scramblersfan's Reviews
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Functional Limiter
Good for a little extra thump and cleaning up your dynamics, it doesn't quite sound right when limiting at it's and there's a psuedo-noticeable latency between the transient and effect (which can be somewhat pleasant if used creatively) but other than that the only real issue is the additional noise the unit introduces to your signal. Like most behrignher pedals it's a bit of a plastic pig and a pain in the ass to get a battery into, I wouldn't trust it on a gig but it's a good practice tool for dynamic styles like snap.
Very specifc echo sound
There's only really three or four distinct sounds that can be coaxed from this unit, the fully open echo is great before or after modulation into a hot amp for classic 60's garage and psychedelic sounds. Cooling it a bit it approaches slap back and swish of surf and rockabilly tones but there' plenty of better pedals to achieve that effect. The construction was surprisingly pretty good but getting a battery to comfortably sit in the closed case is a nightmare (there's not enough room). It's only a two knob design so it is inherently pretty limited but functional enough for a cheap easily replaced roadworthy pedal.
Another EHX Oddity that's only as good as your amp- dead battery emulator
Germanium is a bit of a buzzword for the "vintage tone" hungry guitarist, the organic mystique and temperamental nature of the germanium clipping has elevated it above more reliable silicon clipping. But here I can say for certain it's just a it of a gimmick, the germanium OD is a functional dirt box for emulating battery death or smashing an already cranked amp with weird clipped sounds. The biasing can work like a gate but the weird squanky peaks of the distorted signal aren't as nearly as functional as just using a good gate pedal. By leaving it open and cranking the gain you can achieve a noisy boost but with so many solid clean boosts on the market there's not a whole lot of point. My unit cost $130 USD which was considerable cash and I saw it going as high as $300 at other stores in my area which seems ludicrous when a DS1 is only 40 bucks and has greatly increased functionality.
Stagg Basses are death
My Stagg bass made better exercise equipment than an instrument. It came shipped with incorrectly wired P-J pick ups and a broken truss rod (which I didn't know about when I was a dumb kid). It's scale length is plastered over a large difficult to manage neck and several of the fret placings are out for the scale length of the instrument. The wood is poor, and the neck balance is off resulting in many chips to the head of the instrument. The warp in the neck eventually resulted in a nearly inhuman action resulting in no technical gains other than above average grip strength (I now play e standard with jazz flatwounds) but as a result I have a deep hatred for all things Stagg and gave up on bass.
Spend your money elsewhere
A very poor strat clone the only thing I didn't have to heavily modify or replace to get a usable instrument was the body. It shipped with a stripped saddle and busted tuners, after about two months of use one of the peg winders snapped on light gauge strings. The vintage character of the instrument isn't bad but the grounding wasn't done properly and the jack shipped stripped on it's thread (I'd have to replace the whole jack and plate to get a reliable instrument) the pick-ups do have a cool thin vintage vibe which is the only reason I kept it and the heavily lacquered neck when straight is functional (but not particularly nice to play). After two years it's got more dead frets then instruments I've had for 15 so the nickel steel isn't particularly resilient. If you don't want to brutalise yourself like me and would like to save yourself some money in the long run; buy a Squier Affinity.
SeaSICK boiiiii
My unit has battery draining issues (it chews through them very quickly), pretty broad options covering mild two voice twang to extremely seasick wet signal vibrato. It's let down (as many danelectro effects and guitars are) by it's stacked pots for the mix/eq. If you can avoid screwing up your settings (really you don't need to mess with the eq so I'm not sure why they bothered) then the options available let you hone in your sound.
Functional Fuzz with Serious Noise
Limited in character but a useful and hard wearing for blown out fuzz or a little dirt boost. Doesn't clean up as nicely as a good fuzz face but it's not a bad unit for the price.