Anticipated Pedal, Turned Out to Be Meh?

[andrewsrea]

Since this area is designated for 'reviews,' I was wondering if anyone has a pedal or two (a build or a buy) which you really thought was going to be great, but turned out 'meh'?

For me, I build a Wampler Tweed '57 clone which I like the graphics I came up with, but cannot gel with the pedal. All the videos of the pedal sounded close to a Tweed amp, which I have repaired dozens and have built a few clones (my AMI-20 pictured below). I've tried different bias settings and it just doesn't sound musical to my ears.

 

[HamishR]

Wampler Pantheon. I can't get a sound I like out of it. Same with the Wampler Plexidrive. And any of the bigger Friedman overdrives.

There are many pedals which I have thought were meh but those ones I had high hopes for. I did like the one Friedman amp I have tried though - a Dirty Shirley. It was the little one with a 10" speaker. Great amp!