difficult to distinguish from one another. Like a bitcrusher. Or series of modular patching. But apples to oranges.
Whammy is the kind of effect I might buy to spite a bad neighbor. Fitting name, indeed

vidret wrote:

Invisible Man wrote:

rustywire wrote:Because Whammy always sounds like Whammy...and I don't care for the Whammy sound. Even in good songs.

Definitely true. Even people who know nothing about effects hear it and go 'oh...there's that sound like the guy uses in RATM.' Also, Tom Morello's ownership of that sound makes it basically impossible to use. I can't think of an effect that is though thoroughly implemented by a musician as the Whammy and Morello. Dude did pretty much everything possible with that thing, and better than you or I could.

i dunno man, muse does a good job of using it in a lot of songs, and not in a tiresome way. but yeah, overall, i hear ya. people have a hard time getting away from doing the annoying tom morello thing with it.

i mean. it's fun as fuck i just used it for insane dive bombs and faking natural harmonic squeals. one the most fun pedals i've had, might get the newer one if the bst strikes.

Always forget about that band--don't know much about them. I'm thinking of how many RATM songs use the Whammy as an integral part of the tune. It's a high number.

^and I've had the 4 and 5. The 5 is awesome.

Invisible Man wrote:

rustywire wrote:Because Whammy always sounds like Whammy...and I don't care for the Whammy sound. Even in good songs.

Definitely true. Even people who know nothing about effects hear it and go 'oh...there's that sound like the guy uses in RATM.' Also, Tom Morello's ownership of that sound makes it basically impossible to use. I can't think of an effect that is though thoroughly implemented by a musician as the Whammy and Morello. Dude did pretty much everything possible with that thing, and better than you or I could.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy that totally ignores Lightningbolt.

0/10.

God, i just read through this all wondering when someone would mention Lightning Bolt. I will foolishly credit them with single handedly being the reason behind the Bass Whammy reissue that i used to sometimes crave. Tool does not exist in my reality.

Whammy=Dimebag.
Power drill metal grooves for the win.

It's all about that +1/-1 harmony setting. That setting is hot fire.

I'm just going to say it.

Fuzz.

*record scratch*

There' some tasty whammy action in a couple of minus the bear songs I agree though, ratm and mightning bolt pretty much ruined it for everyone esle. Part of me wants a whammy on my pedal board, but I just know I won't be able to get away with it

Flange always seems to cheesy and 80's to me, but I think I need to pick up one with a resonance knob so I can do some pseudo-steel drum percussive stuff.
Chorus is often cheesy too, but some have a nice timbre that I do like for some subtle things.

Ring mod also escapes me. It's so distinctive an effect that it gets old fast. It would be cool if there was a ring mod pedal that you modulate by something other than a single stable oscillator. Something where you could ring modulate with a mic on your drummer or something would be pretty cool.

I also have a ZVex Fuzz Probe which sounds great for normal fuzz stuff, but which can be really hard to use in a non-dumb way when it's oscillating.

I love phase and trem, but as others have said, both can get old fast if you're playing on your own.

I have dismissed a few effects often because I never tried them in combination with others. Tremolo being the biggest one. By itself it is pretty limiting, but just put it after every effect on your board... reverb+pitch shifting+tremolo is lovely. Tremolo can be used to make a wall of sound seem even bigger. Even though it is modulating volume, its as if taking it away and giving it back makes certain guitar tones even larger. On an ambient/spacey level it works too, even in mono it really can add dimension. for the longest time though I just ignored it until a year or so ago.

One that I still haven't really used in a recording or live is bit crushing/sample rate reducing. At least not on guitar, I have used it on drum tracks in software, but I haven't been inspired to write a song that involves it on guitar.

The whammy is definitely a tricky one to use without it sounding cliche. I think an under-noticed whammy pedal user is James Iha on the Mellon Collie album. He used the poor tracking of the Whammy II and made the squealiest broken guitar noises. It's used on every other heavy song on the album, but it doesn't really stand out due to how many guitar tracks the have in each song. But I think the whammy really makes certain parts of that album whether its used as an ambient backing track or a way to totally dismantle a main guitar track.

After getting the Generation Loss I found I really loved using sample rate reduction with more ambient sounds (namely after a really expansive reverb or stretched out delay) rather than wall-of-sound type or more traditional guitar sounds.