New Pedal Number 1

I got some new pedals recently. The first one I got was an Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff with Top Boost.

Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff with Top Boost (picture from Musicians Friend)

Now if you know much about my style of music I play (in recent times) and the rest of my gear, you’re probably scratching your head right now.  I have my reasons.

I was in Guitar Center checking out the usual display of used pedals, and didn’t see anything too special. One of the guys there knows me pretty well, (he knows what I like to look at and recognizes my voice on the phone) and mentioned that he had a metal muff for $10.  “Ten Dollars?” I thought, “surely there is something wrong with it.” So I asked him why it was ten dollars.

The guy then told me that someone had bought it, and returned it back because it wasn’t really what he was looking for. Guitar Center then sold it as used, and someone else got it, who brought it back because he said it was broken. They checked it out at the store and couldn’t get it to work either. The lights would turn on, and signal would pass through, but no effect. They didn’t have time to show it to me then, so I passed on it, because I didn’t know how to fix it.

That Sunday at church, I was talking to one of the guitarists (who I know has a lot of botique and hand made pedals) and asked him if he knew anyone who worked on pedals. He said he did, and told me to buy the pedal, and if it couldn’t be fixed, the parts were worth at least ten bucks.

I went back that afternoon and bought the pedal, brought it home, and opened it up. I couldn’t see anything that looked broken or loose inside. It sat in my room for a week, till I brought it to practice and hooked it into my rig. At first, I couldn’t get it to work either. Then I realized that I had used the wrong cables, and it wasn’t even in the effects chain. (oops!) I got it hooked up (correctly this time) and lo and behold, out comes heavy metal distortion!

I played around with it a bit and found that if I followed what people usually say for metal distortion (gain, bass, and treble to the max, mids scooped out) I could make a insane, brütal, really bad noise. Like an army of bees with chainsaws, on the other end of a cheap cellphone. After fiddling, I actually made some tones that were really good. It was actually way too good, because my whole amp was rattling from the immense amount of awesome coming out of it.

So now I have an awesome metal distortion. I don’t have any use for that much awesomeness. It’s like Chuck Norris with a piñiata. Overkill. Too bad I’m beyond my metal phase. I can think of maybe one or two songs that I play which I could use it on. Maybe if the band goes all angsty again I can pull it out.

~ by jsrocker on March 18, 2009.