Worst Piece(s) of Gear You've Purchased

[Victory Pete]

One of the first Alesis ADATs, and just recently an Alesis Masterlink, couldnt get the door to open. And ironically enough now Alesis's World Headquarters are north of me by about a half hour, no one was willing to help. I traded the ADAT in for a Tascam TSR-8 that I still use to this day. I returned the Masterlink to GC with a note in the box to Alesis about how pathetic they are.
VP

 

[ibleedburgundy]

1) Martin bottom of the line accoustic cutaway with built in pickup and fake back and sides. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. It says "Martin" on it but frankly, it sounds like shit, plays like shit, and the electronics inside broke after a few Months.

2) Audix drum mounted Mic set. These things totally suck. They are worthless. And the worst part about it is I already had enough SM57s to do the job. The only good thing about this set was the kick mic, which I still use.

3) Alesis ADAT XT. The damn thing worked for maybe 6 Months. I sent it in for repairs twice and both time they sent it back with the same problem as before and charged me $80 for cleaning the heads-which they may or may not have done. The only reason this purchase was not a total waste is because the ADAT now serves as an AD/DA converter if I ever need more than the 8 tracks that the digi 002 offers. So the ADAT still gets used at least.

4) VOX tonelab SE. I actually don't hate the sound on this thing but recording is almost impossible because there is a surprising amount of hiss. And it sends a very weak signal. So I spend two hours calibrating the various volumes/gains/levels to minimize hiss. And I'm still not thrilled.

 

[Jim Lad]

Windows Vista!
Not a piece of gear, I know but it deserves a mention.
I ended up switching over to a stand alone recorder.

 

[suprstar]

Digitech RP-series guitar pedals, freakin plastic junk... I went thru an RP-200 and an RP-300. Oh, and I have a Digitech Vocalist 300 that uses the same crappy plastic chassis as the guitar pedals. ONE of the 4 pedals still works, if I want to go up one channel, I have to go down 79 instead..

 

[ibleedburgundy]

Digitech RP-series guitar pedals, freakin plastic junk... I went thru an RP-200 and an RP-300. Oh, and I have a Digitech Vocalist 300 that uses the same crappy plastic chassis as the guitar pedals. ONE of the 4 pedals still works, if I want to go up one channel, I have to go down 79 instead..

Dude. If they suck so bad, why do you keep buying their stuff?!?

 

[suprstar]

lol, I didn't buy em one after another! Had the rp200 and the vox first, the 200 died for unknown reasons, but it had some good features (not the amp modeling..) Replaced it with the rp300, then that AND the vox puked out within a couple years. The guitar units could tune my whole guitar down a whole step from D to C without sounding weird, so I could take 2 guitars to a gig instead of 4. That was real convenient, too bad they were built so cheapy...

I'm surprised about your audix experience, what mics? D6/I5's? Just the clips shitty, or you really not like the mics?

 

[Tremaine]

Thread necromancy

this again.

i bought a ibanez tone-blaster TBX65R guitar amp, it sounded good in the store. cost me like 400bucks. recently <i noticed anyway> theres been a problem with the reverb <it reverberates loudly and very ugly, sometimes when you play string 6 fret 5, just this note/frequency, not 'open A'> . Its got no low end balls, just squeals. and no effects loop.

i fell as thou i have been tricked.

 

[diggy_dude]

Digitech RP-series guitar pedals, freakin plastic junk... I went thru an RP-200 and an RP-300. Oh, and I have a Digitech Vocalist 300 that uses the same crappy plastic chassis as the guitar pedals. ONE of the 4 pedals still works, if I want to go up one channel, I have to go down 79 instead..

I've had my RP90 for a year and have had no problems with it. But yeah, they're built as chintzy as fuck all, like everything else nowadays. I'd say the worst gear I own is everything less than 25 years old and not made in the US, Japan, or Britain.

 

[moresound]

this again.

i bought a ibanez tone-blaster TBX65R guitar amp, it sounded good in the store. cost me like 400bucks. recently <i noticed anyway> theres been a problem with the reverb <it reverberates loudly and very ugly, sometimes when you play string 6 fret 5, just this note/frequency, not 'open A'> . Its got no low end balls, just squeals. and no effects loop.

i fell as thou i have been tricked.

You should never purchase anything on Halloween

 

[suprstar]

Digitech RP-series guitar pedals, freakin plastic junk... I went thru an RP-200 and an RP-300. Oh, and I have a Digitech Vocalist 300 that uses the same crappy plastic chassis as the guitar pedals. ONE of the 4 pedals still works, if I want to go up one channel, I have to go down 79 instead..

I'd like to report that the vocalist 300 is now in a garbage can. That last working pedal isn't any more.... It had some cool fx I wanted to mess with, even if I have to go backwards 78 channels to get there.... So I plug it in to check it out, and it's a fuckin paperweight, wont even power up... I think Digitech is the 1st (audio) company I swore never to buy anything from again. I thought about taking it out back for a little fun with my g17, but it's reeeealy damn cold out there right now..

 

[suprstar]

You should never purchase anything on Halloween

But if you wanna rip something off, halloween's the time! I had my car broken into in broad daylight on halloween a few years ago. They got 2 amps, my subs, the head unit, eq, the whole system.... No BS - the police report states that the 2 asswipes were decked out head to toe in batman and robin costumes, complete with masks, so the witnesses couldn't give a description or identify any suspects.

 

[shoggoth80]

"Samson CO1 LDC"
-I will second this. I picked one up ages ago, juts to see what it was like, and to see if something that budget could be decent.
Relatively high noise factor, and distorts pretty easily. Not sure what else to say about it. It can sound ok, but there are better buys out there. I'm still stuck with it as I am trying to get the money together for a much better replacement.

Stay away from the cheap cheap cables on Musician's Friend. I bought a bunch before, and they are pretty shoddy. Had one come in without a screw to hold one of the XLR connectors in.

Shure 588SB. Not a bad mic, but definitely not to be compared to other Shure's. Low ouput, pretty weak proximity effect. Not bad if you are on a budget though. I got mine cheap, and keep it for sentimental value. However, I did have a BG1.0 that I rather liked for what it was.

 

[ibleedburgundy]

I'm surprised about your audix experience, what mics? D6/I5's? Just the clips shitty, or you really not like the mics?

They are either the F-90s or the ADX-90s. The clips are fine. In fact they are very well constructed. It's the mics themselves. They just have a poor quality sound. Lots of noise, not a lot of tone. SM-57s are way better.

 

[moresound]

But if you wanna rip something off, halloween's the time! I had my car broken into in broad daylight on halloween a few years ago. They got 2 amps, my subs, the head unit, eq, the whole system.... No BS - the police report states that the 2 asswipes were decked out head to toe in batman and robin costumes, complete with masks, so the witnesses couldn't give a description or identify any suspects.

Real easy IDing those caped crusaders!!! Everyone knows that it's Adam West.

You want I should e-mail him and tell him you want your stuff back?

 

[punkin]

Behringer Eurorack UB1622FX-Pro...the power supply bit the dust only weeks after owning it. Replaced the power supply which only lasted about a year before it quit working as well.

This product was the one to cause me to go to DAW mixing. Now it just fills a big hole in my rack.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Boss RE-20 .... supposed to sound like a Space Echo but instead it sounds like a broken Space Echo ...... noisy and shitty sounding. Seems to be well built though so it's gonna sound shitty for a long time.

 

[lasvegasira]

A DOD Tec 8 pedal. I was young and thought I had found the answer to getting all the sounds I loved on every album ever made!! I mean, it's a multi-effects pedal, right??

I gave up on it after about 3 days of trying with no good results... It was stolen a few years later... I still don't think I've bothered to report it...

 

[stevieb]

Gee, in this regard, I must be the luckiest man alive! Oh, sure, I've had gear that rather sucked, but I haven't lost a cent on any of it. The WORST I have encountered:

Digitech RP-7. One of the few pieces I bought new, and I paid more for it than I should have, in retrospect. The distortion on it is pretty sucky, but I never use that feature. I find the time effects (tremolo, delay, reverb, chorus) pretty good, and I got my money's worth out of it just for the learn-a-lick feature. All metal case has withstood even a Gallien-Krueger 250ML being DROPPED DIRECTLY ON THE RP-7, corner-down, and it still works as good as it ever did. I will probably never sell it, not because it's tones are necessarily good, but because I'd get almost nothing for it, and it's a workhorse. That you can drop heavy stuff on.

Digitech MetalMorph pedal. Way over-the-top distortion, (seeing a pattern here?) but it was fun to play with the "morph" knob. Thing is, it was a freebie. And runs like a top- also about as complex as one. What's not to like?

And I can't recall the third thing. Man, I am forgetful, tonight!

EDIT: Oh, I think I remember- little Behringer board, with 5 XLR inputs. (Don't wanna run downstairs just to see what model it is.) Power supply has four little pins that conduct the current to the unit, one bent over and broke off, trashing the PS- I thought. One day, in a fit of resoursefulness, I cut a straight pin down and stuck it into the PS plug, right next to the broken-off pin. Worked like a charm.

But I still say Ringo is luckier than anybody...

 

[Aldwyn]

For me, it was a Mackie control surface. I never got it working quite right, never really used it or needed it, and it was spookie to see the faders moving by themselves!

It's sat in my gear closet for a couple of years now.

 

[goinpostal]

A pair of M-Audio StudioPro3 active monitors-used. Didn't pay much at all for 'em and I'm glad I didn't. These things suck being used for monitors but they're great for either computer speakers or the main use I use now-plugged into my DirecTV box for "surround sound".