A history of my guitar effects purchases: Part two "The Big and Expensive ones".

Now, I cant say that I make a habit of buying ridiculously expensive pedals, but in the past I've been known to splooge some cash on some big, knob-laden beauties.


My first foray into a standalone pedal costing more than £100 was the Electo Harmonix PolyChorus. As a teen I got into Grunge, particularly Smashing Pumpkins, and a dollop of Nirvana. Around this time, EH was catching momentum and starting to reissue a number of NYC version effects. In a guitar magazine ad, I saw a stunning silver and aquamarine blue/green mini preview for a PolyChorus. Already I wanted it based simply on looks alone. Added to such tempting marketing spiel as "improved signal to noise ratio" I was sold before I even played one. I waited for months for them to finally ship, my stockist was SoundsGreatMusic.com in Heald Green, Cheshire.

A note on these guys -they used to be awesome for 2nd hand and good deals. As time has passed they are now very elitist / snobby high end hand crafted type dealers (in terms of FX, guitars, amps) and some staff can be a bit unhelpful. Still, I spent a fair whack of cash with them over the years. Here is my poly, its scuffed from lending it to a friend, and he also lost the wooden box :(

Next up is not really a pedal but its effectual none the less.
What with my Fuzz Factory build and now revealing this, Im sure you are all thinking, this guy is a closet Muse fan. Not the case. Anyway, I have a version 1 of these that died on me, so a couple months ago I splashed out on the current Version 3 Kaoss Pad. These are really fun and creative toys, and this one has a 4 track sampler included, and SD card support. We already used this a fair bit at band practice. these retail for £300 but I got mine used on eBay for £180. Happy with that.

Now, you cant really talk about BIG pedals without an honourable mention going to Lovetone.
I am quite a fan of Lovetone, albeit I've only owned 2 of their effects, and one clone. However the ones I've had (and still have) are literally some of the best effects ever. No, they dont deserve the massive massive super ginormous used prices they go for nowadays , but in their day they were unique, reasonably priced, hand made in the UK, and just generally awesome. Plus the added mojo that every cool band and producer known to man used them.

go to Lovetone, I think there is still a website there with info and clips.
Anyway, here is some history of my collection.

I started out wanting the ? aka The Flange With No Name. This beast is a all analog flanger tremolo pedal, with about 6 knobs and a bunch of footswtiches and numerous ins and outs. It also included a ligh sensitive jack for controlling the CV. These were list £349 less carriage (£10) from Lovetone direct. I actually had a couple of calls with Vlad Naslas over at Lovetone in advance of buying one. In the end I sourced one from the USA used for £237 I seem to recall. This was while I was at first year of University, and had no right spending 6 months of food rations on it. But I did. So there. Sadly I no longer have pics of my actual model, but you get the idea from this Google image:

Its the purple one bottom right. Im sad to say I sold it for £350 to pay some bills. I didnt use it so much, but as a collectors peice it was amazing, and for home and studio use. Id never use live due to value and size. You can get about double that for them these days, maybe more. I saw a Big Cheese (the orange fuzz box) go for over £600 on ebay. They typically go for at least £300. For a fuzz. That you can build for £30. Lol.

Edit - Whaddya know - Just checked eBay. Wow.
Lots of Money for a Lovetone?Flange

Anyway. Speaking of the Big cheese, I never owned a real one, but I owned a clone off eBay. I paid £80 ish for a Fromunda Cheese, in a nice hammertone gold finish. This was years before I started trying to solder my own stuff. Anyway, Ive searched and I cant find pics. It was cool. However I think there was an issue with it, as it never quite reached unity gain. I understand the OLC Chunky Cheese clones improve on the original and are even louder, so Im not sure how accurate the clone I had was. Anyway, I sold it for a profit and dont regret it. I might sometime make my own "Grand Cheddar".

My last Lovetone, and the one I keep to this day and will never sell, is my beloved v4 (the last one made, and best) DoppelGanger Dual LFO Phaser and Vibrato. This thing has every Phaser sound under the sun you could ever want, all gorgeous analog sound, massive box, lovely graphics, and loadsa knobs switches and kickers.

Basically image a really nice Phase 90 sound. Then times it by two. then make it so you can switch in the clean mix or not (so it sounds less or more pronounced ie phase vs vibrato). Then make it possible for one of the LFOs to sweep REALLY slowly. Then make it so that one of the LFOs can run in Square wave. The make the LFOs switchable waveforms. Then add switchable True bypass. You havent scratched the surface tet. If you ever get the chance to buy one for what you can afford I highly recommend it. Especially if you like phasers.

I wont bother to write up the whole Lovetone line, those interested can read much better written articles and reviews on he web. Suffice to say, if they werent now so rare and expensive, Id like to collect them all. I would especially like the RingStinger (germanium octave ring mod fuzz noise machine).

Here is my Dopp <3

And a size comparison to a Boss pedal.
LOL. You dont get good exchange rate in Lovetone:Pedal Board real estate.

I think the last one I will end this blog on is literally my number one best ever purchase out of nowhere that went on to become my most used, loved, revered, commented on and generally creative inspirational tool evvvaaaarrr. Ladies and Gentlemen. The massive yellow box of intergalactic gorgeousness:
DIGITECH SPACE STATION

I wouldnt sell this even for £1000. Literally. Not worth it to me. This thing does every crazy sound under the sun. Pitch shifting, bell sounds, swells, ring modulators, harmonies. but its peice de resistance is its ambient synth pad sounds. It is just stunning. All those people looking for the shimmer sound by the Edge. This is better. Anyone heard of the Cocteau Twins? Add some more reverb, chorus/flange, and this is instant Robin Guthrie (who, I might add, is one of my fave guitarists). These are incredibly rare, command lots of money and generally dont change hands often.






 I bought this at the NEC Birmingham at a music live event some years ago. Untested. New Old Stock. They didnt bring the adaptors to the event, and it needs its own special wall wart. So anyway, I just bought it. £120. Best £120 I ever spent. They were also closing out on the other XP series pedals such as the XP 100 whammy wah (red) the XP200 modulator (blue) and the grey XP 400 reverberator. All of these are cool effects.

Some cautionary stuff - this is 100% digital in no way true bypass at all. It has its own onboard preamp / trim control / input level thing that is always on. But what the heck. The sounds are amazing. I use it on everything.

So there is part two - big expensive stuff.
Ill be back with Part 3. It will be about those much loved BOSS pedals....