We know, we know. We need to put up sound clips so everyone can hear what our products sound like. Eventually we will get that done. We think they are as misleading as they are helpful, even when done well.
Chances are good that you've purchased a number of pedals over the years. Some you liked, some you didn't. Before you bought them, it is probably also the case that you heard sound clips for some and for others you didn't. You've probably ended up liking some pedal that sounded awful in sound clips, or not liking some pedal that sounded great in the sound clips. It is likely that whether you heard sound clips or not has little to do with whether or not you ended up keeping the pedal. Sound clips aren't really good indicators of whether you will or won't like an effect. It seems like they should be, but they usually aren't.
There are lots of reasons for that, including:
- low quality of sound clips on the Internet
- unknown equipment used for the demo or recording
- recording was made with other effects or (yikes!) software processing
- different equipment used than you will use
- tone variations between pedals of the same brand and model
- poorly designed and executed pedal demos
- lots of other stuff
With some effort, we think there is sometimes good value in sound clips. It requires a great deal of planning and careful execution to make them useful. They still probably won't sound like they will when you play them with your setup. Regardless, when we get time to do it properly, we will.
Until then, when we say one of our modules "compares to" some pedal, you can assume they sound somewhere from identical to very nearly the same unless we specifically say otherwise in a module description. We try to get our modules to sound close enough to the "compares to" pedal that most people couldn't tell the difference between them in a blind test. Of course, we offer lots of customizations to specifically alter the sound of our modules, so your particular configuration may sound different, as you intend. Or the identical sounds may be within a portion of the range of some control settings, with additional sounds outside those ranges of settings. An example might be a customized extended range of Gain control. The range of Gain of the "compares to" pedal may be in the middle half of the range of control of the extended Gain control, with customized lower and higher gain settings in the first and last quarters of the Gain control's range.
Probably if you are considering one of our modules, you have played the pedal(s) it compares to, with your fingers, your guitar, your signal chain, your amp, etc and know how it sounds. That's a better way of predicting how one of our modules would sound than listening to any sound clips we might make available. If you don't have one of the "compares to" pedals, borrow one or go try one out at your local music store, if possible. Of course, drop some cash at your local music store to support them, while we still have some local music stores to go to. Change those old strings, replace that dodgy cable, and look at those beautiful new American-made guitars hanging on the wall, begging for you to take them home! And you know you can't have too many amps... Or more practically, get a nice rack tuner, rack power conditioner, rack case, rack noise reduction system, or other gear to complement the GT rack effects you're about to purchase!!!!