ilovefuzz.com

A useful thread from 2015 that didn't seem (afaics) to get a repeat yet for last year.

For myself:

Best:
Pretty Years - An endlessly entertaining pedal, utterly unique.

Korg Monologue - still kind of astounded by the value I'm getting out of this thing.

Fender AV63 P-Bass - I'd always stayed around the $300-$500 range with basses, but decided to splurge. This is a wonderful guitar.

Benson Monarch Reverb - The best dirt and edge-of-breakup sounds I've heard from an amp, but the reverb isn't really worth the extra price, size, or weight in my opinion.

Benson Vinny - best cleans I've heard from an amp

Worst:
Verellen Coop - Dunno...didn't like it. Didn't really have a lot of character. Just seemed like an overpriced Fender (but my silverface deluxe blows the coop away at everything). The Benson amps evoke Fender and Vox while still being something new, interesting, and (arguably) better (or at least: different). And then I lost money on it trying to just get it out of my face as quickly as possible. Annoying.

Best purchases...

Moog Sub 37 - it has really made me rethink buying so many pedals. It's just so much different to have a powerful analog synth, instead of trying to make $100-500 synths sound like $2000. Getting the Sub 37 also served as a catalyst for buying a Prophet. Now I have two inspiring synths and I'm playing everyday, as opposed to a handful of times a month.

Hologram Dream Sequence - this was probably my favorite pedal purchase of 2016. It can either be an exotic tremolo or it can be an ethereal bed for balancing other effects. It sounds great with modulation and any delay.

Most-regretted purchases...

all my synth gear prior to the Moog. Now that I have a Sub 37 and a Prophet, everything else is overshadowed and feels rather inadequate by comparison.

Best

Bitquest

Echo Degrader

Traynor YGM2

Worst

Pretty much all the fuzz I went through last year, turns out it was just a TAFM I wanted.

Best: Schecter 8 string
Worst: Fulltone Choralflange. Sounded great but I don't use modulation enough

The best thing I did was probably getting a proper pc, proper monitors and a decent interface, as that's kinda what my whole setup revolves around.
No real contenders for worst. There's gear I've flipped of course, but that gear wasn't even that bad, I just wanted something else.

Best:
EGC TT2 Baritone
Eventide Space
Boomerang III

Worst:
Visual Sound Jekyll&Hyde v2.

Regrets:
Selling my RM-1n.

2016 I bought a lot..

best purchases

OP-1

Microgranny

Pitchfactor

Ct5

My telemaster build

Worst

The echo degrader wasn't for me

Best: mountainking synapse, it brought 6 pedals together I wasn't using...helps modulate those pedals and can be incorporated into other boards
Mwfx judder, drone...rate to tremring, repeats, cuts and chops...love the momentary
Masf possessed, controls are very sensitive, can cut signal peices into arpeggio, mix is always good fully cranked, great playback into bits of glitch
Wait....think I bought the synapse this year...phones about to die...
Maybe I bought a soundwave breakdown down in the beginning of 2016....that's fuckin crazy with feedbackloopers....ya no duds...got tired of my harmonic transformer...some good stuff this year.

We did a few of these like mentioned, but maybe I have some new opinions again. lol

Best- Fea Opti Fet, Toneczar Echoczar, Dual Bitquest, Ezhi and Aka Tape O & Signature combo, Boss DD500.

Not best-Sorry but the Pretty Years. It's fun, but not very usable for me and way too compressed on most settings. There's more, but that was the biggest one for me.

Best purchase was the Minilogue and Volca Sample.

Worst purchase was the Tonal Recall. I'm still sad that one didn't work for what I do...

Only 4 purchases for me:

Jazzmaster in Lake Placid Blue!
Ikebe Rat!
ODB-3!
Sovtek 2x12 cab!


All win/win.

I've very much enjoyed:

Gray Channel
Space
Gen Loss
Particle
OTO Bam
Minilogue
Drumbrute

Wasn't into:

Empress verb - sounded awesome but had flimsy knobs. Worse, the model I got was a dud and the presets didn't work. Customer service wasn't very helpful. Bummed me out.

Pittsburgh Lifeforms Black Box - just wasn't for me.

popvulture wrote: Pittsburgh Lifeforms Black Box - just wasn't for me.

What did you not like about it ? I'm thinking about getting either the blackbox or a Mother32 as a first synth, so I'm intrigued

JTurbide wrote:

popvulture wrote: Pittsburgh Lifeforms Black Box - just wasn't for me.

What did you not like about it ? I'm thinking about getting either the blackbox or a Mother32 as a first synth, so I'm intrigued

Wasn't crazy about the sound or the interface--overall it didn't seem that awesome for a $700 piece of gear. I think if I ever do venture back into Euro stuff and wanna start with an all in one, I'd probably pick the Mother.

Overall though, I should add that I don't think Euro is the best fit for me in general.