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What were some of the pedals that were 'the shit' in the 90s?



I always wanted one of these, they still seem expensive when for sale

Rotosphere rules pretty hard, tbh. I still use it with my POG to get Hammond Organ stuff happening. Also does really nice, warm dirt. Their other tube pedals are great, too.

A Stamps Drive-o-matic XL turned up on the GC site for $40 a week or two back, I was really tempted to get it so I could pretend I was on the cutting edge of the "boutique pedal ads in the back of GP Magazine ~20 years ago" movement.

To be honest, people at the time didn't use many.

The boutique thing was very regional and niche until the Internet.

Being a gearhead was an oddball thing then.

I was looked at strangely for bringing a second instrument to a gig, or a second amp, let alone having five pedals and the Space Echo/rack stuff.

The stuff the folks I knew who cared about the boxes cared about were mostly the unobtanium Eventide rackmounts or whatever was in the little Boss flipbooks they'd give out at dealers with suggested settings and descriptions of stuff.

The mom&pops that carried junker DODs or the Ibanez Soundtank crap...were places you hit to look in the used section, then quickly left. I had a bass player that burned through vintage Muffs like a drunken pimp, they lasted two to four weeks average before blowing up, he'd throw it away, buy another from somewhere, keep going.

EHX didn't reappear and had shitty distribution when it did until the mid to late 90s in any quantity - I remember the first of the US-built stuff being hyped as a huge deal in '98/'99 (and grabbed a couple Frequency Analyzers myself as the one I had was ratty as hell and at the time was the only weird box like that you'd buy off the shelf, ever).

All those bosses and dods and sovteks and stuff you all talk about now were there..as were rats.. That's what you saw in stores.. The Dod stuff was fun at guitar centers they sounded great when you turned them all on I think the first stuff that wasntbossdoddunlap I saw was Prescription Electronics and that was 96-97 everything else was vintage or shit like art and ada

The Rats just sort of got thrown in the "other junker" pile back then - the only places I saw them were mom&pops (hadn't even thought about them back then until you mentioned them) - don't think I ever saw one at a midwest GC (I never went to one on the coasts as I ended up in pawn shops or local places looking at weird used regional things before the 'net back then).

I had a literal chain of about 40 pedals on one song on my first demo, including a half dozen DOD 55s - the spit was amazing (as was the damn hiss when it wasn't making notes), borrowed every one I could get my hands on from friends, local bands, and a couple friendly music stores that I had a relationship with.

The only DOD of that era I ever fell in love with was the old 6 stage DOD 18v Performer phaser (and it was 10+ years old then), the flap-footswitch/ 1/8" power jack ones just sounded bad the minute you piled more than a couple in a chain due to their shit buffers and uneven construction.

rfurtkamp wrote:To be honest, people at the time didn't use many.

The boutique thing was very regional and niche until the Internet.

Being a gearhead was an oddball thing then.

I was looked at strangely for bringing a second instrument to a gig, or a second amp, let alone having five pedals and the Space Echo/rack stuff.

The stuff the folks I knew who cared about the boxes cared about were mostly the unobtanium Eventide rackmounts or whatever was in the little Boss flipbooks they'd give out at dealers with suggested settings and descriptions of stuff.

The mom&pops that carried junker DODs or the Ibanez Soundtank crap...were places you hit to look in the used section, then quickly left. I had a bass player that burned through vintage Muffs like a drunken pimp, they lasted two to four weeks average before blowing up, he'd throw it away, buy another from somewhere, keep going.

EHX didn't reappear and had shitty distribution when it did until the mid to late 90s in any quantity - I remember the first of the US-built stuff being hyped as a huge deal in '98/'99 (and grabbed a couple Frequency Analyzers myself as the one I had was ratty as hell and at the time was the only weird box like that you'd buy off the shelf, ever).

Yeah this was my experience too. I used boss, a rat, and crybaby wah, all battery powered on the floor. The touring dudes all seemed to have these rack mounted systems they'd roll in, with some sort of switcher on the floor.
I don't ever remember people taking pictures of pedals on the stage

rfurtkamp wrote:
EHX didn't reappear and had shitty distribution when it did until the mid to late 90s in any quantity - I remember the first of the US-built stuff being hyped as a huge deal in '98/'99 (and grabbed a couple Frequency Analyzers myself as the one I had was ratty as hell and at the time was the only weird box like that you'd buy off the shelf, ever).

I remember going to buy a Muff in... 00? 99? And the clerk was apologetic that they only had the black Russian in stock rather than the USA one.

And I'm pretty sure he thought I was a moron when I told him it was OK because I wanted the Black one.

this was the king shit processor

repoman wrote:

this was the king shit processor

90's James Iha toans for days.

There was a sick performance the Pumpkins played in France in 1997 where Billy was running a pedalboard that had a couple Lovetone big boxes on it. That's pedal star worthy for me.

Whatever MBV, Radiohead and other UK bands were using at the time (no need to list them, just making a general comment). I feel like they were on the cutting edge of pedals in the '90s, but that could just be my limited scope of knowledge back then and what I knew about. Bands in Syracuse were pretty much into two things: Tubescreamers into 5150s (with some kind of noise gate), or lots of rack shit (Mesa Simulclass 2:90 and some Mesa preamp I can't remember were very popular).

Boss PH-2 and Boss DD-5 were what I used in the late 90s. I think the former was directly inspired by Hum's use of a phaser (which I later found out was an MXR Phase 100) on "I'd Like Your Hair Long". For the most part I didn't really become aware of pedals beyond Boss and Ibanez until like "OK Computer" came out and everyone started picking apart that sound/recording. Like I said, limited scope of knowledge.

I had a boss fz2 running in to a Boss ps2 running in to a DOD dfx94 that got strange looks from the tiny crowds especially when I unleashed the 4 second loops
I don't really remember there being boutique until zvex

insubordination wrote:Whatever MBV, Radiohead and other UK bands were using at the time (no need to list them, just making a general comment). I feel like they were on the cutting edge of pedals in the '90s, but that could just be my limited scope of knowledge back then and what I knew about.

For the most part I didn't really become aware of pedals beyond Boss and Ibanez until like "OK Computer" came out and everyone started picking apart that sound/recording. Like I said, limited scope of knowledge.

I have no idea if this is based in reality or not but the legend has always been that Radiohead single-handedly killed Lovetone by using their units and generating popularity that overwhelmed the company.

Sadly I can't find a good citation so this isn't coming from a librarian-sanctioned position but it's endured in my head for ~15 years so there's that.

I remember Way Huge, Prescription Electronics, and Lovetone being the fancy, hard to get shit. It was hard to find info on the stuff outside of Musicians Friend catalogs. I remember in the early 00s there was like one website that clips of a couple pedals, but other than that you had to read user reviews on Harmony Central and make a best guess. It's really amazing how different it is now.

First thing I thought of for this thread was John Squire (fuzz face, wah, ibanez cs9) but I guess that's 80s as much as 90s.

Sadly the edge was the first name that came to my mind.