Members MIDIstruction Posted February 19, 2006 Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 Have you ever experienced this dilemma? There's a pedal you found online, maybe accidentally, maybe because you'd heard something about it and you were hunting it down. The site you found it on has a few sound clips, but they don't demonstrate exactly what you wanted to know about the pedals. You look up reviews, but they're all pretty useless. No one in town has the pedal and it seems the only way you're really gonna find out if the thing does what you want it to do is to order it online and cross your fingers while you wait for it to arrive. Usually what I would do in this case is listen to said clips, and read said reviews over and over until I reach critical GAS and pull the trigger. Sometimes I get the pedal, honeymoon with it, get bored and sell it, and sometimes I get the pedal and immediately regret it and sell it, and sometimes I get the pedal, play with it until I'm bored, then rediscover it again months later and have a second honeymoon. This is just my way with pedals, and I'd bet it's the way a lot of you do business as well. Especially you unfortunate folks who don't even have a nearby GC or local dealer going entirely by word of mouth, which for me anyway, has been proven unreliable in this market. There's tens of thousands of versions of a single idea, and each version has a clump of people who swear by it, and a clump of people who think it's probably the worst invention in all human history. Pretty frustrating, right? I was talking to a forumite recently about doing a temporary pedal swap. He was selling a pedal I had been curious about but had never played with and I was wondering if he'd be interested in letting me borrow it for a week or so in exchange for something of mine. I figured, "hey, this will be cool because if I end up liking it he can just send me my unit back, and I'll send him the money order, and if I don't like it I'll return his pedal and be glad I didn't just go out and buy it blind". I'd done this in the past with other forumites. There was one time I was about to just suck it up and buy the Moog Ring Mod. I'd had heard the clips, and had heard both sides of the reviews, and I was prepared to drop the $270 or whatever and find out myself when Hangwire proposed we do a temporary swap of his Moogerfooger Ring Mod for my EHX Microsynth (a pedal he'd been thinking about buying). I'm really glad we did that swap because I would have been out nearly $300 for a pedal I didn't even like that much. During my correspondence with the potential pedal swap partner I wondered to myself why more people on HC didn't do this. I wondered, in all of the time I've been on HC why hadn't it ever become fashionable to exhcnage pedals for research purposes? Our community has the ability to organize such a system. Is it because people are worried about losing their pedals? That doesn't seem very likely to me, there's never been a huge internal fraud problem before - I remember a couple of guys over the years who'd scammed a handfull of forumites, but that's all. To bypass all the headaches depicted above, and find out whether or not you wanted the pedal you got before you actually bought it why doesn't HCFX initiate a Pedal Exhange Program? I'm comfortable with taking a pedal or two off of my board for a week or so at a time, especially if it means I get to play with something new. And yes, I have to pay for two different shippings, but it's a small price to pay to avoid shelling out for a dud, or to discover your favortie phaser. Is anyone else interested in this? If there were enough of us we could maybe get a sticky going. Think about it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PFDarkside Posted February 19, 2006 Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 I'd definately be in, however, my pedals that anyone would be interested in are limited to the POG, Fuzz Factory and Truly Beautiful Disaster. (Maybe the Roto-Machine, and Uni-Vibe) Everything else is pretty much Guitar Center standard issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuyaGuy Posted February 19, 2006 Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 well, lotsa guys do de facto exchanges. they buy em knowing they may only have em a short while and just have a revolving door with pedals coming in and out all the time. yes, they're paying and not borrowing but usually they're selling something as well. i'm not opposed to it but i don't actually buy/sell/try stuff as much as some guys here at HCFX. the main thing is that you need to use protection when dealing with a "potential pedal swap partner"! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members vanguard Posted February 19, 2006 Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 most good pedals can be bought on ebay, and if you don't like em you can just sell em again, usually for more than you paid! i've tried a lot of pedals this way, and probably made about 1-200$ on the top. just a possible alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StompboxMan Posted February 19, 2006 Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 There's many ways to hear a pedal online. Everybody is making clips of their stuff. Most of which is not available at GC. If you were tired with your BOSS OD and heard reviews of so many others how do you decide? I like your Idea but pedal research can narrow it down to the sound your looking for more so then a tryout of exchange number 8 on your list. I mean you got to rely on the web more so then any HC Formites loaning pedals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MIDIstruction Posted February 19, 2006 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 Originally posted by PFDarkside I'd definately be in, however, my pedals that anyone would be interested in are limited to the POG, Fuzz Factory and Truly Beautiful Disaster. (Maybe the Roto-Machine, and Uni-Vibe) Everything else is pretty much Guitar Center standard issue. GC standard issue is helpful too. For instance I really want to AB a Digiverb and a Reverberator, but trying to organize that in the crowded little accesories department of Guitar Center with the salesmen hovering and the wanker soloing (poorly) in the background on the slightly out-of-tune guitar through the cranked Crate is more trouble than its worth. Whew. Originally posted by GuyaGuy well, lotsa guys do de facto exchanges. they buy em knowing they may only have em a short while and just have a revolving door with pedals coming in and out all the time. yes, they're paying and not borrowing but usually they're selling something as well. That's how I've operated for a long time, and I'm sort of over it. From now on I only want to actually put the money down if I know I'm going to keep it for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MIDIstruction Posted February 19, 2006 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 Originally posted by StompboxMan There's many ways to hear a pedal online. Everybody is making clips of their stuff. Most of which is not available at GC. If you were tired with your BOSS OD and heard reviews of so many others how do you decide?I like your Idea but pedal research can narrow it down to the sound your looking for more so then a tryout of exchange number 8 on your list. I mean you got to rely on the web more so then any HC Formites loaning pedals. Well, I'm talking about a situation where one has already researched and narrowed down to the pedal they are interested in buying. The exchange program would be a chance for that person to try out this pedal with their guitar, their amp, their fingers in a no risk, no strings attached, low cost temp. trade. I'm constantly under the impression I know what I want, until I get it. It'd be nice if every time I made an error when browsing through tonefrenzy, or any of the hundreds of manufacturer websites, or through some our HC friends' personal clip selections I wasn't out a $100 + and inconvenienced by having to turn around and auction the pedal I thought I wanted, having to wait to get my money back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StompboxMan Posted February 19, 2006 Members Share Posted February 19, 2006 I know what you mean. So make a Sticky called Pedal Tryout and see how it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members capnbringdown Posted February 20, 2006 Members Share Posted February 20, 2006 I know exactly what you mean. I'm sick and tired of buying pedals, using them for a few days, discovering I dislike them or can't use them, and then having to wait around to sell them off. My board's almost finished, but there's one pedal that doesn't do it for me, so I need to replace it with something else, but with what, I do not know. Well actually, I think I have it narrowed down to a few contendors, but the sound clips can't tell me if it can do what I want. I've heard good soundclips of pedals and when I've got then found out that I couldn't take the clips to the next level. I'd also love to a/b a few other muff clones with my icbm, not something I'd exactly like to shell out for. I'm trying to buy another amp (still) and don't want to commit all my money to that and have to wait to get most of it back. And I know as soon as I do that, I'll find the amp I'm looking for but won't have the cash to buy it. While a pedal exchange program doesn't sound like a bad idea in theory, it's a little risky. There's always the off chance that you could get screwed. And while I haven't had a problem with my transaction, yet, I've dealt with a few major assholes in my time. I'd hate to wind up with someone like that as a trading partner. Some people really have no concept of other people's stuff. I don't loan out books because people always abuse them, I'm not sure I couldn't not be paranoid about someone else handling my pedals. And then there's always the concern if those people can take the pedals to gigs/band practice. personally, I don't like that idea because it gives a better chance for it to be abused, but trying out pedals for some people would be worthless without it being in a band mix. I'm not saying I'm against the idea, but the downside of what can happen should be thought about before just sending something in the mail and hoping that you wind up with it back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MIDIstruction Posted February 20, 2006 Author Members Share Posted February 20, 2006 Originally posted by capnbringdown I'm not saying I'm against the idea, but the downside of what can happen should be thought about before just sending something in the mail and hoping that you wind up with it back. That was my concern as well. I'm still brainstorming on how we could somehow make it more secure, but the only ideas I've had sort of make the whole thing a hassle, and the whole point of it is to simplify ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zhivago Posted February 20, 2006 Members Share Posted February 20, 2006 We're lucky here in London...we have occasional Show & Tell sessions where we get together and try each others' stuff out. Between us all we got some really tasty stuff to try out, and the day is always good fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members L6Sguy Posted February 20, 2006 Members Share Posted February 20, 2006 a 'program,' thats where it'll get stupid, imho. be here awhile. make some friends. trade some gear. pretty simple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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