stuff you bought that turned into a POS

My Zoom 1010 effects pedal. It sounds good but just too much work to use.

The first one was an early 80s Ibanez SS guitar amp. Had nice bells and whistles, but after 2-3 months even a nice whistle would've been nice. Brown psuedo leatherette, channel switching (great sound for Missing Persons), and, as I found out, bad wiring, particleboard construction and a faceplate that was like .020 metal - probably not even steel. I don't remember what became of it. I think I actually threw it, literally, into the garbage can because it just stopped working.

The other thing was a Deluxe Memoryman delay pedal. It actually worked for a couple of years on gigs and whatnot, and then gave up; started hissing and getting really noisey. I still shy away from EH stuff because of it.

Another is the little Korg chromatic tuner I got. I'm thinking of sending it to T.A.P.S. (Ghosthunters) because the thing will just start registering stuff that's not there! The needle moves and I look around - "Somebody I can't see humming an E?"

No answer...yet.

Other than those I've been pretty lucky.

Elixir coated Phosphor Bronze strings.

They've gotten good reviews, but on my Yamaha they sounded completely lifeless. The two-month old D'addario EXPs that I was replacing sounded much better.

Extremely disappointed with the Elixirs, especially after plopping down 15 bucks for the set.

Behringer mixer . ..

but then, I expected it to be a POS when I bought it .. but I needed a cheap mixer at the time, and it was servicable (barely) for what I needed.

Zoom 505 -- total yuck. OTOH, was cheap total yuck.

Martin Backpacker -- It was a very thoughful birthday gift, so I will never be rid of it. Keep meaning to get a raised nut and turn it into something useful: acoustic lap steel.

Narrowly avoided, and I'm sure I would have regretted it: The original Line 6 Spider. I was determined to buy one of these, but ended up with a Peavey Classic 50 410 instead. It's not often that sanity and good taste prevail in the candy store with a fist full of cash.

A Used (and quite old) Morley Wah pedal. If you think a dunlop crybaby is a tone sucker, then you've obviously never played the morley I have... along with that, the wah effect is extremely weak.

I'm not too worried about it, I'm sure it could be fixed by replacing some of the parts inside. In the meantime, I'm quite pleased with my Dunlop Original Crybaby.

My favorite was a gift from my younger son a couple years ago... he decided I'd like it if I had Santana's tone. So he goes to the store and asks what I needed for that, and they sell him a stompbox. The Boss BD-2.

He gives it to me, and I plug it in. I hear some gain, but really no different sound than I already had. I tweak the knobs, no noticeable difference. I tell him I love it, and I just need to figure out how to best use it.

So later that night I look up the box on the web. The spec sheet's first sentence starts out "Get the tone of a bluesy, vintage tube amp ". I look at the pedal... then at the 1976 tube amp I have it plugged into...

:)

My favorite was a gift from my younger son a couple years ago... he decided I'd like it if I had Santana's tone. So he goes to the store and asks what I needed for that, and they sell him a stompbox. The Boss BD-2.

He gives it to me, and I plug it in. I hear some gain, but really no different sound than I already had. I tweak the knobs, no noticeable difference. I tell him I love it, and I just need to figure out how to best use it.

So later that night I look up the box on the web. The spec sheet's first sentence starts out "Get the tone of a bluesy, vintage tube amp ". I look at the pedal... then at the 1976 tube amp I have it plugged into...

:)

good story. :)

My first amp. No distortion even with the gain all the way. Everything sounded flat, the clean channel sucked. But I paid $65 for it so........

I have a squier strat that I bought for $50. The wood around the bridge fell apart, and it's held together with epoxy. The neck has lots of high frets. The guitar has been nothing but trouble, but then again, it was $50!

i have a Digitech RP200 multieffects pedal that I can't stand.

I also have a Danelectro Chorus pedal that a POS.

and this computer which i bought used with the idea of being able to record on, isn't much better than the one I had.

I really don't like expensive mistakes. they PMO.

Zoom GFX 707 bought used on Ebay for $60 or so. It was good to play around with for a little while, pretty good for distortion, but bypass and clean tones were real hard to get, and I got tired of playing around with settings rather than playing the guitar.
And, I like my Vox amp effects and tones better anyway.

Gets used once in a long while...

Wow this was a great question. I buy lots of stuff, but thinking back I really can't think of anything that was I was unhappy with.

I have bought things that I do not use often. I bought an Ovation S771 electric/acoustic about 3 years ago. At the time I was playing solo acoustic gigs. So, I used it everyday for about 6 months. But since then I have barely played it. It is a beautiful instrument and plays and sounds real nice, but it is just sitting in it's case. I have thought about selling it, but who knows? I might play it alot in the future.

I have a big bag full of pedals I never use now. But they are all good.

"My first amp. No distortion even with the gain all the way. Everything sounded flat, the clean channel sucked. But I paid $65 for it so........" -OWA

My boring old Fender Squire 15W amp. :(

No wonder it took me so long to pick up guitar again.