Prescription Electronics Experience

I don't know why anyone would find this pedal difficult to use. After I plugged it in, it took me about five seconds to dial in absolutely killer tone the way I like it, and tone that absolutely smokes probably tens of thousands of dollars worth of other pedals I've owned/tried. So fat and musical, probably the best sounding octave effect I've tried (only to compete with other PE pedals I've used), and the swell is swell.

I AM USING THIS PEDAL WITH BASS GUITAR. BASS GUITAR. BASS GUITAR. Yes. It sounds absolutely fantastic on bass guitar. Thick warm bass fuzz, oozing tone. The fuzz on this thing absolutely slays on bass. Not for the faint of heart, but if you've got the balls you will love this pedal. And the octave fuzz! This thing "tracks" extremely well, EVEN BELOW the 12th fret. Ridiculously gnarly, perfect for that rocking psychedelic breakdown, with or without the swell. Or multi track with it and fire your superfluous rhythm guitarist. Who needs that shmuck when you've got a bass player with the right tools to fill his sonic space anyways. Anyways, I've owned and used tens of thousands of dollars worth of pedals with bass guitar, and there are only a few that have blown me away and deserve a ten rating. This is one of them. If you play bass, and you're not one of those guys that plays like "doonk doonk doonk", or in other words you like to ROCK, this is a supreme pedal.

My Experience pedal is several years old. Still operates like brand new, and sounds as good as ever. No complaints.

Haven't ever needed to deal with them, but just the fact that every pedal by this company I've tried gives me absolutely killer tone is better to me than customer service.

Ok, if you can't get killer tone out of this pedal, I think you should seriously consider the possibility that you just plain suck. It's ridiculously easy to dial in, and just plain rocks. What more do you want? A little guy that pops out of the pedal and plays your guitar for you? Even at the price this pedal currently goes for (I believe about $260 new) this is a fantastic value for me. Very few pedals rock hard enough to instantly make me stoked when I turn them on. And inspiration is priceless. So don't be afraid to blaze your own tone, and play like you want to play. That's what it's all about.

From a tonal standpoint, all the "Presctiption" stuff I could get a great tone out of "BUT" VERY NON-ROADWORTHY/RELIABLE! I own three of their pieces (Experience,Vibe Unit and Germ) and all within a year broke down. I sent them back and forth especially the Vibe Unit,that they never sent me back they just kept it!!! These units were all housed in a very protective road case and nurtured by a great guitar tech, still they kept failing. I don't know how these guys stay in business? They make lemons!!!

They're laughing at us all on their way to the bank!

It's straight forward other than the swell mode which needs a certain technique to work.

This is not a very subtle effect. It is a raw balls out square wave fuzz. Stellar double stop bends, endless sustain, and spot on octave fuzz are it's strong suites and no other pedal can touch it on those points.

A lot of fuzz pedals sound good in isolation, but just turn to mush in the mix. No worries here. This pedal is a hot knife and the mix is warm butter.

Probably more gain than was available on any of hendrix actual pedals. I don't consider this pedal retro. I would say don't buy one if your goal is to perfectly recreate the hendrix sound.

I have owned many other fuzz pedals over the years such as zvex, dunlop, boss, electro-harmonix, voodoo lab etc... and nothing comes close to the raw power, sustain, and cutting tone of the experience fuzz.

Used by mogwai and eric johnson, probably a lot of other famous players also.

Never a problem

Never needed

I am a huge fan of this pedal. I have owned it for many years and have bought and sold a couple dozen other fuzz pedals in that time.

A true icon in the world of pedals, up there with the ts-808, big muff, and fuzz face.

Plug and play. Follow a couple of the suggested settings and your on your way. This is my first octave/fuzz and I had it sounding good within a couple minutes. After tweaking for about ten more minutes I was simply blown away.

I found that using it with a clean-ish amp tone had better results than fuzzing out an overdrive/gain tone. Plugged into the clean channel on a Hotcat30 or a Dr. Z KT45, the fuzz is Thick, and chewy. Add the octave and you get cool, creamy screams along with the fat fuzz. The swell option was INSPIRING to say the least! So unpredictable yet always musical. It was worth the purchase just to get this effect. With this pedal a Wah, a delay and a good chorus unit you WILL be hailed as the next big thing. (after me of course)

The pedal is as sturdy as any other boutique pedal I have. Those true bypass switches will all go eventually. Some have complained about the finish not being 'baked' on.

Talked with somebody on the phone once but since I haven't needed repair it's anybody's guess. I use local techs when I need work done.

I am so sick of people saying things sound like Hendrix this and Trower that and Stevie whoseit's. I admire and appreciate their music as much as anybody. But for crying out loud create your own sounds. That's what's so great about this pedal, it inspiries me in MY OWN musical experience.. Bottom line, this pedal is a great fuzz and a cool octaver. Add the swell function and you've got something like no other. But don't bother getting one of these you probably wouldn't like it..

experience pedal, purchased early february 2006. even though it's brand new, there are no LED's! go figure. otherwise, four knobs (volume, tone, sustain, swell) plus dc jack. when i first received the pedal, i naturally floored the potentiometers (vol-tone-sust turned fully clockwise). hmmm. then backed them off a bit. mm-hmmm. then yanked this one this way & that one another way. then the opposite. then some twisted combination of the two. hmmmmmm. then i logged on to harmony central. did a little reading. found ara kalaj's post (06/02/03). tried his recommendations of having ALL THREE knobs at 12:00 or less. EUREKA! or if i were inclined to swearing, M***ERF***IN' EUREKA!! who woulda thought that a guy like me, who buys a fuzz pedal cuz he likes FUZZ & who prefers treble over this "7-string guitar-.013 string sets-downtuning two whole steps" low-end nonsense, would set the tone & fuzz knobs @ 10:00? i mean, c'mon!!

1976 gibson s-1 w/lindy fralin p-90s > radial dragster > mcdoober buffer > tc jauernig luxury drive > prescription experience > isp tech decimator > bbe sonic stomp > 1961 gibson ga40 tube amp. luxury drive knob @ 3:00, experience settings: vol 12:00, tone 10:00, sust 10:30. decimator set to kill the noise when strings are still, & the sonic stomp... hey, don't laff 'til you've tried one. the sound (i hate the word "tone") w/this set-up? sorta like a hi-gain amp, but ALIVE. UNPREDICTABLE. ABLE TO TURN ON A DIME. these are all things that i feel hi-gain amps are NOT. i suppose this opinion would be denounced by a vast majority of the distorted signal-guitar-playing horde; so be it. if you own a mesa boogie or soldano or a krank, what're ya reading this review for? isn't the entire (& i do mean "entire") sound you want already built into the amp itself? why add od/dist/fuz pedals to an already heavy & clipped sound? but for those who may be reading this who own a fender or vintage or low-wattage tube amp that either runs clean or w/a small amount of "break-up", the prescription experience is a pedal worthy of investigation.

da guy's been in "the biz" since 93 or 94. that alone should say something. studio use only, in my case. so no beer-spilling, boot-stomping, or brandishing as a weapon against club owner who won't pay up. don't be dumb.

i would like to once again take the opportunity to say that i hate this category.

my own formula for coming up w/a number in this category is to mash sound quality versus price. sounds reasonable, doesn't it? anyway, 260 clams is alot. seriously. but, if you're serious about your sound... & even though the experience comes in at about two-&-a-half benjies, they seem to get snapped up pretty quickly at the on-line dealer of my preference (pedalgeek). want a quick tip? here ya go: experience (vol maxed, tone 9:30, sust 9:30) > prescription vibe unit ( intensity 7, speed 7, volume 9) > maxon ad 900 (delay time 12:00, repeats 10:30, delay level 10:30). enjoy.

First of all, operating this pedal is not something to be rated. Basically you have to learn how to use it. If you put some effort into studying what it does, once you master it, you will never forget it and it will blow you away over and over again.
One of the tricks is don't floor the knobs right off the bat. Gradually increase them. The smallest increment carries a lot of weight. Another thing is if you don't use a Tube Amp, forget about this pedal. Also I read a lot of negative reviews knocking the Swell Mode. This is one of if not the best thing this pedal does. You have to use the knobs in unity with each other to get the Magic going. And the Magic is there to high heaven. Unity between the Volume and Swell knobs is essential to get the Swell flowing. Start with both of them at about 9 O:Clock One more thing get a good analog Fuzz face [I have an old unmodified 90's Dunlop] and put it in front of it. I also put a Boss NS-2 in front of "everything". Time delay in the Effects loop is also a blast. It is worth the effort to master this pedal.

Like I stated once you learn how it operates you will enter Dream Land. The high up on the neck Octaves and Swells are smeary sneering siren tone nirvana.
I use Pro Gear. Too numerous to list. Of course this pedal is for the virtuoso lead work. As far as I'm concerned this pedal is a true 10.

I had this pedal since 1993. It's never let up.
Gig it with no problems. Of course it's one of the secret weapons.

I have several Prescription pedals. The fellows at Prescription always treated me right. Through the years I got Mods, new knobs, never a problem.

I've been playing for 38 years. I love the Virtuoso Guitarists. The Experience is one of my prized pedals. I got a kick out of what Greg Bittar wrote.
"There's a mystique about the Experience, the way it works and the way it sounds, it's like someting that fell off the back of a carivan from a magic show."
I Love that Greg. That statement is so fitting for this Pedal. Prescription should use that as a sales pitch to plug the Experience. That just knocks me out. That's so inspiring. If you learn how to work the Experience pedal it will take you higher.

I have two Experiences. This review will attempt to break it down. I refer to one as old, and one as new, but in truth the differences may vary from pedal to pedal, regardless to when they were made. So says Jack, the man who makes the Experience.

Ease of use - the newer one is easier to use. It has LEDs and they are smartly laid out. You know before you click it whether it's going to be on octave, swell, or regular fuzz. No surprises. The new one also has the DC jack in the back - out of the way from the crammed pedal board. Next - the new one has the knobs up high off the floor, and I can read the dials better since they have markers on them - easier to read all around.

The old one has usability problems.

Old one sounds better. Creamy octave, like something Jimi was talking about. It sounds like birds, seagulls, with a sun shining behind them. It's a picturesque sound, it generates images.

First of all, it helps me to think of this pedal as an octaving pedal with three intensities: light (fuzz), med (octave), and heavy (swell). I can also jazz the light one down enough so it sounds like a Yardbox - smooth fuzz, with a little octave on top of it. The distortion doesn't have the complexity of a Fulltone '69. The '69 will let all the fretboard sound come through, and add to it. (This is a big difference between Fulltone and Prescription fuzz.) The Experience (and the Yardbox) will take your fretboard sound and flatten it, smooth it. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes that's bad. I prefer the '69 for fuzz, but there's no way it's getting the crazy sounds the experience is capable of.

The tone swings wildly from bass to treble. It's like an envelope filter.

People say the swell doesn't work. It does. You just have to follow directions. Get the bass going all the way on your experience tone and on your guitar, and use your neck pup, jack the sustain and swell, use only your fingerpicking, and you'll find it. It's not the most useful effect, but it's there. The problem is that fingerpicking implies harmonies, and octaving doesn't like harmonies unless they're 3rds or 5ths. It likes linear, and swell likes it slow as well. Truly an 'effect'.

The new pedal doesn't have the tonal variation, and the octave is scratchier. It's still good, but not as impressive.

so far, so good.

Fulltone has a longer warrantee: five years versus one.

Well, when it comes to Sound, this distortion pedal is my favorite.

There's a mystique about the Experience, the way it works and the way it sounds, it's like something that fell off the back of a carivan from a magic show. I wish I had one of the earlier ones with the swirly paint.

I agree about this pedal being difficult to master. It's so easy to get harsh annoying sounds that it really takes some knob twiddling to find the good stuff. The good stuff being the octave fuzz and swell.

I've been playing my '54 Tele with Fralin Blues Specials through my '59 Deluxe with a mid 60's Celestion Bulldog 12" speaker. I have a Fulltone '69 Pedal and it does the Fuzz Face thing ALOT more pleasingly than the Experiance. The Experiance Fuzz is much brighter and harsher...and sounds less like Jimi Hendrix. But it does do the Octace Fuzz thing beautifully and the swell effect makes the octave/fuzz effect sound a reel to reel tape being played backwards. Very Hendrixy.

I've owned mine since they first came out years ago...still works perfectly.

I had to send one I bought already broken that was used back to Prescription Electronics for repair and it came back working perfectly. Took some time...about one month or more.

I'll tell you the truth...a good TS-9, Boss DS-1, or the Fulltone '69 blows the fuzz part of the Experiance Pedal away! I never use it for fuzz. If it's supposed to be a Fuzz Face clone, the Experiance does not sound as smooth and pleasing as my Fulltone '69. The Fuzz/Octave thing and Swell are super cool effects...but I'm not sure those effects alone make the cost of this pedal worthwhile. I want to hear the new Prescription Pedal that IS a Fuzz Face & Octavia clone...it's on the Prescription Electronics website. But I'm also disappointed because the Experiance Pedal was originally marketed as being a Fuzz Face/Octavia clone and apparantly it isn't. The Guitar Player rave review Prescription Electronics has on thier website implies that the Experiance Pedal sounds like a Fuzz Face. I guess they were wrong...

if you can use any rack effect,the exp is pretty simple.keep in mind a small change in any knob setting causes a big change.

i use the exp with 2 marshall plexi slp 100 half stacks with both heads jumped {cross channeled using both hi treble and normal channels at the same time.and clean overdrive in front of it make a big difference in clarity.. i use a sparkle drive.the unit is very quiet for a FUZZ.also is best with single coils i use strats.i find its tone to be 70:s jimi.

have not had any problems and i have had two units sense 1995 although they eat batteries.still sounds good with ac adapter i added mine to 1 unit the other is factory...

have not delt with perscrip. yet

I have been playing for about 36 years dead seriously and owned most vintage pedals when they were new on the market,the experience is one of the best at the fuzzface/octavia thing but great care must be taken with the type of amp used.stock 4 input marshalls or hiwatts are best, watch the treble on the amp and the sustain knob on the pedal.. higher settings will give a much more fuzz type sound rather than the half fuzz half overdrive jimi tone.for my style, a EJ meets satch type thing, when fuzz is called for the exp is the one.for normal overdrive though I use a ADA tube preamp as a overdrive the head room is off the scale.It is very expensive. that in it self is its only libility

Like anything, it's easy to use if you read the "manual" (one page photocopied sheet) and experiment. Needs more thought than a Fuzz Face but not as much as an Eventide harmonizer. My brain can cope.

I'm on my second vomit paint job Experience (stupidly sold the first one) and the one I have now is every bit as good as the first. This was the coolest pedal on the planet when it came out and I still think it's great. Grinding fuzz, very clear upper octave and the nifty volume swell equals LOTS of fun. If you phrase like backwards guitar playing it can sound quite convincing, with practice.

I currently use it with a Tom Anderson Pro Am, Mesa/Boogie Rocket 4-Forty (4x10 Jensens) and George L's cables, along with other boutique pedals.

Mine have been reliable, but I had a Prescription Outbox a few years ago that had a dodgy footswitch. Seems to be the biggest (un)reliablity factor with this company - failing footswitches.

Not the greatest. Not that I've ever needed it mind you, but still... the website is in desperate need of updating, and I don't think the company even have an email address (that they publish anyway).

For what it does and the way it sounds, there's still nothing like this pedal. A classic.