Effector 13 Truly Beautiful Disaster

Hmm...I let a friend try it out, an experienced player mind you, and he thought it was broken. But i've played alot of weird pedals, zvex fuzz factories and shit, this one is alot more eccentric than the FF though. After an hour or so it got pretty easy to use, and after a month of use I can't live without it.

Teisco K-2L into TBD with a zvex fuzz factory and japanese Boss SD-1 in the FX loop into a Musicman hd-130 through marshall 1960a 4x12 cab. I bought this for a fuzz pedal, and got alot more than I bargained for. The FX loop is friggin genius. I'm going to run every pedal I get through it by default. As for it's sound, let's compare it to the legendary Fuzz Factory. I would say the FF is more practical. Everyone says how weird the FF is, but really it's a pretty standard sounding pedal to my ears alot of the time. Granted it has some weird sounds, but it's more normal than people try to say. And i've owned it a long time. The TBD is a much stranger and experimental friendly pedal. Really it comes down to taste and what you want, but here is my opinion. I think that the FF has alot more usable tones, and is the all around more impressive pedal sound wise, but the TBD is far more eccentric and more irreplaceable. There are pedals that can do close to what hte FF does, but nothing can do what the TBD does. What i'm saying is, the TBD is a completely unique pedal. The FF is too, just not on the degree that the TBD is. This is a dark sounding pedal on its own. If you look at my set up, it's a treble beast, and this thing still makes it dark sounding. I use the FF to brighten up the tone.

tank

he replied to both questions I had.

Got it on ebay for 150 and felt like it was a major steal. This is the most crucial piece of gear I own now. I'm not sure how I played without it. My whole rig now revolves around what this pedal can do. Guitars are overrated. I've owned Gibson SG standards and vintage Fenders, and when it comes right down to it, they aren't much better than my 150 dollar Teiscos. Amps are more important, and I am happy with mine. The core of my sound comes from pedals, and in the short time i've owned this pedal it's become irreplaceable. I will own one the rest of my life. I'm buying more of his stuff too. Very impressive.

This pedal is one of the neatest fuzzes out there. The controls are all a little hard to understand from a "techsplanation" point of view, but become a little clearer when you spend a couple of days playing with the pedal. It's probibally best to play with it with whatever guitar you plan on using live so that you can actually predict, at least to some degree, what sound will come out. It has a "broken fuzz" sort of reaction to most settings, and takes just the right amount of attention to get the perfect sound out of.

The sound can be reminiscent of the cooler parts of the buzz box, but with the wierdness of an oscillating fuzz. Its hard to get sounds that don't turn heads out of this thing, and it will piss everyone else in the band off when you tweak it. It has true bypass, to keep things clean when its offThis things sounds so cool when you actually spend the time to get something other than "fuzz" out of it. It can pull off all sorts of bizarre sounds, and has a feedback loop build in for added chaos. my only wish was that the feedback loop came after the fuzz.

Never had a problem

Devi Ever will give you the most informative e-mails ever when you ask anything. Devi gave me the biggest run-down on effects loops I've ever seen

If you play wierd music and like outlandish distortion, there is no other pedal that you should own before this one.

This is not an easy category to rate. This is a pretty complex pedal with a considerable amount of potential but you need to be patient and go slowly. It reacts differently to different guitars so you definitely need to experiment and know it well before you play out with it. The small manual that comes with it is quite useful as it provides you with a series of settings you can dial in to get you started. Overall it is not the easiest pedal to use but once you get it sorted out it is extremely cool and a lot of fun.

I am using this effect with a Burn's Steer, a Jaguar Baritone Custom and a Songworks 3350 combo amp. Is it noisy?? Well that depends how you twiddle the knobs. You can get everything from traditional warm fuzz tones to lofi gated fuzz to crazy end of the world typed fuzz. It's also worth noting that some adjustments will create droning noise which you may think is just a nasty noise but if you actually play into this noise the drone disappears and you get some very cool sounds. You also have to be very careful what you put into the effects loop - always start with the settings on low and work your way up to the desired madness otherwise you can get some pretty nasty feedback. When the pedal is not on it is true by pass and does not affect your signal. The effect is also very responsive to your playing dynamics. I give it a 10 because it makes some awesome sounds but it is not for the faint of heart.

It is very well built and all the switches and inputs/outputs seem really solid. It seems dependable but I would definitely have a back up fuzz on hand just in case. Sometimes if you get too much craziness going on - extreme fuzzes and the effects loop on top of that- it can pick up radio signals so you would definitely want to test it at sound check. Having said that I would say it's worth the risk for the sounds you can get out of this thing.

All of the Effector 13 FX are hand made by Ever Was and company down in Texas. He is one of the most friendly and helpful people you could ever hope to deal with so buy something from him. I had an older version of the TBD and I shipped it to him and he upgraded it and shipped it back to me for no charge. If you order from Ever bear in mind that these are hand made effects and they are not sitting on a shelf in a warehouse somewhere and you should be prepared to wait but the wait will be worth it.

I've been playing for about 3 years and play mostly experimental/indie rock type stuff for my own enjoyment. If you have the patience to find (and make notes of) the settings you like this is an awesome pedal. If you want something where you just turn everything up and hope is sounds cool this is probably not for you. If you want something that you can explore and tweak and get some awesome sounds along the way while supporting someone who clearly loves what he does then get one of these.

It's very difficult to really explain what this pedal is capable of but there is lots of information and tons of sound samples on the website effector13.com check it out.