For those unfamiliar with the concept: a guitar effects pedal—or stompbox, which always sounded slightly disparaging to me—is a sound processor placed on the floor in front of the guitarist. The guitar connects via cable to the pedal’s input, while the output links to additional pedals or the guitar amplifier.
The little box changes the signal in ways that may be predictable or not. The most widely used and well-known effect for electrical guitar is distortion. That’s the one that gives the electric guitar its specific VROOOOOM and ROAAARRRR sound.
There are other types: Phaser, Chorus, Reverb, Delay, …
Generally speaking, they are all great.
Really Weird Ones
Of course there are real life pedals that can produce really weird and at times unpredictable sounds. One of the most sci-fi like pedals that I own is the Ibanez Digital Modulation Delay. It is able to produce delay trails that swirl away into space.
Ibanez Modulation Delay — 1980s
This seems to be a rare piece of gear and one I will never sell. It must be from the 1985 Master Series (L Series) which is overshadowed online by the later Power Series versions, DML10 and DML20. However, according to the original Ibanez DML Manual, it features advanced specifications for its time.
You can find some details and even a manual as PDF file here: Tonehome > Ibanez DML Digital Modulation Delay
The RockBoard PedalPedia also has some information on it: Ibanez DML Digital Modulation Delay on the RockBoard PedalPedia
Number 1 candidate for “Weirdest Pedal right now”
A modern classic and regular nominee for weirdest pedal available seems to be the Rainbow machine by EarthQuaker Devices. It is a polyphonic pitch-shifting synthesiser – sounds like just the thing you need to make being on stage comfortable.
You can get it here, and there are sound samples available: Rainbow Machine on www.thomannmusic.com
My Pedal Collection
It was quite impressive back then. I sold most of them a couple of years ago and some for a higher price than what I had paid for them!
There were some real weirdos among: The Coron Deluxe Exciter tried to give your sound a glassy, icy, whispery quality. Which it did, but at the cost of becoming incredibly noisy. The configuration of the controls didn’t make any sense. I never used it on stage.
What I liked very much was the Arion SAD-3, a stereo analog delay. It sounded ok but didn’t do much, delay time was neglectable, the one things that stood out was the name. And to think that there must have once been a SAD-1 that didn’t do much, followed by a SAD-2 that probably didn’t do much more, and finally being so stubborn about its sadness that they even made a SAD-3 … Well, surely there are stories to tell about this model’s history!
