DOD FX13 Gonkulator Modulator

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.

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.

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.

Yeah its alright, 4 knobs. Limited of course, but this pedal wasn't produced to make a myriad of sounds.

Ha. Well, i would like to quote a previous user:
"it is completely useless for anything except playing "Glass"."
Well then, how was glass written? Oh, of course, im sure mike went to DOD and said HEY DUDEZ OMG LOLZ MAKE ME AN EFFECT FOR THIZ SONG. psh.
He had this pedal and for whatever reason, came up with the riff in glass to use it. And it works well. If you put your mind to it, im sure you could make up another song that could include it. I have. I've made it useful for a verse riff in several songs so far...
OK, its limited, but its also a novelty pedal. Look at it. Yellow and purple glitter? what the deuce. There are better ring modulators out there. Um yeah Moog. all you tools who said moog, maybe we dont have 400 US to spend on a ring mod, unlike you.

This pedal makes a ring mod sound. It IS noisy, but that can be adjusted with various equipment these days. Sounds great with chorus modulation. Whack a whammy after it and you've got some swirling octaves going up and down every which way.

Yeah. Nice and solid case, but the switch is a bit plastic.

Yeah its a good pedal to add a certain element of surprise occasionally.
If you're that into ring mods, you can find more versatility elsewhere. Try Zvex Vex pedals. thats a really cool ring mod.
But if you want to have some occasional fun, why not get it if you can afford it? Chances are you can sell it for the same price you bought it. Cheers.

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.

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..

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

Very easy to use. The names on the knobs are dumb and confusing.

My guitar is a Schecter C-1 Artist Limited Edition Electric Guitar Seymour Duncan pickups; JB at the bridge, '59 at the neck.
I use it in my setup in this order. Morley Bad Horsie 2 Wah, Boss DS-1, DOD and Digitech Death Metal pedals, Boss CH-1,Boss PH-3, Digitech Turbo Flange, DOD Gonkulator, and a Boss DD-6. It hums some, so get a noise gate.

no problems with it ever and it is like 7 years old

never dealt with dod

It is a good pedal if you can fit it in with your playing style. If it were lost or stolen I would buy another as soon as possible. I love and hate the sounds you can get out of it. It is a very unique one trick pedal. Great for just messing around and haveing fun with.

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.

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"

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.

to get a noisy grungy distortion sound its easy just whack the suck ( ring mod ) level right down and its basically a really hissy half decent distortion. however i doubt you bought this as a distortion.
infact to get either sound ring mod or distortion straight its easy as hell. its mixing the two thats the problem its really hard to get a good sound by mixing the two. the manual is just bad comedy.

im using this with an epiphone sg g400 into a behringer gx 212 its is by far one of the noisiest pedals ive ever played the internal ocsillator makes a really annoying hum thats dogging your signal even when its off. saying this if you want a pedal for making silly noises mix this with a delay and a phaser or flanger and its totally insane. Incubus guitarist mike einziger uses this as im sure you know thats why these things fly for megabucks. the distortion on it is OK ,just like i said mix the two and its get ugly , but tbh thats the whole point of this pedal. to most ppl it does sound like a sack of shit.

mine is ok. the inputs were a bit dodgy and getting cracle was a bit of a problem. i took it apart and tightend the inside nut and it works fine now.

never delt with DOD.

if this pedal were stolen i wudnt buy it again , mainly because i cant find it now for under $200 about #110 i guess. all i use this pedal for is silly noises playing live or looping with a delay for intros/bridges or whatever. it does that job well. i wish it was less noisy then i might put it to other uses , seriously tho if you are buying this pedal just becase you love incubus and think it will turn you into mike einziger please think again , it takes some skill to get a godd sound out of it without copying the tone he gets off 'glass' i admit , i was a sucker and bought it for this reason.

I don't know about how easy it is to use because the knob names are usless when u haven't seen thousands of reviews for this thing online. Suck- Distortion, Smear- Ring Mod, Gunk- Gain, Heave-Overall Volume

This effect is very unique, very noisey, very fixated on the internal ossilator. Theres some very good things about this pedal and some very bad too. First off, it is very unique, alot of reviews on this site said it totally sucks and that you should buy a Electro Harmonix Frequency Analyzer. Trust me that cannot sound anything like this unless u site there for hours tweaking each pitch and somehow taking off it's LFO. It's unique with the right effects but alot of strings sound the same it's hard to find the freaky sounding ones. But there are a few things that will drive u crazy about this pedal it's first off alot less versatile then you think it's gonna be, which i prefer but most won't. When you turn it on u will hear this HUmmmmmm! sound
which is so annoying so you better have a hell of a noise gate. It's sounds great with the right effects (Flangers, Phasers, Delays, Certain Distortions, Choruses) but picking out the strings that sound greats a challange.

It's sort of reliable, but when your battery gets low you will know that right away because when it's ogff u can kinda hear the ring mod anyway. It's a great sturdy, and reliable pedal when made but they can get less and less reliable cuz of age. I had to take mine in to a music shop last week to get fixed because it wouldn't take my guitars input then i got it back and now the ring mod works but the distortion dosen't so I am going to take it back in tomorrow and tell them they didnt fix it right. it's relaible on structure but the age can get in the way.

The company is good but since it's been discountinued manuals arent avalible online nor does it even list it on the site

This pedal fit's my love for sci fi metal and futuristic sounding metal well but it's sometimes a pain in the ass because of all the stupid things about it like the hum and the fixated tone it radiates. It's good but it was less then i expected it to be. I thought it'd be this crazy ass metal zone sounding distortion with all these screaming robot sounds and futuristic bleeps but it wasen't. Fourtunatly I can get those sounds by mixing it with my digitech whammy pedal a delay flanger chorus Od/Dis Phaser and Effect platform (yeah im a greek lol) but it wont be that metal zone space age sounding thing as heard in the stuido of S.C.I.E.N.C.E. by Incubus (my fav band an a huge reason i got this pedal) because it has a regular old sounding overdrive but the ring mod used in small porpotions with it will add quite a bit of dirt and gain but it will not be quite as fancy as u imagined it will make some crazy stuff though, but in order to make the ring mod reach it full potential sound then you must work with it quite a while. It's easy to get the ring from "glass" off S.C.I.E.N.C.E but it was a bit dissappointed because i thought it would get those sounds " A Certain Shade of Green" and "Magic Medecine" "Cologne" and it does get the sound off magic medicene and soems ounds off cologne but not all some of that was DJ's Keyboatrds other things but theres this futuristic siren thats goes off during the verse i thought i would get idk how he does that since ik thats his only distortion on the rig so idk how he'd flip on the ring mod half way but luckely i go another distortion pedal lol but alot of those sounds may be his whammy which no place lists but ik he has one because alot of the sounds he makes are like exactly wut the whammy does but it's agreat buy just dont think you will get every wierd sound of S.C.I.E.N.C.E. only most of em

It pretty easy to use. However, instead of normal names like level,distortion,ect. it has gonk,suck,smear and heave which makes it a little difficult to understand whats going on. I would say find a manual or buy it with it. The manual is a manual, what else can i say. It took me a second to understand it, but then again i am just a teenager and just started getting into effects pedals.

The sound quality is pretty good. Whenever I switch it on it makes this noise(EHHH!) but it isnt to bad especially if you start playing right when you switch it on. So i wouldnt worry about that. THis will work with anything that you can dish up, hell sometimes i even turn the distortion on the gonkulator all the way up and the distortion on my ibanez smashbox on to get a super fuzzy sound.The effect is kinda weak on low strings ( not as good as higher) but very noticable on the high strings and is great for solos if you dont want to sound like an 80's shredder.

HHHmmm... so far it has held up ok, but it seems rather tender and fragile especially the footswitch. Another problem i ran into was that a small washer under one of the tone knobs came up a little bit. But, all i had to do was take the knob off and tighten it down with my hand and it hasnt happened sinse. Besides the know didnt fall off or anything it was just raised up a little. I have not yet gigged with it.

I would have no idea, I have not had the need for them.

I think this is overall a good pedal. I play hard rock with weird effects and what not. I use it occasionally but not quite like I thought I was going to when i bought it. I think that you may find that you use it in a different way than you think you will. But using it is using it right? I wouldnt gig with a back up but mostly because the babies are hard to get!

It is easy to us the knobs, but using it in a song is the real challenge.

This is subjective. To preface this: gotta' love the sound it makes, but if you do it's a ten. I like sonic youth, the boredoms, ect...

This is the ampeg scrambler of the future. It will only sound cooler the more times passes unlike most boxes which will just sound dated imho. Unlike what many reviewers say it is possible to use this in a non-atonal context, but U will have to figure it out 4 yrself. I have the mooger fooger ging mod ang had a colorsound for years. This would B cooler if you could change the carrier tone, but it wouldn't make it any less atonal.

This is great "weird noise" box and there aren't enough boxes that try to be inovative so it deserves a ten here.

I have to say despite what is said about dod I've never had 1 break on me, and I've had a few. When people say the switches break it is true, but it's the actaul plastic pad that breaks and the pedal usually still works. Boss pedals have a problem where the switch stops engaging or engages intermittently. I've had the problem more than once. but everyone says they are totally reliable.

Lets face it people don't exactly "take care" of dod pedals. You throw it in a box w/ 10 other crap pedals and let it bang around in you trunk, drop it down the stairs, step on knobs. Somehow they just keep working.

I found one new in music store about a year ago and had to pay original list price or something which was still a good deal since in the time it sat there it had become collectable. Look around some mom and pop stores U might find 1 NOS. I've seen these sell 4 over $200, which would not be a fantastic value, but U could spend even more and get something not as cool, so why not.

The pedal is not very hard to use per se, with only four knobs, but it is somewhat hard (but rewarding) to control, and to use musically.

Gibson SG Special into it and a lot of other effects, but usually I use the Gonkulator by itself, maybe with some compression before, or delay or vibrato after. Pedal seems a bit noisier than other DOD pedals by itself. Obviously the distortion (the Grunge circuit, I believe), is noisy, especially with the gain set high.

Here's the thing about this pedal, the inimitable thing about it: it's a PARALLEL distortion and ringmod. Just like the DOD buzz box is a parallel sub-octave and distortion. When you play into it, it processes your tone through two different effects then let's you blend both new tones together. What else does this with a ring mod? Perhaps there's something out there but I don't know what it is. As I see it, your closest other option is to get a ring mod and a distortion pedal and get either distorted ring mod sounds, or ring modded distortions, both of which have their places, but aren't as interesting as the Gonkulator imho.

Yes, the ring mod in this thing is fixed at one "pitch" (not sure if thart's the correct term, but you know what I mean), and while I'd like to have more control there, but as I said, it's not like there are a lot of other options, and you've got to take the good with the bad.

Bottom line, if you are at all into abrasive guitar music like Helmet, Unwound, Dillinger Escape Plan, Mr. Bungle, or any of that wacky weird sh1t, I just can't see you not grinning the first time you hear the right blend between the distorted (tonal) dry guitar signal, and the (atonal) ring mod. It's like the ultimate distortion in a way, because the ring part is just so psychotic and unpredictable. With the right blend (this is what the effect is all about), it's just so deep, with all the frequencies bleating about together.

Hard to say. I found a second one recently, "brand new" in a store (it had just sat there all these years), paid 50 bucks for it (thought i was getting a great deal), got it home and it was broken. These things are obviously all about the same age. So far no problems with my primary unit though I must say, nor with my Buzz Box.

Everyone knows the battery covers are crap, of course, but you can make it work.

Who knows.

I am trying to craft pop music ultimately out of disparate influences, in the philosophical tradition of say mr. bungle, king crimson, or radiohead. For this, the pedal will have its uses.
I have been playing music for ten years next month (my how time flies), when I turn 24. Mostly music for me is FOR FUN. (It's interesting people say, "serious about music"; heck I almost typed that about myself; it's weird, there's a duality there. I suppose this is the conflict with this pedal; if every purchase "matters" towards building something, this is an inessential piece assuming limited resources--if on the other hand we want to have fun creating different sounds for ourselves, you could do a lot worse than this pedal).

That said, if this were lost or stolen, I'd probably not buy another one as I've been on a pragmatic kick and there is too much stuff I still "need" to buy. It would be a loss though.