Snarling Dogs Mold Spore Wah

Clunky but cool looking, definitely heavier than it needs to be. Good sound when working.

When working, fine, certainly not high end quality, but not terrible.

Absolutely unreliable. On a scale of rubbish to reliable this thing is definitely going into the recycling bin. I'm going to gut it and put a new wah circuit into it. Shame to waste the enclosure, although with it's weight considered it is temping to continue using it as a door stop.

AH! This is the bit I'm most eager to comment on.
I was ready to love this product; it looked cool and made a great range of auditory colors available.
The fact that it started breaking down didn't bother me... it happens.
The fact that my emails were repeatedly ignored by "Kenny" & co was teeth-grindingly upsetting. What's the point of having a company name if it is associated with such a glaring display of antipathy for the customers? It's amazing, I mean; how stupid can these people be? The whole idea of a brand is that it stands for something; if it stands for rubbish... then you may as well not put a name to it.
When I see a snarling dogs product I think; "could be nice, but I hate the company because they ignored me.. so I'll buy from any of the myriad other effects companies".

My advice for the company;
1 - Change the name and branding of your products,
2 - Treat customers with at least a modicum of respect.

If you don't do this you'll be stuck with all the bad-will you've created in your consumer base. You may be able to turn the company around with it's current branding.. but I just don't see that happening.

Looks nice, sounds ok when working, clunky and heavy, started malfunctioning after a few months of irregular use. Ring mod went first (no signal when on) then wah went scatchy as hell, then an increasing degree of "click" sound from the footswitch.

EASY - once you know a couple things. First, if Mia Sara and Elle McPherson showed up at your place holding hands and wanted some extra company, would you move in for the kill or would you sit 'em down with a glass of wine first? If you played your cards right, mid-way through the second bottle you would be in business - and I mean in serious business. The trick is getting there, and being patient. I can't offer any more practical advice about your home life, but with the DOG you need to know a couple things or she will indeed leave you like a b!tch. First, power her correctly - if you use batteries, be prepared for indeterminate signal deterioration after a while, especially with the ring mod. Use instead a REGULATED 9-volt adapter. Don't blow up the ring mod circuit with the wrong adapter fool - use some protection! Unregulated power and she is off to the shop. Second, feed a nice strong and consistent signal into her - I suggest a solid compressed sound with good sustain, especially on higher strings. The built in noise gate has to be matched in terms of input intensity, or you will be subjected to chirping, especially on higher strings with less vibration/sustain. Lead with a compressor - the MXR Dynacomp is a great vintage wine to uncork. The rest is easy, as long as you can keep your stamina with the dual beasts of ring mod and wah. Don't forget to balance everything the way you prefer between the modes (each other) and overall output. It's a three way circus! Also, if you have not used a ring mod before, keep in mind how they work mathematically, and know what you want to do (octave thickness? crazy atonal burps?).

Once you get her oiled up properly and set correctly, be prepared for the ride of your life. The only reason I am not giving it a 10 is because if you don't know what you are doing live, you will soon wish you were not under the bright lights, and home in your studio where it is easier to experiment.

Use the right adapter and you'll be fine. I have never had a problem.

Never needed.

Ignore the reviews below where people have not paid attention to the workings of this beauty, have blown it up, or don't know what they are doing. Light it up like a pro and soon you will have even more guests at your door.

Not easy to use, as is the nature of it, it is a complicated pedal.

When it worked sound quality was great.

This piece of crap clapped out just using it in my garage, didn't even make it to a gig. as i like in australia no way am i going to pay $50 to post it to the USA for repair.

Well, i dunno who even owns em now. serves me right for buying somthing that 'looked good'.

Well, i'll never get another snarling dogs product again ever. what i expect from a pedal is that it works for at least 50 years under the worst circumstances, like my big muff, fuzz face and other pedals, 20 years so far.

Its fairly easy to use, hence the lck of instructions in the instructions manual. If you read those and don't understand this pedal, then youre and idiot. Simply turn the wah setting to the one you want, choose where you want the pre amp boost, and the wah side of things is all set up. The Ring Mod is equally simplistic, Psychoscumation controls the wet out, and Straight Jacket controls the dry out... thus using the two you can blend your sound they way you'd like, this is probobly the most complicatd part of the pedal. Once you've got that set where you like it you can choose whether you want the freequency controlled by the knob or the rocker... depending on what your going for the both do some cool things... I like being able to sweep the freequncy without having to bend down it adds alot of versatility you can't get with the E-H Freequency Analyzer. I like both pedals but in their own seperate ways.

Depending on what you are going for this pedal is excellent, I could see why you wouldn't like it if your playing any conventional kind of music, however if your into noisy pedals like myself youll find many excellent uses for this thing. It sounds insane fedback into itself, and followed by a blue box with the blend knob turned to about 75% wet. It stars sputtering nintendo sounding blips of into infinity. The wah is also one of the best I've used if you plac it correctly in your effects chain... Before a Pro Co Rat II, and an Ibanez AD-9, you can slip into some pink floyd or radiohead drones pretty easily. The on thing I have to complain about is how fast this thing eats batteries... And as soon as the battery stars to loose juice there is a noticable drop in quality. However with the sound of this thing, it is worth a couple extra batteries here and there, though I reccomend getting the adapter, and specifically the adapter made for this thing, if you use another youll kill the ring mod, and with such and awesome tone, you wouldn't want to do that. I totally reccomend this to anybody who knows how to experiment with pedal placement, becaus it takes a little moving around to find the best utilization of this beast. Be patient and this pedal will reward you.

So far it has been very reliable, I have had a week so I am not the prime candidate for horror stories. I must say this thing is heavy as shit, but that doesn't mean you can beat the crap out of it... With proper care I can se this lasting a long time.

Overall I have heard only good things about Snarling Dogs since they have come under new management. I wouldn't buy one of these things from a couple yars ago because they were liable to break at any moment, but I know a couple of guys who bought these things right after they switched over, and they tell me that they have never had a problem with it.

This pedal does a lot, but it is very well laid out.

There is no other pedal available that does what the Mold Spore does. It can do a great vintage wah wah, and it can do crazy ring modulation stuff. I can't believe the bad reviews this pedal has received. The wah compares favorably to the boutique wahs I have tried (Teese, Fulltone), and the ring mod is amazing. a few reviewers complain that the ring mod sounds non-musical...well, that's kinda what a ring mod does, it's a different sound from anything else out there.

I use this pedal with American guitars and tube amps and it sounds amazing. I get everything from great wah to experimental tones from this thing. I've gigged with this for a couple years without a single issue.

My unit has recieved a beating over the last couple years and has served me well. It has survived being tossed in a duffle bag and beaten at clubs. The unit I have is built like a brick house.

I've never had to deal with the company, but they left contact and repair info on this very page. I wish other companies would have that kind of respect for their customers.

Nothing else like it. I'm thinking of getting a backup because mine is getting pretty beat. I love this insane pedal!

Control layout is fairly simple. A good thing too, because the manual hardly is worthy of the name. The 'good sound' question is a loaded question (see below), however, I achieved maximum sound quality fairly easily. There are input and output level controls, a three-way wah style selector and sensitivity controls for the wah and ring modulator effects, so the versatility of the pedal is very good. The names of the control knobs are kind of silly, and only serve to occult their function, but otherwise, very user-friendly.

I really have some problems with this unit. I bought it about six years ago to use in front of a LESS than perfect rig setup, and at that time, I was pretty happy with it. Times change. The ring modulator got fried a few years back (BECAUSE--you can only use a "special" 9VDC adaptor with this one--there are consequences.) so I sent it back to the designer to fix it, and restore it to its original functionality. I got it back and excitedly laid it out in front of my rig...

I have a mid-90's Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier two channel. In the FX loop i have a Boss SE-70 Stereo Digital FX Processor. I typically play with a Dunlop volume and Morley Bad Horsie(best wah ever) in front of the rig. I put the Mold Spore in place of the Morley and it sounded AWFUL. The pedal has a lot of ambient hiss that I was unable to dial out with out gutting the level of the effect. The middle wah setting is the only one with any balls, and the gate on the ring modulator is so harsh that none of the dynamics of my playing arrived at the amp intact.

Second try...

I put the thing in the fx loop (The loops on Mesa's amps are legendary for protecting your tone from crappy stomp boxes and allow you to employ almost anything from a twenty-dollar Danelectro to a $3K Eventide transparently) and it was EVEN WORSE!!!! The best I can tell, there is no parallel signal path through this pedal (and no true bypass) so my whole FX loop got robbed of its punch. My bandmates bitched STRENUOUSLY until it was removed from the rig. The pedal is for sale.

Well...see above.

Quick, professional, and very helpful. My review of this product is not meant to be an indictment of the designer or company. I understand that some of the SD pedals are peerless, and I would be happy to know that these are the folks I would deal with if there were any problems.

My style encompasses everthing from Cowboy Junkies to Tool across to Meat Beat Manifesto and The Verve. Watery sometimes, screaming thunder other times. I like to do soundscapes and ambient textures also. This pedal would have seemed to be just the thing, but I have become a tone slave (get a Boogie and it will happen to you, too) and cannot tolerate what is does to the tone and punch. It may do better in conjunction with solid-state or digital rigs, but I cannot say for sure. I'll keep my Morley and start shopping for Moog effects.

Lots of knobs, and a weak manual.

The wah side i was less than blown away by. Wahs are things i think that most guitar players get a rough feel for pretty quick in the course of their playing. i've used crybabys and king-wahs, cheapies, a few esoteric pieces, and i had developed an opinion about what I thought was good or weak pretty early on in playing. I dont like too sharp curves, more of a smooth slope, because i didnt want to have to search for the 'sweet spot' too hard with a pedal. Also, i've sometimes used wahs as tone knobs, setting in a spot and leaving it for a bit - so i like a smooth sweep so you can find the right spots easily...also the lows and highs should be clean and clear, and not too muddy or brittle, so that as much of the sweep is usable. Maybe this is just me, maybe this is what a good wah should be, i dont know. I just know what i respond well to.

I bought this wah because i was excited by the idea of a super-well built, option-rich pedal... I assumed that the tone spreads would be pretty sweet since the Stringer line of pedals was almost ALL wahs, at the time. They were 'wah specialists' ('addicted to wah' being their motto).

But when i first got it, i ran the thing through the paces, and quickly was sort of bummed. The output sound seemed to suck out a lot of the original tone. The shaft was too bright, the white room too muddy. Voodoo was good and smooth, but it wasnt as snappy and responsive as other, older and more established pedals. It just didnt have any of that wah 'tease' factor, where you are encouraged to whip the tone around and getting nice squeals and bumps from your playing.

No - the wah side just seemed, despite the wide array of tone options, sort of... boring... very surprisingly to me. Not BAD, per se... but certainly nothing to write home about.

I'd be giving the thing a 3 or 2 if it werent for the ring mod.

The ring mod side is crazy. I've toyed with a few rings like Moogs and some other random stuff, but this one has a kind of liveliness thats exceptional and unique. The fact that you can sweep the frequency just turns it from an 'effect' into more of an instrument on it's own. It can add a little deep techno grunginess to a line, or you can go deep and just do Mr Roboto weirdness. I'm surprised that more people havent intergrated ring mod type modulation to other base effects to get a wider array of sonic possibilities.

But - the pedal crapped out completely within a few months of purchase, so i never really got to experiment too much with the ring side, so i cant say much more.

It crapped out without ever having been banged around. Just sitting on the floor of my studio. Stringer co at the time was changing hands so when i tried to talk about fixing it i was left in the dark.

Finally spoke to someone the other week. Dude will fix it for $40. Not sure if i care that much. the thing weighs 7 lbs! I'd pay that to strip the ring mod out, house in a lighter chassis, and work with an external expression pedal. How about that?

Some might be able to make this thing work like a dream. My experience was poor, initial impression underwhelmed, but was definitely piqued by the ring mod side. It may have a future with me as a project for some enterprising electician to chop apart and reconfigure.

Its definatly not a plug and play kind of pedal, but if you scr=ew around with it a bit you can get some pretty cool sounds out of it.

I would like to see a slightly better manual though.

The ring modulator is very very cool. Everything that you have heard that you can do with it is true. I really like the ability to use change the pitch with the foot pedal.

The noise gate is a little to much though, i wish there was a way i could turn it off or turn it down considerably, but i can deal with it.

The wahs all sound ok. The White Room setting is a little too bassy for me and the Shaft setting is a little too trebely, but the Voodooo is just right

I have only had it for 2 weeks so i dont know how reliable it is. If the weight of the thing is any idication it is extremley well built(it out weighs some guitars for gods sake. 7 pounds!)

Havent dealt with them

Overall i bought it for the ability to make extremly strange sounds and it definatley does it. The fact that the wahs are pretty good is an extra to me. If the noise gate wasnt soharsh i would give it a 10 but i am giving it an 8

Pretty easy on the wah side of things. It took me a while to work what the straight jacket and psychoscumation controls did, the explaination in the manual is useless. The straight jacket volume is just the volume of your guitr signal and the other is just the volume of the ring modulator dont know why they couldn't have just said that in the manual.

I bought this for the ring modulator as i already have a dunlop crybaby. The three wah ranges are ok but the effect is much too loud even when you've got the preamp turned all the way down, makes it difficult to balance your clean guitar volume with the wah. As other people have said, this is definately NOT TRUE BYPASS. Even when the effect is off you get this quiet fuzz tone in the background. The ring modulator is pretty shit as other ring modulators go. Its cool to be able to sweep the frequency with your foot, sort of like a whammy, but the overly aggressive noise gate makes volume swells and clean bell tones impossible.

In short this pedal is crap for using with clean sounds.

Dont be fooled by the fact that this pedal weighs a tonne, mines already doing weird things to my bypassed tone and i've only had it a few months. Haven't gigged it yet but i'm not counting on it taking much abuse.

Kenny takes ages to answer emails but does answer eventually, still waiting to hear what he has to say about the fuzz when bypassed.

When i first got this pedal i was sooo excited. I had been looking for a compact ring modulator that you could sweep with a pedal for ages, the only other one i've seen is a colorsound one, but this one had a wah aswell so i'd save even more space on my pedal board. Although all its features and options seem great they dont perform that well. As a wah alone it doesn't come close to a crybaby or vox. The ring modulator is quite flexible but is let down by the noise gate. The whole thing would benefit from a decent bypass switch. Tries to do two great effects at once but doesn't do either very well.

Well, like the other reviewers said, the Wah part is straightforward and logical, the ring modulator part takes a while to getting used to.
But you CAN work it out!

The three Wahs (white room, voodoo, shaft) are great, and the ring modulator sounds really sick ( which I was after...), you CAN use it.
Hint: Say you solo in E minor, tune the freakwenzy to match the root E, then the other notes of the scale will sound differently dissonant (minor 3rd G is weird...), and the audience will love it when your run ends on an E and the strange dissonances end!

Well I just got it this morning, and as I'm sick and can't go to work,
I fooled around with it all day just to check everything out...
No I didn't throw it down the stairs just to see what happens.
Let's face it: there are no unbreakable things to be bought, and this thing looks ok inside and outside...

In contrary to other reviewers here, I found the manual quite helpful.
If you have read the manual and still don't get it, maybe you should
have bought a volume pedal...
Haven't dealt with Charlie Stringer's before.

I love it!!!!!!!
I just got it because of a guitar player magazine editors pick award, and because I just love stupid looking pedals with lots of buttons...
It sounds really good, and the possibilities are creative and many...
When I had ordered it (new, Ebay Germany), I read the other reviews and was a little afraid...
Something VERY IMPORTANT: One of you wrote that the ring modulator stopped working very quickly!
I had that problem too!
CURE: INSERT NEW BATTERY!!!!!!!!!!!
With a weak battery, the eyes still light up, and the wah still works,
but the ring modulator starts to fart atonally and refuses to react to the potentiometer or switch...Well...
I recommend using a wall-wart!