YOU KNOW WHAT GRINDS MY GEARS - gear rants

[rustywire]

The Music Electronix GeminiDrive. It's every bit as amazing as everyone says it is... except that when you hit the stomp there is an INSANELY loud pop which makes it basically unusable. I even tried it in a TB loop and the pop remained...

So...the footswitch on the TB looper you are using also has a pop then? Aren't you just leaving the Gemini engaged and then clicking the TBL on/off?

No pop on the TB looper by itself. Yes, leaving the GD on and on/off with the loop somehow doesn't rid the popping.

True bypass pedals sometimes pop a little and you have to hit the switch 5-6 times to discharge static electricity or something, whatever is causing the pop. And then sometimes switches just go wonky.

Truth, and giving a few stomps does bring the pop down a little - but this is no little pop. This is like double+ unity. I even sent it back to Os to fix because he thought something might be wrong with it, and then I got caught in round 1 of Music Electronix going down in flames. It was quite an ordeal to get it back, and when I did, there was no change.

Try shuffling around your pedal order/switching power supply outs/even swapping out power supplies, trying batteries in pedals around the Gemini etc.
That's what fixed my 3PDT *POP* issues in certain pedals/areas of my chain; and to this day I'm not entirely sure what the true culprit was...but now everything is quiet again.
I use a mix of buffered & TB analog & digital effects that seem to be finicky in where they will play with each other.

[_r_]

A lot of people tell me that owning 3 reverb pedals is excessive, but it's not, because one of them is an old big-box Holy Grail which is always broken.

Outside it bears enough battle scars to show that I used it a lot - every gig I played, and usually switched permanently on. But inside it's a symphony of electrical tape and solder trying to keep it going. How I laughed when it stopped working halfway through a gig, I spent half an hour dismantling it, resoldering all the connections to the power supply and putting it back together again only for it to break again at the next rehearsal. That's when I decided I'd had enough and bought a Cathedral. It's made by the same company and uses some of the same reverbs so it should sound exactly the same, but it doesn't. I just can't get that sweetness and depth from it that the Holy Grail has. So with the Cathedral on my main board, I recently decided to start running my acoustic through the Holy Grail at solo gigs for a bit (a lot) more depth. And joy of joys, it lasted 2 gigs, so I bought a EQD Dispatch Master. Both of these are significantly more expensive than the pedal they're replacing, and to be honest I still think the humble Holy Grail is like its namesake in The Last Crusade - on paper, the worst of the three, but ultimately the right one.

To be honest, I think being personally endorsed by the Nazarene and named after His pint pot of choice brought about its downfall. A few years ago, on New Year's Eve, my eternally unrepentant housemate was in my room for some reason. He'd drunk far too much of the Blood of Christ and tripped over my Holy Grail whilst spouting all sorts of blasphemous words like 'Fucking hell' and sending it tumbling across the floor. It's never been the same since then.

[insubordination]

No pop on the TB looper by itself. Yes, leaving the GD on and on/off with the loop somehow doesn't rid the popping.

Truly bizarre. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on pedal circuitry can weigh in here? rustywire's suggestions are pretty good too!

[StivBrigggs]

KNOW WHAT ELSE REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS.

how fucking expensive ANYTHING is.
I love my pedals.
When I added up how much I have spent of them I realized that I could have maybe at LEAST travelled the world twice.
....bah, I have no regrets.

still, too much fooking $$$ for
Amps (hiwatt) , Guitars (vintage fender Im looking at you) Pedals (moog)
I know when you pay hard earned money for something you feel is worth it, it doesn't matter how much it is.
But jesus man, do we collectively as gear nuts get fucked up the ass when it comes to the wallet.
I thought playing music would MAKE me money.
what the fuck was I thinking?

oh well, thats whats Grinds My Gears....

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah every time I add up how much my pedals cost I get a little sad, even though I love them and don't regret it, but just because I could own a totally sick amp and SOME of the pedals.

[Haki]

Yeah every time I add up how much my pedals cost I get a little sad, even though I love them and don't regret it, but just because I could own a totally sick amp and SOME of the pedals.

Could always pull a jwar and flip everything to raise cash to buy that sick amp then slowly rebuild your board ... and flip the amp a few weeks later

[Mudfuzz]

moogers an powering them and their power jacks, things have been a battle for years with me... one of these days I'm going to go Red Green a ducktape the damn things!

[ChetMagongalo]

Pedals are expensive, but other hobbies are way more expensive. Video equipment, nice band and orchestra instruments. oh lawdy

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah every time I add up how much my pedals cost I get a little sad, even though I love them and don't regret it, but just because I could own a totally sick amp and SOME of the pedals.

Could always pull a jwar and flip everything to raise cash to buy that sick amp then slowly rebuild your board ... and flip the amp a few weeks later

But then I'd have no pedals!!! I do think about doing this semi-seriously all the time, but I love all my pedals and I'm pretty happy with my amps anyway.