Experience

I AM USING THIS PEDAL WITH BASS GUITAR.  BASS GUITAR.  BASS GUITAR.  Yes.  It sounds absolutely fantastic on bass guitar.  Thick warm bass fuzz, oozing tone.  The fuzz on this thing absolutely slays on bass.  Not for the faint of heart, but if you've got the balls you will love this pedal.  And the octave fuzz!  This thing "tracks" extremely well, EVEN BELOW the 12th fret.  Ridiculously gnarly, perfect for that rocking psychedelic breakdown, with or without the swell.  Or multi track with it and fire your superfluous rhythm guitarist.  Who needs that shmuck when you've got a bass player with the right tools to fill his sonic space anyways.  Anyways, I've owned and used tens of thousands of dollars worth of pedals with bass guitar, and there are only a few that have blown me away and deserve a ten rating.  This is one of them.  If you play bass, and you're not one of those guys that plays like "doonk doonk doonk", or in other words you like to ROCK, this is a supreme pedal. 

My Experience pedal is several years old.  Still operates like brand new, and sounds as good as ever.  No complaints.

I don't know why anyone would find this pedal difficult to use.  After I plugged it in, it took me about five seconds to dial in absolutely killer tone the way I like it, and tone that absolutely smokes probably tens of thousands of dollars worth of other pedals I've owned/tried.  So fat and musical, probably the best sounding octave effect I've tried (only to compete with other PE pedals I've used), and the swell is swell. 

Haven't ever needed to deal with them, but just the fact that every pedal by this company I've tried gives me absolutely killer tone is better to me than customer service. 

Ok, if you can't get killer tone out of this pedal, I think you should seriously consider the possibility that you just plain suck.  It's ridiculously easy to dial in, and just plain rocks.  What more do you want?  A little guy that pops out of the pedal and plays your guitar for you?  Even at the price this pedal currently goes for (I believe about $260 new) this is a fantastic value for me.  Very few pedals rock hard enough to instantly make me stoked when I turn them on.  And inspiration is priceless.  So don't be afraid to blaze your own tone, and play like you want to play.  That's what it's all about.

This is not a very subtle effect. It is a raw balls out square wave fuzz. Stellar double stop bends, endless sustain, and spot on octave fuzz are it's strong suites and no other pedal can touch it on those points. A lot of fuzz pedals sound good in isolation, but just turn to mush in the mix. No worries here. This pedal is a hot knife and the mix is warm butter. Probably more gain than was available on any of hendrix actual pedals. I don't consider this pedal retro. I would say don't buy one if your goal is to perfectly recreate the hendrix sound. I have owned many other fuzz pedals over the years such as zvex, dunlop, boss, electro-harmonix, voodoo lab etc... and nothing comes close to the raw power, sustain, and cutting tone of the experience fuzz. Used by mogwai and eric johnson, probably a lot of other famous players also.

Never a problem

It's straight forward other than the swell mode which needs a certain technique to work.

Never needed

I am a huge fan of this pedal. I have owned it for many years and have bought and sold a couple dozen other fuzz pedals in that time. A true icon in the world of pedals, up there with the ts-808, big muff, and fuzz face.

1976 gibson s-1 w/lindy fralin p-90s > radial dragster > mcdoober buffer > tc jauernig luxury drive > prescription experience > isp tech decimator > bbe sonic stomp > 1961 gibson ga40 tube amp. luxury drive knob @ 3:00, experience settings: vol 12:00, tone 10:00, sust 10:30. decimator set to kill the noise when strings are still, & the sonic stomp... hey, don't laff 'til you've tried one. the sound (i hate the word "tone") w/this set-up? sorta like a hi-gain amp, but ALIVE. UNPREDICTABLE. ABLE TO TURN ON A DIME. these are all things that i feel hi-gain amps are NOT. i suppose this opinion would be denounced by a vast majority of the distorted signal-guitar-playing horde; so be it. if you own a mesa boogie or soldano or a krank, what're ya reading this review for? isn't the entire (& i do mean "entire") sound you want already built into the amp itself? why add od/dist/fuz pedals to an already heavy & clipped sound? but for those who may be reading this who own a fender or vintage or low-wattage tube amp that either runs clean or w/a small amount of "break-up", the prescription experience is a pedal worthy of investigation.  

da guy's been in "the biz" since 93 or 94. that alone should say something. studio use only, in my case. so no beer-spilling, boot-stomping, or brandishing as a weapon against club owner who won't pay up. don't be dumb.

experience pedal, purchased early february 2006. even though it's brand new, there are no LED's! go figure. otherwise, four knobs (volume, tone, sustain, swell) plus dc jack. when i first received the pedal, i naturally floored the potentiometers (vol-tone-sust turned fully clockwise). hmmm. then backed them off a bit. mm-hmmm. then yanked this one this way & that one another way. then the opposite. then some twisted combination of the two. hmmmmmm. then i logged on to harmony central. did a little reading. found ara kalaj's post (06/02/03). tried his recommendations of having ALL THREE knobs at 12:00 or less. EUREKA! or if i were inclined to swearing, M***ERF***IN' EUREKA!! who woulda thought that a guy like me, who buys a fuzz pedal cuz he likes FUZZ & who prefers treble over this "7-string guitar-.013 string sets-downtuning two whole steps" low-end nonsense, would set the tone & fuzz knobs @ 10:00? i mean, c'mon!!    

i would like to once again take the opportunity to say that i hate this category.

my own formula for coming up w/a number in this category is to mash sound quality versus price. sounds reasonable, doesn't it? anyway, 260 clams is alot. seriously. but, if you're serious about your sound... & even though the experience comes in at about two-&-a-half benjies, they seem to get snapped up pretty quickly at the on-line dealer of my preference (pedalgeek). want a quick tip? here ya go: experience (vol maxed, tone 9:30, sust 9:30) > prescription vibe unit ( intensity 7, speed 7, volume 9) > maxon ad 900 (delay time 12:00, repeats 10:30, delay level 10:30). enjoy.