Exposing the truth about the guitar industry

April 1, 2023 11:00 PM

The batteries used in guitar pedals are more important than you think. A new pedal from JHS can now simulate the performance of the batteries used by the stars.
posted by adept256 (17 comments total)

Yeah, no.
posted by sjswitzer at 11:14 PM on April 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Corporate April Fool's pranks are rarely less than tedious.
posted by Siempre La Luna at 12:43 AM on April 2, 2023 [10 favorites]

She does a pretty good job, but the video from JHS as so classic Josh that I wonder if all his pedals come out on Aprtil 1.
posted by MtDewd at 2:45 AM on April 2, 2023

Heh. This is a bit funnier (it's a low bar, of course) than most April 1 jokes only because it takes guitarists' weird obsession with classic gear (and what so often are design defects and poor quality control) and runs with it.
posted by tommasz at 4:59 AM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sigh, I almost made it until midnight before I got pranked.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:59 AM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

You need batteries with gold plated terminals.
posted by hypnogogue at 6:48 AM on April 2, 2023

and gold internal wiring connecting the AAAAs.
posted by achrise at 7:28 AM on April 2, 2023

On one hand, all the details make this a really good prank. On the other hand, devices like these already exist. And one is already made by JHS. The Volture: "Simply place it in between your power supply and your pedal, and you can precisely trim the input voltage and perfectly replicate the tone of a dying battery."

There's also the Saturnworks Dying Battery Simulator which "emulates the effect of a dying 9v battery on analog pedals."
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:39 AM on April 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Yeah, echoing jonathanhughes, this would be a little better of an April Fools thing if this wasn't already a concept taken utterly seriously by some players for at least a decade.

IIRC, Danlectro kinda kicked things off in the 2010's with their "Dan Electrode" variable voltage power supply, and to this day they sell "vintage" carbon zinc batteries that supposedly give you better tone in vintage effects than alkaline batteries.

(For the non-guitar players out there, Danelectro was a 60's-era US manufacturer of relatively odd & uniquely recognizable instruments that went defunct but whose brand name & IP was bought in the late 90's and started back up again with gear made in China. They've been making versions of their older instruments and some new effects pedal stuff, but that's the sort of hook they hang "vintage" on - if you're buying a Danelectro you're already kinda committing to to a mid-60's aesthetic and sound. So why not power your stuff the "vintage" way?)

Also also, an April Fools pedal from JHS is (IMO) a wee bit tasteless considering Scott just blew up the used market price on a particular out-of-production low-budget distortion pedal, the Digitech Bad Monkey - Prices for DigiTech's $59 Bad Monkey overdrive skyrocket to $650 after Josh Scott shows how indistinguishable it sounds from a Klon Centaur.

(In fairness to Scott, I think he was mostly trying to make the point that you can get useable sounds out of cheap gear, but c'mon, he should know that comparing something favorably to a particularly legendary piece of unobtanium is gonna have consequences.)
posted by soundguy99 at 8:49 AM on April 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Danlectro kinda kicked things off in the 2010's with their "Dan Electrode" variable voltage power supply

i have one - they were cheap - and it really does make a difference to the sound when you roll down the voltage

however, it's a bit noisy - my mxr brick powers things much quieter and the almost dead battery sound is kind of limited - a bit crusher is similar
posted by pyramid termite at 9:10 AM on April 2, 2023

Voltage starving is a tried and true circuit bending technique. But this is still a hilarious self- parody, down to the different demos that are all the exact same clip.
posted by q*ben at 11:09 AM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Emily, prev on the blue. Don't forget to read the comments on the video. My favorite: "I have used lemon batteries and potato batteries in an array to get clean tones as an organic and natural reference voltage."
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:24 AM on April 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't think it was tasteless at all (even a wee bit). While Josh Scott may have known that doing a video about a cheap pedal may have caused people to sell them at higher prices, that's not his problem. Like he says in his follow-up video to that situation, people had 20 years to buy the Bad Monkey pedal for $50 and no one wanted them or cared about them until he pointed out that they can sound identical to a ridiculously overpriced Klon Centaur (or some other pedals). Give it a few weeks, and the prices will be back to normal. The same happens with any old piece of gear when it's revealed that it's good or that so-and-so used it on an album. I hope he does more of these kinds of videos so people stop getting so caught up in the collector nonsense.
posted by jonathanhughes at 12:31 PM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

My only regret is not snapping up a Bad Monkey for like $15 that one time I saw it on Aliexpress.
posted by signal at 7:14 PM on April 2, 2023

And it was the one with Chinese writing, too!
posted by signal at 7:16 PM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Stevie Ray Vaughn used to swap his pedals out on stage throughout a performance, because he felt that heat affected their tone.
posted by jordantwodelta at 8:50 AM on April 3, 2023

In the case of germanium fuzz face pedals that is actually a thing. Germanium is notoriously finicky and temperature-sensitive. That’s why the Arbiter company started using silicon transistors in 68 or 69, because they were more stable.
posted by wabbittwax at 4:08 PM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]