FX13 Gonkulator Modulator

So admittedly I bought this pedal only because I'm an incubus fanboy, but I've had it for about two years now and still never get tired of it. I use it with the distortion circuit turned all the way down so I just get the ring mod signal. Yes it's very easy to nail the sounds from 'Glass' and 'Pendulous Threads,' but why not create your own riffs with it? I personally love the sound of this pedal. The way I have it set the ring mod totally takes over the sound and turns the guitar into a robot...basically. It's not a very clean or smooth sounding ring mod, at least compared to the other ones out there. The Zvex ringtone has a really crisp and smooth quality to it, as do the Moogerfooger and the Electro-Harmonix Frequency Analyzer, but the Gonkulator has this harsh, tinny tone that you can't really get away from. The drawbacks are few I should say. When you turn the pedal on there is a loud, Bb pop (like picking at the 11th fret on the B string). I know this isn't just my pedal because if you listen closely to the bridge of 'Megalomaniac' you can hear the weird popping in the background =) Also, while the pedal is on, you can hear the oscillator constantly droning out a Bb in the background. It's not noticeable while playing, but the second you stop it's there. I just turn the effect off when I'm done with it anyway, but it's worth mentioning. Now the only major drawback on this pedal is that you can't tune the oscillator to anything other than Bb. Pretty much every other ring mod on the market has this feature (the Moogerfooger even has the option of controlling the carrier frequency with an expression pedal), but DOD apparently overlooked it. I don't want to go through my entire rig, but to give you a general idea my main guitar is a Fender Mexican Telecaster. I also have a Mexican Stratocaster with DiMarzio Area '58 pickups and a 1990 Rickenbacker 330. My sound goes through a total of 23 effects at the moment with the Gonkulator sitting comfortably sitting 6th from last on my board (I keep it after my overdrives and time-based effects, but before my reverb, delay, and loop station). All of this comes out of either a Vox AC30 combo or for live use an Orange AD30 with an Orange 2x12.

I think mine was new-old-stock from a vintage pedal store (it was gift) so it's in better condition than some older DOD pedals. However I do consider it reliable with proper care. I like to think that I treat all of my effects with tender love and care. I have a total of three DOD pedals (Gonkulator, Envelope Filter, and Stereo Phaser) and none of them have ever given me any problems. My bass player, on the other hand, got a DOD Grunge from a friend and it only lasted him a couple of months. But this particular pedal was in pretty bad shape to begin with. The plastic battery cover was missing and the jacks were in a state of disrepair. It just recently died on him at a gig, but the only real problem is something with the power supply jack. It was never really all the way there to begin with, but it finally gave up that night. He's bidding on a new one on eBay though. I consider all effects to be reliable as long as you take good care of them. But the DOD stuff doesn't seem likely to survive a fall down a flight of stairs or two.

Four knobs seems pretty easy, but the wacky names can make it a little tricky. Luckily I got one with a manual. Anyway, the controls are: Suck, Smear, Gunk, and Heave. Suck is a mix/volume level for the distortion circuit (a DOD Grunge to be precise); Smear is the wet/dry mix for the ring modulator; Gunk controls the amount of distortion from the Grunge circuit; and Heave is an overall output volume control. Pretty easy.

I've never dealt with them, sorry.

I play in a sort of experimental band (we're big fans of The Mars Volta) and I would say that this pedal is well-suited to my style. I like anything that makes my guitar not sound like a guitar. But if you're looking for a ring mod to experiment with I would recommend either the Moog or the Electro-Harmonix. They're pretty reasonably priced and are still in production. Instead of going through the trouble of finding a Gonkulator and not paying the Incubus fanboy price you can get a unit with more features and cleaner sound for just under $300. It's the only ring modulator I own so far (I plan on purchasing both a Moogerfooger and a Zvex Ringtone) but I definitely intend to keep it no matter what. It is a critical part of my live rig and I just love playing with it. Sure it's a one-trick-pony, but it's only one pedal, what do you expect? If it were stolen or lost I would be pretty mad about it and promptly replace it when I could. But I mount my pedals to my board with metal plates rather than velcro in order to prevent backstage thievery.

aarrggh i bought this on a whim and despise the sound of DOD, thinking maybe this would be different.. but its quite bad, not tweakable [despite the WEIRD knob names!]  i play an aria proii and a fender jag, and i use mainly analog pedals and racks, i particularly like ring mods so i got this one on a list with the moog ring mod, frostwave, modmax, freq analyser, lovetone, zvex ringtone and let me tell you, playing these in connection with one another will yield some incredible otherworldly magic, but adding the gonkulator anywhere to the chain somehow flattens my sound and it brings a terrible distortion to it.  i hate DOD. 

all right i guess but we'll see when i throw it out the window. not as much of a tank as boss or e.harmonix..

easy to use> except for the stupid knob names make it confusing and unnecessarily 'weird'.  itll sell big on ebay because it looks so 'weird' but its not that hard to use. no manual with mine.

whatever.  not worth the effort to ask them 'why?'

was fun for one second.. cant recommend it, unless you have no idea about ring mods and dont spend more than 15 20 on it.. the thing goes for 100 bucks on ebay??? who the heck thinks theyre buying a weird alternative pedal for that when you can get much better ring mods for much cheaper?? terrible terrible pedal, sorry fellas dont fall for the weird knob titles.  been playing for years. gets in the way of my music, doesnt add anything .. i got mine for 35 and even this was too much

I'm using a PRS SE II with this.  Its pretty noisy, you can always hear a slight ringing when your not playing if the "smear" (ring modulation) is turned up.  A noise gate fixes this though. People will pick this pedal up, based only on the fact that Incubus' Mike Einziger uses one (check out 'glass' on S.C.I.E.N.C.E.).  Now I must admit falling into this trap.  I'm a huge Incubus fan and have gotten slightly addicted to picking up the pedals Mikey uses.  I half wanted something to add real screwed up sounds to my guitar...but the other half was Mikey's influence.  At first I found myself banging my head against the wall as I had just spent £67 on something that just made stupid noises.  After spending time with it though, with a bit of exploration, you can have an effects adventure.  I'm using this with other effects, put in some phaser, flanger, delay...experiment with it and you might just find that wierd ass sound your looking for.

Havent had this long so I'm not sure how reliable it is, but I got it used from eBay and its working.  They discontinued this about 5 years ago, so mines at least 5 years old and its still working fine.  I doubt you'd need a back-up.  Most people would use this as a one trick pedal, crack it out in one or two songs, if it gave up on me during a gig I could probably get away with replacing the effect with something else and calling it "live music variety"

Its pretty easy to use if you just want straight ring modulation, or straight distortion for that matter (but I hope you didnt buy this as a distortion pedal lol).  The trick is mixing the two to get the sound your after.  I wasnt really sure on what sound I wanted when I got this, the plan was to add some screwed up sounds to my pedal board, its all about trail and error which is half the fun.

Never delt with DOD. This is the only DOD pedal I own (I'm a BOSS geek) NOTE: Contacting this company about the DOD FX-13 Gonkulator would be useless as they havent made one for a good 5 years.

I play a lot of different styles and this is clearly not gonna make it into my blues songs.  I didnt pick this up to enhance my sound, I picked it up because sometimes you just want to crack out something a little different.  I'm in an experimental rock band and this will make it onto a few of our songs in places.  Like I said before, I got a bit carried away by the whole "Mike Einziger uses this!!" vibe, but after trying to make the most out of it, I found you can get some cool sounds if used with other effects. Just dont buy this and expect to sound like Mike Einziger, he doesnt use this all that much. I live in the comfort that if I look after this, I could make my money back or even more in a few years.