Effector 13: Truly Beautiful Lust

[Muff Wiggler]

Hey guys -

I remember some 'stompbox lust' thread that this should probably go into, but I'm going to start a new thread instead and see if anyone else has any experience with Effector 13.

I'd never heard of this company, and when I was visiting Michael Weeks in NYC a few months back, I noticed this red pedal with the letters "SM" on it. Now I'm always gonna notice some strange pedal, but that goes X1000 when the letters "SM" are written on it in big block letters!



Anyway I had to ask Mike about it, he told me it's one of the most amazing pedals, he bought it on Ebay from the manufacturer, and it was called a "Soda Meiser". We had a good play on it, and I was simply amazed at this little thing. Great for synths or for guitars, it imparts either the warmest, most powerful fuzz attack you've ever heard, or for those crazy moments, a very unique and over-the-top destructive force to obliterate anything that goes into it.

A solid, professional feeling pedal, I couldn't believe it when Mike told me they were going on Ebay for under a hundred bucks. I was sold! This thing reminds me of experiences I've only had with Metasonix or Z.Vex gear costing multiple times as much

Anyway, long story short, I ended up getting two of them, the red one and the blue one (plus I have a "Silver Crank" pedal on the way in the mail....). These things are BRILLIANT, and I wanted to start this thread to pimp for Effector 13 a little bit, as I feel I 'lucked' into discovering them, and I haven't heard anyone else talking about these stunning pedals.

They are all hand-wired, point-to-point, no PCBs. They use the best quality switches, jacks, pots, and the damn brightest LEDs I've ever seen on anything in my life. It hurts to look at it. These pedals are all analog, and are very very responsive to different sorts of input signals, different guitars, different tone settings on your instruments, and especially different locations within an FX chain. Really wild and experimental pedals - maybe a bit too crazy for some traditionalists ( I doubt Hink would like these pedals, considering he thinks EHX stuff is 'noisy' ) but if you are looking for something wild and new, I'd say get one of these before the price triples. Seriously. It's got the Muff Wiggler stamp of approval.

Anyway, the one I'm really, really, really lusty for is the Truly Beautiful Disaster. It's two items of coolness in one box: An oscillating fuzz of pure madness, and, most interesting to me, a feedback loop that you can place other pedals from your collection into, and it will breathe new life into them, giving them new abilities and uses. Seriously. Does anyone have one? Just look at this damn thing:



anyway, sorry to ramble, i'm like this when i discover something new that really blows me away. Anyone else hear of Effector 13? Any thoughts or experiences?

cheers

[Cheeso]

Their gear sounds really interesting, and I've thought about picking up one of them, but I thought it might be redundant since I already have a Z. Vex Fuzz Factory. How different is the SM from that?

[Muff Wiggler]

it's very very different

a lot more controls on the FF, however you can also do all sorts of bizarre 'robot speak' and non-fuzz applications on the SM as well

different beasties to be sure however.. both fit inside the 'fuzz paradigm' (sorry to use the p-word) in the broadest sense of the word, but I consider both to be very flexible and diverse 'experimental' pedals. Both have very different flavours - i own a FF as well, and they are both potent tools of both fuzz and evil, however tonally there's not a lot of overlap

kinda hard to explain unless you have both in your hands

i also find the SM to be more sensitive to location within a signal chain, lending itself to a wider variety of sounds using location instead of knobs

in an ideal world you own them both

[Muff Wiggler]

oh yeah, haha i forgot to mention this -

that little spot near the bottom of the TBD is a photo-sensitive eye. You can apparently modulate this pedal with a flashlight, or with your hand or foot if it is in a well-lit room. Seriously

i really dig this shit...amazing to me that after so many decades of stompboxes (and the last couple decades of 'me too' and copycat/clone pedals all over the place) there are still people creating unique and intriguiging designs by hand. I need to find more companies like this and send them my money - these are the people we should be out there supporting. BOSS and Behringer shouldn't be able to sell their stuff in a world that includes E13, Z.Vex and Metasonix, but sadly they still keep the majority of the market.

Support analog! Support hand-wiring! Support innovation and new sounds!

(rant over )

[blaster78]

intel just got one of the tbd jobbies, theres a tune in the cafe somewhere with him using it.

nice looking pedals

edit: tune is here

cheers,
steve.

[pough]

Mmm... fuzzy. The last one is on eBay right now. I doubt I'd get it, so I won't bother trying. Damn. I like fuzzy things.

[Muff Wiggler]

i think it's one of 'the last five' -> the last one went for something like $96, you should be able to get it for under a bill i think (and it's well worth it)

sorry....salesman hat off now! hehe i just really love it when companies like this get business, it's funny, all the companies i really like the most have such a low profile, i always feel lucky to have found them (and wonder what else is out there that i'm missing), so it's hard not to promote them when you really like the stuff so much yourself

[shamann]

BOSS and Behringer shouldn't be able to sell their stuff in a world that includes E13, Z.Vex and Metasonix, but sadly they still keep the majority of the market.

I agree with you entirely, but those crappy Behringer stompboxes are thirty bucks, while the Z.Vex range runs between three and four hundred. With that kind of disparity, there will always be more folk shelling out for the mass-manufactured junk (it makes a sound and cost me almost nothing, etc).

to my shame, I have two of the Behringer stompboxes. To my credit, I only got them for circuitbending projects (make a screaming noise once you mod them).

[scuzzphut]

I couldn't believe it when Mike told me they were going on Ebay for under a hundred bucks. I was sold!

When I read this, I immediately thought "spam"

Then I noticed it was the Muffster

[Muff Wiggler]

@ shamann: that's a good point....at those prices i should probably get a couple to bend myself (as i've done with most of my few, old BOSS units), but then i'd be supporting behringer

it's a tough call!

for the pricing argument, Z.Vex has just come out with the 'vexter' line, which are silk-screened instead of hand-painted, and sell for like half the price (under $200)

and the Effector 13 line has all sorts of stuff just under and around the $100 point, which is damn hard to argue with when it has been built by hand.

[Muff Wiggler]

I couldn't believe it when Mike told me they were going on Ebay for under a hundred bucks. I was sold!

When I read this, I immediately thought "spam"

Then I noticed it was the Muffster

hehe thanks

people who know me will confirm that my opinion cannot be bought, and i only stick my neck out to pimp for gear a couple times a year at the most... when you see me do it, it's pure excitement folks, for real

[pough]

The Effector 13 line can be bought in Canada from here. No Soda Meisers, but we got plenty of those here in Vancouver, anyways! (Ha! I made a funny!) Maybe a VFM would do...? Who needs a stinking NoFI switch? Just $115 CDN. Back, foul temptress!

[Muff Wiggler]

The VFM (Vintage Fuzz MASTER - don't confuse with the older Vintage Fuzz MAKER) is the exact same device as the (very rare) 'blue' Soda Meiser.

Soda Meiser is a combo of two E13 pedals in one box: Vintage Fuzz Maker + No-Fi

A lot of E13 pedals are offered in 2 flavours: The original Vintage Fuzz Maker was offered in a 'Smooth' (yellow) and 'Harsh' (orange) model. The No-Fi was offered in a 'Chaos' and 'Static' model.

Soda Meiser (red) = Vintage Fuzz Maker Smooth + No-Fi Chaos

Vintage Fuzz MASTER (aka Soda Meiser Blue) = Vintage Fuzz Maker Harsh + No-Fi Static

hth

[pough]

Bah. Too many options for mail-order. Too confusing. I'll just have to go out and get a Behringer or two!

[pHz]

truly beautiful disaster ...

... i know nowt about pedals but that has to be the coolest product name ever ???

slainte rob