The problem with cheap chynees knockoffs is the low quality switches and jacks that break down so much faster than quality parts on name brand pedals. I had a $40 RAT clone with a foot switch that I could not replace because its 9 pins could not be soldered with consumer tools. A quality pedal would have a normal switch that could be easily repalced. So my $40 + the $11 I spent on a new switch were wasted.
I've been a long-time fan of the geetarist SNAKEFINGER, who was a member of the obscure band "The Residents" during their early years...and he often drenched his axe in Ring-Modulation...so here I am...somebody who didn't wanna shell out for the Gonkulator...but you're goddamn right I just ordered that clone from AliExpress. LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Third Reich and Roll, baby! Ralph Records = Buy or Die! I’ve been a fan since 1980, when I found their 7” comp in the back of Rolling Stone. MX80 is STILL one of my fave bands ever! Duck Stab!
Ralph was a earth cracking record label. The crust broke apart. If u missed it, for the Eagles or TP and the (fake) Heartbreakers w/ no Johnny Thunders or Jerry Nolan... do I gotta spell this shit out?....
DOD / Digitech was bought by Cor-Tek (Cort guitars) right? Isn't Cor-Tek basically the world's biggest OEM in the guitar world? This makes sense to me.
Interesting find. I did a little Google and Reverb research. The Ginean Factory Fuzz, Hairy Show Fuzz, Massive Overdrive, RigMod Modulator and Phaser all appear to be Chinese grey market clones of DOD Electronics pedals, presumably from a Cor-Tek factory.
@@TrafVal DOD keeps dying and being resurrected to reissue some old schematics. Nobody who makes money from these pedals had anything to do with develloping the Gonkulator. The only right they have on them is that they had lots of money to begin with. That's not a strong ethical argument. At least not enough to make me defend them against "thieves" who want to sell me the exact same product at a price that is both sustainable for them, and not 300% overpriced. I'd argue the OEM has more rights to claim ownership of those pedals than some shareholders who never saw one and just dumped a ton of money on a safe business venture; but that's my latin ass speaking. The way intellectual ownership works is vastly different here, and, to sum it up briefly, slapping people with wads of cash will never make you the rightful owner of an intellectual property here. Nobody in this story designed the pedals, but at least the OEM is actually making them, unlike DOD shareholders who do nothing but count their bills.
@@Clebardmanthe people that bought the DOD rights, paid either the original company, or the receivers who were paying off the companies owed money by Digitech. This continues each time it gets sold on. Debts are paid and the new company gets the rights to use those designs in exchange for paying off the debts. If some Chinese company just steals the designs, then the company that bought the rights are ripped off. They too could go out of business leaving debts that no-one wants to buy, or they just don’t have the money required to produce new DOD and Digitech pedals. If you buy “stolen” intellectual property, then that’s your decision.
Nice theory, except that the 2013 and onward designs are new. they include true bypass, LED, power filtering, new chassis, and new features. Also the "Modern" series (Carcosa, Boneshaker, Looking Glass, Gunslinger, Rubberneck, etc.) are entirely original designs. And yes, somebody in this story designed the pedals - ME. @@Clebardman
Hell yeah. Mine is coming in 12 days! I ordered before finishing the video, haha. I always wanted now and that price makes it make sense! There's a trick that Prince did where he blends Ringmod in next to his non-Ringmod tone with an expression pedal. First thing I'm gonna do when I plug it in.
Honestly tempted to buy the whole DOD line from Ginean rn, just to send a message to US "brands" who resell asian manufactured products at 20 times the production cost. And I say this as someone who loves his Carcosa and Rubberneck, and DOD pedals in general.
I'm suuuuper curious about this trick... you've completely piqued my interest. I'm going to look this up. Do you have any advice where to look for info on the setup? might have to order an expression pedal now for it too... I think it's what a jazz fusion keyboardist did once, the name and the song escapes me right now, but I've always tried and failed to recreate that.. and I think you've put me on to the right path!
@@trev_mcnaughton Dude breaks it down in the video. I got mine and have been jamming on it for a few days. It's pretty rad, but it's low volume. I can work with it.
@@jpm9628 I just got mine today and was seriously enjoying it.. especially just after my tube zipper in the signal chain.. the envelope set right lets a bit of the ring mod out more with just the right attack.. thoroughly happy having this on the pedalboard!
@@ClebardmanJan Hammer then w Mahavishnu Orchestra used a ring modulator w his Electric Piano to sort of bend notes. After he got a Mini Moog he used that for leads , where he actually could bend. I was around when they played and heard them live lots of times , once twice on the same tour. Every time I was amazed humans could play at that level. Jan, Yan, also wrote the Miami Vice theme.
The Gonkulator distortion is supposed to be the same circuit as the FX-69 Grunge. But you can dial the gain a lot lower on the Gonkulator than the Grunge.
"Third Shift" is the term you're looking for. Its basically the unoffiical manufacturing run going after hours and selling grey market. Oftentimes itll just be another line right next to the mainline using the same staff but with a different component source to keep it off the books.
the color of the circuit board can have a lot to do with the slight differences in sound. The ginean sounded more blue, whereas the DOD sounded more green to me. And now we know why...
I tried to google this, but I guess I’m bad at it. Can you speak more about board colors and effects on sound, or cite where you learned about that? Really interesting to me
Nice affordable version of the DOD Gonkulator. Plus any effect named after a Hogan's Heros episode is good in my books (i.e. Klink vs. the Gonculator, Season 4, Episode 2, even though the spelling is different)
Sorry if someone else mentioned this (or you did -- I'm only halfway through the video). Tommy Iommi apparently used a ring mod sometimes -- e.g. the opening to "Iron Man". Some early Devo (of course), as well. :)
The story I heard is that Iommi came back to the studio one day to discover that his solo on Paranoid had been drenched in ring modulator, and hated it. Wether it's a fact of one of the many myths of rock n'roll, I don't know.
I own one - mostly just bought it for playing Incubus songs with and stacking with the Boss PH-2 (again, Incubus). Flanger is another pedal that seems to create some interesting effects when used with the Gonk. Thought it sounded pretty close to what I was expecting and to my surprise, it's exactly the same thing!.
No ethics problem, i think, on Aliexpress it is mentioned that they cloned the 90’s version of the DOD ring modulator, which was over 20 years off the market. Only if DOD kept the patent to themselves , there would be a problem i guess, but DOD has been away completely in between ..
Btw, thank u 60-C Ryan for these clone vids. I live in Philippines, spend a lot of time browsing Ali E, Lazada and Shoppee looking at random clones and unique China made pedals. Interesting stuff! Thanks for demoing this AND the Mosky fuzz, as I had been curious about that one. If you could recommend your FAVORITE fuzz or do a fuzz shootout, that be a great vid that I think we’d all enjoy. 😊🎉
I like the way the ring mod on the boss gt1b works. It goes in steps so you can set it to a 5th, 7th, or octave ect. It makes it easy to find the harmony you are looking for. You can also blend it and there are two modes. Auto and manual. I like to mix it with fuzz and an fx25. Sounds wild.
I love these things and can think of a number of things I could use them for. Would there be any point in determining which notes/keys are present at certain points around the "frequency" knob (if I can find a way to write that small or mark it)? That way I can speed dial / go quickly to a particular key I am going to mostly drone in on a particular song? Or is that an impossible feat? Is the frequency going to be so different and random each time that the knob it is moved that it isn't going to ever go back to those exact points?
It's called graymarket, and it is a big deal to us. Also the white thing isn't a trim-pot, it is a stand-off. The trim pot is on the left labeled P5 - it is the null control.
The dod is out of my price range so that answers the ethics for me and everything else. That said what is the state of the afford a board. Are all of the pedals still obtainable?
@60 Cycle Hum Ahhhh, it's good to be back home (with a new handle) These pedals are almost music to my ears, lmao. They take perfectly good chord tones and make them into perfectly Hideous Chord tones. Maybe you should try playing some of the "Forbidden Hideous Chords" through them, Maybe they'll sound great! I mean, I doubt it, but it's worth a try. (re-subbed today) Thanks for once again making me smile and laugh!
I actually love it! I need to get one... I always wanted an SX Liquid but with two humbuckers in that color never was much of a P90 fan. I have to see your review on this one. I need to search your reviews, I have had great luck with the options from Rondo music SX, Douglas, Hadean and of course Agile. I just scored a Douglas Corvus (Jazzmaster clone) $100.00. I was blown away how good it was and like you I think the tail piece is the weak point. The humbuckers are amazing I thought someone swapped them but they are stock. Edit: I guess I did see the review in the SX.
Fairfield Circuitry makes a high quality ring modulator called Randy's Revenge. The CV /frequency can be controlled by an expression pedal. And it's a superior product to the ones in this video by far. The lower oscillator frequencies create rich trem/vibe effects, excruciatingly slow or chopped up rhythmic flavours. As the frequency goes up, thick bells, tuned intervals, low-fidelity synth-like effects are only the beginning. Experimenting with the low-pass filter cutoff frequency and the dry/wet mix will yield tones as strange or subtle as desired. Featuring expanded control voltage (CV) capabilities that allow for interactions beyond the simple stacking of effects, Randy can be used to control and be controlled by other CV capable devices. The stereo CV is switch-programmable for use with an expression pedal or as a 2-channel CV port. Both the oscillator and low-pass filter frequency are voltage-controllable. The internal oscillator is also available as an output, turning Randy into a stand-alone voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO).
@@UnitedEffect I have a Randy's Revenge. Although it's not an effect I use a lot... when I do need or want certain sounds it can't be beat. So many options too! You definitely want the voltage control accessed by an expression pedal. The Gonkulator's okay as a starter... but it's mostly a distortion that has a bit of ring mod built in.
My initial reaction is the same as yours. It's unethical for a manufacturer to straight up repaint pedals they make for US brands and resell them at 1/4 of the price. My second reaction is that it's also unethical for US brands to get their pedals manufactured in Asia for 3$ each to then resell them 150$ to broke teens and tonedeaf stepdads. I think you're on point with "there is no ethical consumption in capitalism". Current DOD owners didn't spend a penny in R&D either for the Gonkulator. They bought a dead brand, then got already existing schematics manufactured at the other side of the world by the lowest bidder. If it is indeed what it looks like, then Ginean are thieves, and DOD are crooks. As I see things, if I buy from Ginean, some DOD shareholders who had nothing to do whatsoever with these 70s pedals development lose a relatively microscopic amount of money, while if I buy from DOD I lose 100$ out of some imaginary moral obligation towards people who'd sell me sand in a desert without blinking once. edit: just read the description, ofc the official DOD/OEM version is dumpster-diving. I'm not suprised one bit...
The entire purpose of any company is to make money. If you don't like their practices don't buy their products. It isn't difficult. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything from anyone. It's called capitalism. If you don't like it feel free to move to a socialist or communist country and let me know how much better it is. I'll wait.
Business 101 in China - There are no ethics, sales only matter. It's clearly a DOD factory that made some pedals using leftover DOD parts that they probably had left over as DOD was exiting the market. A similar thing happened in 2019 with the Kirkland 4 Pc golf ball at Costco a few years back when they used leftover Pro V-1 cores in a factory in Korea. They used a slightly different exterior and added the Kirkland branding of course, but when the balls we cut open the truth came out and the lawsuits began. The same thing apparently has happened here. Ryan's super sleuth skills are second to none 😆
My favorite Chinese clone story is when they reverse-engineered a bmw x5 and made their own version which was almost identical, and then bmw sued them and lost!
I find it ironic when US companies have a non-domestic company completely built their stuff for cheap then get mad when the actual manufacturer sells the exact same product at a lower price as an off brand. Then the US company is shocked, surprised and offended when this happens. Wake up.
All intellectual property in China becomes community property. I shed no tears for companies outsourcing for cheapness and then getting undercut themselves
Robert Oberheim invented Ring Modulation for his college thesis. It is pure math. Iirc it's PRODUCT divided by the SUM. ( I was hoping you'd run them in series) The Maestro RM1 was the first commercial unit available and the demo record did not do it justice. The RM1 has Control Voltage Input, and it opens a whole new world of production techniques! I used to plug a drum machine into to the RM1 and trigger it with the guitar through the CV-IN. Wow, Ryan get some great stuff out of this pair in stereo! Great job! I made a big mistake and loaned my Maestro RM1 to someone and never saw it again.
Just read what you wrote in the description and had to change what I'm going to say lol. If DOD knows nothing about this then either the factory that makes the pedal for them (or someone there) has produced them "under the table" or someone has got ahold of the original and simply reverse engineered it. If it was "dumpster diving" by someone from another factory in the area producing similar things, then they'd likely know already where all the parts have been sourced from and so would probably be able to produce such an exact clone relatively easily
Is the OEM claiming someone raided their garbage bin and stole the EXACT screws of the pedals? Let's be honest. It sounds like DOD just got caught red-handed selling 40$ pedals at 4 times the price. Wich is what all these brands do, so I'm not against a little scandal to drive the prices down.
@@Clebardman If the bin was raided by someone local who worked in another factory producing similar things, they'd know exactly where to get the same screws, along with all the other parts. Otherwise it's just as likely that someone working at the factory that produces the DOD pedals simply built a batch to sell under the table. The Gonkulator is DOD's design, they can produce them wherever they want. If they don't know about this going on, they'd have a clear case to make over IP infringement With any brand name pedal you are paying for that name. I've built a lot of pedals, for myself and others and most come out at around that $40USD cost to make in terms of parts. And that's sourcing the highest quality components and buying in small batches. It's really only crazy high end stuff with digital aspects and lots of options that cost much more than that to make. So yeah, your paying a markup for any brand name pedal you buy. What DOD is doing is hardly the most egregious example of it
@@danmc_2783 They'd have legit no need to get the same enclosures or screws. In fact, if it was indeed dumpster-diving, it would have been logical to CHANGE those things as to not make it more suspicious than it already is. Those are the same boards, the same pots, the same screws, the same enclosures. Those pedals 99.99% come out of the same factory. I feel I also must point out that DOD isn't a person, DOD didn't design any pedals, DOD died and came back multiple times since those pedals were designed. I can pretty confidently say that nobody who gets a share of the sales at DOD had anything to do with develloping any of those pedals, so I'm really not feeling the ethical obligation to buy 150$ from them pedals that actually cost 10$ to produce and can be sold 40$ in a sustainable way for the manufacturer. But here we're getting into a cultural clash, because the latin and anglo-saxon intellectual rights work very differently, and it's legit impossible for me to imagine anyone owning intellectual rights because they BOUGHT them. Which doesn't even matter because as I understand there is actually no intellectual property over circuits, and anyone can reproduce a pedal 1:1 and sell it without problems.
@@Clebardman I didn't argue that it didn't come out of the same factory, indeed I said that's probable. The Gonkulator is an original pedal. It's their design, no matter which individual created it. And the IP isn't in the circuit itself but in the layout and design of the board. Again, DOD owns that IP. I could make clones of other pedals all day but I'd have to design my own pcb etc. for it. It having the exact same PCB design and DOD not knowing about it is where the case is here
Great video for a great clone, always wanted a Gonk. I have a great diy analogue ring mod and a grunge, aparently the same distortion part of the Gonk. This is all in one tidy package though, gotta keep the board real-estate down. Ive also just found out that Ginean do a Carcosa clone, the Hairy fuzz! Damn thats a fine modern fuzz, as in, itll sit anywhere in your signal chain, not just the beginning and loves and hates(destroys) all signals at any strength, equally. Damn what other Digitech clones are they doing from that great era? Im on a pedal diet at present, seriously not reaching for my wallet, oh god I can hear the sound of the repo man coming up my garden path. Quick turn off the lights and cue the angry dogs tape.
If i was insane, would there be a way to connect the frequency control to an exp pedal and use it to manually change the ring as a crappy drone note? I know itd be impractical and probably awful, but...
I've never understood why there aren't more auto-tuning Ringmods, it's not far off how some octaver pedals work IIRC. Even if the tracking is jammy it'd still be vastly better than just having to have a static drone.
It’s because the sum and difference of the input frequencies which is by definition what a ring mod does is naturally inharmonic… what you’re describing would not be a ring mod but just a weird pitch shifter… but I mean… yeah that could be cool
that's exactly what ring mod does on a Synthesiser, though. if it's combining an AM wave it's still ring modulation regardless of the pitch changing@@hollywood4834
I love my Gonkulator, and I actually want the green one as well haha. Also getting a Ringerbringer, but that's as a send effect on my mixer 😆 Btw, I wished you'd have adjusted that trimpot to the same positions, and then compared them again.
There is another way of looking at the cloning thing. Here in the UK a Gonkulator is about £129 and the clone is £23.50. So what has DOD done to warrant charging over five times as much? The usual R&D argument doesn't apply as the circuitry is simply based on recommended applications in the data sheets for the various chips involved with very little tweaking and the board layouts would have been done in-house by the manufacturer.
I think the only 2 times a ring mod has sounded good, are the voice of the Daleks and the lead on Black Sabbaths Paranoid. On a serious note, I work in marine electronics in the UK and asked why we manufacture PC boards in-house, not in China, the answer was the B#####s will copy them, and years of R&D go down the drain.
@ 16.55: "They're both Gonkulatin' - they're Gonkulatin' HARD, too!" Full marks for that one, sir! Concerning practical uses for a ring modulator...when I got myself a few synths and sampler, I tried to emulate the calliope-type sound from Devo's "Jocko Homo", without success, no natter what - but when I plugged my BC Rich Ironbird through a ring modulator (first time I'd tried one at home) on the ultra-cheap ZOOM GFX707 pedal... it turns out IT WAS A GUITAR ALL ALONG! Who'da thunk it?
mark m has an eh frequency analyzer duct taped to his guitar in the video. i had one, but the adapter falls out too easily , and breaks the signal. too bad because it soumds great.
Since the board has a different silkscreen, it's probably not stolen factory rejects or ghost shift parts. You'd also think DOD's production/quality engineers would notice if there's enough rejects to make a business around. Ironically, it looks like the clone has the markings sanded off the ICs, which is done to - you guessed it - prevent cloning (or in some cases, to obfuscate the origin of stolen parts.)
Hey Ryan I just wanted to say thank you!!!! Because of this review comparison I won’t have to spend $200+ AUSD. I’m probably not going to use it on my guitar or bass but I will be putting it on ny Keytar Pedalboard 🤘👽🤘.
Awesome video thanks man! Love the ginean hairy show fuzz which is a clone of the dod carcosa. Think this is going to be my next Ginean . Would love to see a review of the four ginean mini pedals, they do distortion delay overdrive and another can’t remeber, not sure if they are clones of dod also? , I think ethically grey area? But u can’t patent a small guitar pedal circuit so I have heard. And most pedals we buy from establish brands are a tweaked topology of a classic pedal with a few twists on it. So I’m thinking this is completely fine. I’m pretty sure Dunlop Dod boss etc can get by without my few quid and it appeals to my punky worldview kinda so have at it! Or this could potentially be a corruption of my moral standing due to having the budget for Ali express pedals only at the moment. lol
I know my friend Peter Steele from Brooklyn NY. We know each other from studio bouncing... my band was called Exit 13 a NYC based metal band..you hopped on the band wagon at the time with biohazard, anthrax, Ramones, corrosion of conformity, all NY based bands know and met each other..the glory years..... .He had one he used in the studio recording bloody kisses album. He was given this petal from another member of the circle of band friends...He used it on the bass guitar. It was a studio secret from the outside to know his gear ... Well he used it because he had a bond with the bottom end and it was very doomed sounding when you dragged the note after the measure and rest....like the song he cover "summer breeze". ....that's where you here the petal clearly ... It made his bass sound thicker and hide the fret buzzing from being detected on his bass. That's why Type O negative was never copyed to exact tone.
@@fernaliciousthanks, the Carcisa ys a great fuzz, being a modern take on the sound it can ho anywhere in the signal path and sound good with any type of signal. I'll look at that.
On my channel i checked this out a few days to a week before anyone else on youtube had. Not a flex i literally did it because no one else checked it out at the time. Its nice to see someone more reputable with a budget to actually produce a decent video on it do it. I didnt question why they cloned it. I was just glad it wasnt something cloned a billion times and rebranded kmise, cuvave, donner, azor caline whatever lol. I dont get why there are a billion muffs, or timmys, or 250. I mean to an extent. Different price points or whatever but i build pedals so.. i mean i can make a distortion plus for like 20 bucks myself. I didnt see a bunch of cheap ring mods and i used to have a frequencu analyzer i loved so when i saw a cheap pedal not commonly copied i jumped on it. Like if a company choose to clone a danelectro black coffee id buy it. Not because i love how a black coffee sounds but just simply because its something different.
This could be right at home on a Flaming Lips, Dukes of the Stratosphere, stoner doom rock, and you were only moments of away from Smoke on the Water to my ears... I'd love to hear what keyboard Bernie Worrell might have plugged it into!!
Well this is interesting... I just impulse bought a Gonkulator from Reverb. Now I learn about this clone. Amazon has a "ChiMiao" branded clone that looks exactly like the green Ginian clone. Is it the same factory with a new name? Or a ripoff of a gray market clone? Maybe I'll get both and compare. Or just to have two.
7:47 this is the point in the video when I went to AliExpress and bought one. I’ve bought things from them before, they are legitimate. Kind of. The price can’t be beat.
The Ginean board is dated April 2021. Is that about the time Harman gave up on DigiTech/DOD? The Cortek purchase was in April 2022, and they'd been running down stock for months, maybe a year, before that. Everything must have ground to a halt for a while. Even if the OEM management wasn't involved, it might have been a moment that somebody thought nobody would care if a copy of the CAD files went home with them.
If you want a ring mod to compliment what key you're in you need to play a major scale. Ideally pentatonic. So tuning it to c would have made A blues licks sound better.
It looks like a Moogoo pedal. They make counterfeits though most are not renamed. Their OCD is white with Fulltone printed across the pedal. They also did a Maxon EQ. Moogoo appear to make Mosky and DemonFX. The modulator comes in the same casing they used for the Fulltone pedal. Some of the Moogoo pedals even clone the board so if Fulltone had a name or whatever on the board so would the counterfeit. You can not sue for circuits. You never could. For a Short time you could but you would get a garage door opener guy making a circuit for switching but a pedal guy could by logic use that same circuit never having seen the product and get a law suit. The Greer Light Speed is a Timmy v.2 with 2 parts having a bit more voltage but the actual circuit is identical. Brian Wampler did a video converting a Boss SD-1 into a Tube screamer by merely taking out a couple of parts that took maybe 3 to 5 minute's. The Big Muff EQ circuit is used as an EQ in pedals that are not even a Fuzz. It came from a popular Radio circuit although guy making pedals now never touch a radio but learn from a Muff.
- Theorie - They bought the discontinued revision 0 boards and shoved them in overstock enclosures. They probably can't actually produce the boards from scratch. These will most likely be gone when they're gone. These are most likely legit Version 0 Gonk reissue boards, bought on the open market, so DOD made their money either way in that case. In fact, they did great because otherwise, they were going in the trash
I might be wrong but I thought that while schematics are not copyright(able), PCB artwork IS copyright(able) - so it might be legal to design and produce your own PCB design of a schematic for some other companies pedal but not to just wholesale copy the PCB 'artwork'. At least if you had to design the PCB artwork and test it then there was some effort put in. The soldering and finish of the PCB in the clone looked a bit messier than the DOD so seems unlikely to be produced on the same line but that aside, part of what you pay for with the original is warranty and customer support both of which I would expect to be much better from DOD.
I have 2 Ginean pedals, one called Massive Overdrive and one called Factory Fuzz. The Massive Overdrive is a DOD Boneshaker and the Factory Fuzz is a DOD Carcosa. The artwork on the Massive Overdrive is what sold me though, hot pink pedal with unicorns.
Have you been able to decipher whether any of them are a DOD 250? I actually came across this Gonkulator clone while trying to figure out which 250 clone was the best bet on Aliexpress. Of course now I want the ringmod too lol
@@leonruvalcaba1549 Both Factory Fuzz and Hairy show are the same pedal but with different artwork (the Factory Fuzz is more inline with the modulator as it has an adorable goat on the front).
![Because Everyone Needs A Ring Modulator For Guitar [Robot Sounds - With Band Jams & Everything!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qfRKxWveME0/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm genuinely impressed by how random and meaningless that deer graphic is on the clone. It's so strange haha
Those very features and qualities generally impress me as well.
I think it kinda fits, just something kinda cute on it contrasting with such an ugly sounding pedal lol
I bet it was someone at the factory that just said, let's use the doodle that girl drew the other day, it was good...
I like the deer. It’s so Chinese.
The problem with cheap chynees knockoffs is the low quality switches and jacks that break down so much faster than quality parts on name brand pedals. I had a $40 RAT clone with a foot switch that I could not replace because its 9 pins could not be soldered with consumer tools. A quality pedal would have a normal switch that could be easily repalced. So my $40 + the $11 I spent on a new switch were wasted.
I like how the blue cased Gonk has a green circuit board and the green cased clone has a blue circuit board.
I think I love the idea of a Gonkulator more than actually using it. I wouldn't pay 150 bucks for one, but for 50 I would consider it for sure.
My thoughts exactly
This is the exact reason this 'clone' will sell.
Andy's demo of the Gonkulator makes it sound like an amazing tool to have in my kit. Ryan made me realize what I would probably make it sound like. :D
I've been a long-time fan of the geetarist SNAKEFINGER, who was a member of the obscure band "The Residents" during their early years...and he often drenched his axe in Ring-Modulation...so here I am...somebody who didn't wanna shell out for the Gonkulator...but you're goddamn right I just ordered that clone from AliExpress. LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Third Reich and Roll, baby! Ralph Records = Buy or Die! I’ve been a fan since 1980, when I found their 7” comp in the back of Rolling Stone. MX80 is STILL one of my fave bands ever! Duck Stab!
I also bought one just now.
My T shirt has its eye on you, but it does give a tip of its Top Hat. I caught the Elvis was a baby tour w the Casio Electronic Sax toys.
Ralph was a earth cracking record label. The crust broke apart. If u missed it, for the Eagles or TP and the (fake) Heartbreakers w/ no Johnny Thunders or Jerry Nolan... do I gotta spell this shit out?....
I am also a fan of The Residents and Snakefinger. Managed to see The Residents twice in my life--I have to revisit some of their music soon.
DOD / Digitech was bought by Cor-Tek (Cort guitars) right? Isn't Cor-Tek basically the world's biggest OEM in the guitar world? This makes sense to me.
I thought digitech is Harman's ?
@@juanfichtl2011 was…
Exactly@@telekhal
Interesting find. I did a little Google and Reverb research. The Ginean Factory Fuzz, Hairy Show Fuzz, Massive Overdrive, RigMod Modulator and Phaser all appear to be Chinese grey market clones of DOD Electronics pedals, presumably from a Cor-Tek factory.
they are different,you can check out their circuit design.
Stealing America's intellectual innovations: the one thing that China is good at.
@@derek14653 No: the circuit board layout is exactly the same, and so are the visible components.
Buy the cheap one, that's what DOD did.
But they developed it too
@@TrafVal DOD keeps dying and being resurrected to reissue some old schematics. Nobody who makes money from these pedals had anything to do with develloping the Gonkulator. The only right they have on them is that they had lots of money to begin with. That's not a strong ethical argument. At least not enough to make me defend them against "thieves" who want to sell me the exact same product at a price that is both sustainable for them, and not 300% overpriced.
I'd argue the OEM has more rights to claim ownership of those pedals than some shareholders who never saw one and just dumped a ton of money on a safe business venture; but that's my latin ass speaking. The way intellectual ownership works is vastly different here, and, to sum it up briefly, slapping people with wads of cash will never make you the rightful owner of an intellectual property here. Nobody in this story designed the pedals, but at least the OEM is actually making them, unlike DOD shareholders who do nothing but count their bills.
@@Clebardman fair!
@@Clebardmanthe people that bought the DOD rights, paid either the original company, or the receivers who were paying off the companies owed money by Digitech. This continues each time it gets sold on. Debts are paid and the new company gets the rights to use those designs in exchange for paying off the debts. If some Chinese company just steals the designs, then the company that bought the rights are ripped off. They too could go out of business leaving debts that no-one wants to buy, or they just don’t have the money required to produce new DOD and Digitech pedals.
If you buy “stolen” intellectual property, then that’s your decision.
Nice theory, except that the 2013 and onward designs are new. they include true bypass, LED, power filtering, new chassis, and new features. Also the "Modern" series (Carcosa, Boneshaker, Looking Glass, Gunslinger, Rubberneck, etc.) are entirely original designs. And yes, somebody in this story designed the pedals - ME. @@Clebardman
i've needed a ring mod precisely zero times but that deer artwork is cute
Extended princeton jingle LETS GOOOOOOOO 💥💥💥💥
Hell yeah. Mine is coming in 12 days! I ordered before finishing the video, haha. I always wanted now and that price makes it make sense! There's a trick that Prince did where he blends Ringmod in next to his non-Ringmod tone with an expression pedal. First thing I'm gonna do when I plug it in.
Honestly tempted to buy the whole DOD line from Ginean rn, just to send a message to US "brands" who resell asian manufactured products at 20 times the production cost. And I say this as someone who loves his Carcosa and Rubberneck, and DOD pedals in general.
I'm suuuuper curious about this trick... you've completely piqued my interest. I'm going to look this up. Do you have any advice where to look for info on the setup? might have to order an expression pedal now for it too... I think it's what a jazz fusion keyboardist did once, the name and the song escapes me right now, but I've always tried and failed to recreate that.. and I think you've put me on to the right path!
@@trev_mcnaughton Dude breaks it down in the video. I got mine and have been jamming on it for a few days. It's pretty rad, but it's low volume. I can work with it.
@@jpm9628 I just got mine today and was seriously enjoying it.. especially just after my tube zipper in the signal chain.. the envelope set right lets a bit of the ring mod out more with just the right attack.. thoroughly happy having this on the pedalboard!
@@ClebardmanJan Hammer then w Mahavishnu Orchestra used a ring modulator w his Electric Piano to sort of bend notes. After he got a Mini Moog he used that for leads , where he actually could bend. I was around when they played and heard them live lots of times , once twice on the same tour. Every time I was amazed humans could play at that level. Jan, Yan, also wrote the Miami Vice theme.
2 princetons jam is a highlight of your vids. This extended version was a treat.
The Gonkulator distortion is supposed to be the same circuit as the FX-69 Grunge. But you can dial the gain a lot lower on the Gonkulator than the Grunge.
Really appreciate the detective work you did!
"Third Shift" is the term you're looking for. Its basically the unoffiical manufacturing run going after hours and selling grey market. Oftentimes itll just be another line right next to the mainline using the same staff but with a different component source to keep it off the books.
And they use crap switches that break and can’t be replaced easily.
OMG, gonkulators in stereo are awesome! What a sound! 😊😊😊
the color of the circuit board can have a lot to do with the slight differences in sound. The ginean sounded more blue, whereas the DOD sounded more green to me. And now we know why...
I tried to google this, but I guess I’m bad at it. Can you speak more about board colors and effects on sound, or cite where you learned about that? Really interesting to me
@@willhockstein119 sounds are just colors that are projected into air waves. So every different color adds a different ''color' to the sound...
@@-jank-willsonbro 😂😂
cant wait for pedal manufactures to talk about their toneboard pcbs
Nice affordable version of the DOD Gonkulator. Plus any effect named after a Hogan's Heros episode is good in my books (i.e. Klink vs. the Gonculator, Season 4, Episode 2, even though the spelling is different)
genius!
I have the DOD one ('90s OG and reissue). This one sounds really close. But I already have two OG Gonkulators, so, do I need another one? 🤔
Yes
@@joebodynobody764 Perhaps I will... about €58 including shipping is not a bad deal.
Do you ever stack them?
Man you're so close to quadriphonia gonkulating, don't stop now :o
Y not
Sorry if someone else mentioned this (or you did -- I'm only halfway through the video). Tommy Iommi apparently used a ring mod sometimes -- e.g. the opening to "Iron Man". Some early Devo (of course), as well. :)
The story I heard is that Iommi came back to the studio one day to discover that his solo on Paranoid had been drenched in ring modulator, and hated it. Wether it's a fact of one of the many myths of rock n'roll, I don't know.
I’m curious if you match up the trim pot on the cheaper model, either forward or backward, if it’s identical to the DOD.
that is what i was thinking
I own one - mostly just bought it for playing Incubus songs with and stacking with the Boss PH-2 (again, Incubus). Flanger is another pedal that seems to create some interesting effects when used with the Gonk. Thought it sounded pretty close to what I was expecting and to my surprise, it's exactly the same thing!.
No ethics problem, i think, on Aliexpress it is mentioned that they cloned the 90’s version of the DOD ring modulator, which was over 20 years off the market.
Only if DOD kept the patent to themselves , there would be a problem i guess, but DOD has been away completely in between ..
Btw, thank u 60-C Ryan for these clone vids. I live in Philippines, spend a lot of time browsing Ali E, Lazada and Shoppee looking at random clones and unique China made pedals. Interesting stuff! Thanks for demoing this AND the Mosky fuzz, as I had been curious about that one. If you could recommend your FAVORITE fuzz or do a fuzz shootout, that be a great vid that I think we’d all enjoy. 😊🎉
Well, hell, we need DOD to make a stereo Gonkulator…the Redonkulator!
I like the way the ring mod on the boss gt1b works. It goes in steps so you can set it to a 5th, 7th, or octave ect. It makes it easy to find the harmony you are looking for. You can also blend it and there are two modes. Auto and manual.
I like to mix it with fuzz and an fx25. Sounds wild.
I love these things and can think of a number of things I could use them for. Would there be any point in determining which notes/keys are present at certain points around the "frequency" knob (if I can find a way to write that small or mark it)? That way I can speed dial / go quickly to a particular key I am going to mostly drone in on a particular song? Or is that an impossible feat? Is the frequency going to be so different and random each time that the knob it is moved that it isn't going to ever go back to those exact points?
I am about to purchase my second one. Stereo gonkin’ is the way to be. Nice video.
It's called graymarket, and it is a big deal to us. Also the white thing isn't a trim-pot, it is a stand-off. The trim pot is on the left labeled P5 - it is the null control.
Are you implying you work for DOD?
I've worked for DigiTech/DOD since 1996.
@@TC-wr9pk No idea what those are supposed to be, we weren’t working on a chorus.
Excellent guitar choice to showcase the Gonkulator!
The dod is out of my price range so that answers the ethics for me and everything else.
That said what is the state of the afford a board. Are all of the pedals still obtainable?
@60 Cycle Hum Ahhhh, it's good to be back home (with a new handle) These pedals are almost music to my ears, lmao. They take perfectly good chord tones and make them into perfectly Hideous Chord tones. Maybe you should try playing some of the "Forbidden Hideous Chords" through them, Maybe they'll sound great! I mean, I doubt it, but it's worth a try. (re-subbed today) Thanks for once again making me smile and laugh!
Can't WAIT to try this thing out.
Who you gonna call? Gonkulator! 🎶”Gonkin makes me feel good…”😀
Cheap Sunglasses had a ring mod on it, and to me that had a fantastic tone
For a second I thought you might be the singer for the Spindoctors.
im still waiting for a miku clone
I’ve got a miku
Didn't surf all the comments to check, but that's not a trim pot there on the board. It's a clip that helps secure the PCB to the case.
I actually love it! I need to get one... I always wanted an SX Liquid but with two humbuckers in that color never was much of a P90 fan. I have to see your review on this one. I need to search your reviews, I have had great luck with the options from Rondo music SX, Douglas, Hadean and of course Agile. I just scored a Douglas Corvus (Jazzmaster clone) $100.00. I was blown away how good it was and like you I think the tail piece is the weak point. The humbuckers are amazing I thought someone swapped them but they are stock. Edit: I guess I did see the review in the SX.
Had the OG back in the 90's. Never could use it well but loved it somehow lol
Would love to have that Freq knob effect on an expression pedal
The strymon mobius has an effect called quadrature, you can set it up to be a ring mod with expression, you can also do an lfo and envelope.
Fairfield Circuitry makes a high quality ring modulator called Randy's Revenge. The CV /frequency can be controlled by an expression pedal. And it's a superior product to the ones in this video by far.
The lower oscillator frequencies create rich trem/vibe effects, excruciatingly slow or chopped up rhythmic flavours. As the frequency goes up, thick bells, tuned intervals, low-fidelity synth-like effects are only the beginning. Experimenting with the low-pass filter cutoff frequency and the dry/wet mix will yield tones as strange or subtle as desired.
Featuring expanded control voltage (CV) capabilities that allow for interactions beyond the simple stacking of effects, Randy can be used to control and be controlled by other CV capable devices. The stereo CV is switch-programmable for use with an expression pedal or as a 2-channel CV port. Both the oscillator and low-pass filter frequency are voltage-controllable. The internal oscillator is also available as an output, turning Randy into a stand-alone voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO).
@@UnitedEffect
I have a Randy's Revenge. Although it's not an effect I use a lot... when I do need or want certain sounds it can't be beat. So many options too! You definitely want the voltage control accessed by an expression pedal. The Gonkulator's okay as a starter... but it's mostly a distortion that has a bit of ring mod built in.
My initial reaction is the same as yours. It's unethical for a manufacturer to straight up repaint pedals they make for US brands and resell them at 1/4 of the price.
My second reaction is that it's also unethical for US brands to get their pedals manufactured in Asia for 3$ each to then resell them 150$ to broke teens and tonedeaf stepdads.
I think you're on point with "there is no ethical consumption in capitalism". Current DOD owners didn't spend a penny in R&D either for the Gonkulator. They bought a dead brand, then got already existing schematics manufactured at the other side of the world by the lowest bidder.
If it is indeed what it looks like, then Ginean are thieves, and DOD are crooks. As I see things, if I buy from Ginean, some DOD shareholders who had nothing to do whatsoever with these 70s pedals development lose a relatively microscopic amount of money, while if I buy from DOD I lose 100$ out of some imaginary moral obligation towards people who'd sell me sand in a desert without blinking once.
edit: just read the description, ofc the official DOD/OEM version is dumpster-diving. I'm not suprised one bit...
The entire purpose of any company is to make money. If you don't like their practices don't buy their products. It isn't difficult. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything from anyone. It's called capitalism. If you don't like it feel free to move to a socialist or communist country and let me know how much better it is. I'll wait.
It might not be useful at all on a live setting, but this type of pedals is as useful as it gets in sound design.
Every time i hear "gonkulator" it reminds me of an episode of Hogan's Heros
Wow some of the tones you got out of the OG Gonkulator reminded me of Silversun Pickups. Id have a ball with that little gem.
"This is what we're in for here."
Me... 💭 I would definitely use that sound...
Business 101 in China - There are no ethics, sales only matter. It's clearly a DOD factory that made some pedals using leftover DOD parts that they probably had left over as DOD was exiting the market. A similar thing happened in 2019 with the Kirkland 4 Pc golf ball at Costco a few years back when they used leftover Pro V-1 cores in a factory in Korea. They used a slightly different exterior and added the Kirkland branding of course, but when the balls we cut open the truth came out and the lawsuits began. The same thing apparently has happened here. Ryan's super sleuth skills are second to none 😆
My favorite Chinese clone story is when they reverse-engineered a bmw x5 and made their own version which was almost identical, and then bmw sued them and lost!
I find it ironic when US companies have a non-domestic company completely built their stuff for cheap then get mad when the actual manufacturer sells the exact same product at a lower price as an off brand. Then the US company is shocked, surprised and offended when this happens. Wake up.
@@sunn_bass Hypocrites with a capital H
All intellectual property in China becomes community property. I shed no tears for companies outsourcing for cheapness and then getting undercut themselves
Robert Oberheim invented Ring Modulation for his college thesis. It is pure math. Iirc it's PRODUCT divided by the SUM. ( I was hoping you'd run them in series) The Maestro RM1 was the first commercial unit available and the demo record did not do it justice. The RM1 has Control Voltage Input, and it opens a whole new world of production techniques! I used to plug a drum machine into to the RM1 and trigger it with the guitar through the CV-IN. Wow, Ryan get some great stuff out of this pair in stereo! Great job! I made a big mistake and loaned my Maestro RM1 to someone and never saw it again.
Just read what you wrote in the description and had to change what I'm going to say lol.
If DOD knows nothing about this then either the factory that makes the pedal for them (or someone there) has produced them "under the table" or someone has got ahold of the original and simply reverse engineered it.
If it was "dumpster diving" by someone from another factory in the area producing similar things, then they'd likely know already where all the parts have been sourced from and so would probably be able to produce such an exact clone relatively easily
Is the OEM claiming someone raided their garbage bin and stole the EXACT screws of the pedals?
Let's be honest. It sounds like DOD just got caught red-handed selling 40$ pedals at 4 times the price. Wich is what all these brands do, so I'm not against a little scandal to drive the prices down.
@@Clebardman If the bin was raided by someone local who worked in another factory producing similar things, they'd know exactly where to get the same screws, along with all the other parts.
Otherwise it's just as likely that someone working at the factory that produces the DOD pedals simply built a batch to sell under the table.
The Gonkulator is DOD's design, they can produce them wherever they want. If they don't know about this going on, they'd have a clear case to make over IP infringement
With any brand name pedal you are paying for that name. I've built a lot of pedals, for myself and others and most come out at around that $40USD cost to make in terms of parts. And that's sourcing the highest quality components and buying in small batches.
It's really only crazy high end stuff with digital aspects and lots of options that cost much more than that to make.
So yeah, your paying a markup for any brand name pedal you buy. What DOD is doing is hardly the most egregious example of it
@@danmc_2783 They'd have legit no need to get the same enclosures or screws. In fact, if it was indeed dumpster-diving, it would have been logical to CHANGE those things as to not make it more suspicious than it already is. Those are the same boards, the same pots, the same screws, the same enclosures. Those pedals 99.99% come out of the same factory.
I feel I also must point out that DOD isn't a person, DOD didn't design any pedals, DOD died and came back multiple times since those pedals were designed. I can pretty confidently say that nobody who gets a share of the sales at DOD had anything to do with develloping any of those pedals, so I'm really not feeling the ethical obligation to buy 150$ from them pedals that actually cost 10$ to produce and can be sold 40$ in a sustainable way for the manufacturer.
But here we're getting into a cultural clash, because the latin and anglo-saxon intellectual rights work very differently, and it's legit impossible for me to imagine anyone owning intellectual rights because they BOUGHT them. Which doesn't even matter because as I understand there is actually no intellectual property over circuits, and anyone can reproduce a pedal 1:1 and sell it without problems.
@@Clebardman I didn't argue that it didn't come out of the same factory, indeed I said that's probable. The Gonkulator is an original pedal. It's their design, no matter which individual created it. And the IP isn't in the circuit itself but in the layout and design of the board. Again, DOD owns that IP. I could make clones of other pedals all day but I'd have to design my own pcb etc. for it. It having the exact same PCB design and DOD not knowing about it is where the case is here
@@TC-wr9pk I meant DOD knowing as in approved by, not just that they know that someone is doing this
Great video for a great clone, always wanted a Gonk. I have a great diy analogue ring mod and a grunge, aparently the same distortion part of the Gonk. This is all in one tidy package though, gotta keep the board real-estate down.
Ive also just found out that Ginean do a Carcosa clone, the Hairy fuzz!
Damn thats a fine modern fuzz, as in, itll sit anywhere in your signal chain, not just the beginning and loves and hates(destroys) all signals at any strength, equally.
Damn what other Digitech clones are they doing from that great era?
Im on a pedal diet at present, seriously not reaching for my wallet, oh god I can hear the sound of the repo man coming up my garden path. Quick turn off the lights and cue the angry dogs tape.
great show - great comments as well - fascinating stuff folks thanks. DOD never impressed me, i liked their digitech branch more...
You did the stereo Gonkulator! Oh crap, I need a second one of these little green bastards?
If i was insane, would there be a way to connect the frequency control to an exp pedal and use it to manually change the ring as a crappy drone note? I know itd be impractical and probably awful, but...
I think you need a good ear to set the "freq" (carrier signal) to the right hz for what you're playing. It's almost like a microtonal harmoniser
Ohh, seriously is dope in stereo with correct ring notes set!
I've never understood why there aren't more auto-tuning Ringmods, it's not far off how some octaver pedals work IIRC. Even if the tracking is jammy it'd still be vastly better than just having to have a static drone.
It’s because the sum and difference of the input frequencies which is by definition what a ring mod does is naturally inharmonic… what you’re describing would not be a ring mod but just a weird pitch shifter… but I mean… yeah that could be cool
that's exactly what ring mod does on a Synthesiser, though. if it's combining an AM wave it's still ring modulation regardless of the pitch changing@@hollywood4834
Love your work mate!
I love my Gonkulator, and I actually want the green one as well haha. Also getting a Ringerbringer, but that's as a send effect on my mixer 😆
Btw, I wished you'd have adjusted that trimpot to the same positions, and then compared them again.
I almost feel like writing a Gonk song now. Could be fun.
There is another way of looking at the cloning thing. Here in the UK a Gonkulator is about £129 and the clone is £23.50. So what has DOD done to warrant charging over five times as much? The usual R&D argument doesn't apply as the circuitry is simply based on recommended applications in the data sheets for the various chips involved with very little tweaking and the board layouts would have been done in-house by the manufacturer.
Ethics aside, I think the deer graphic is so awesomely contradictory to the sound of the pedal I just ordered one for 30 bucks from Aliexpress!!!😂
I think the only 2 times a ring mod has sounded good, are the voice of the Daleks and the lead on Black Sabbaths Paranoid.
On a serious note, I work in marine electronics in the UK and asked why we manufacture PC boards in-house, not in China, the answer was the B#####s will copy them, and years of R&D go down the drain.
@ 16.55: "They're both Gonkulatin' - they're Gonkulatin' HARD, too!" Full marks for that one, sir!
Concerning practical uses for a ring modulator...when I got myself a few synths and sampler, I tried to emulate the calliope-type sound from Devo's "Jocko Homo", without success, no natter what - but when I plugged my BC Rich Ironbird through a ring modulator (first time I'd tried one at home) on the ultra-cheap ZOOM GFX707 pedal... it turns out IT WAS A GUITAR ALL ALONG!
Who'da thunk it?
mark m has an eh frequency analyzer duct taped to his guitar in the video. i had one, but the adapter falls out too easily , and breaks the signal. too bad because it soumds great.
Everyone should be able to afford to Gonk out!
Since the board has a different silkscreen, it's probably not stolen factory rejects or ghost shift parts. You'd also think DOD's production/quality engineers would notice if there's enough rejects to make a business around.
Ironically, it looks like the clone has the markings sanded off the ICs, which is done to - you guessed it - prevent cloning (or in some cases, to obfuscate the origin of stolen parts.)
You had me trying to reach in & plug em up to speed you up
Very interesting episode Ryan!
Hey Ryan I just wanted to say thank you!!!! Because of this review comparison I won’t have to spend $200+ AUSD. I’m probably not going to use it on my guitar or bass but I will be putting it on ny Keytar Pedalboard 🤘👽🤘.
I need one for my Kazoo board, don't I?
Thanks for letting the Two Princes thing play out! LOL I KNOW you hate it by now.
Perfect 80's synth pop tone. Perfect
Awesome video thanks man! Love the ginean hairy show fuzz which is a clone of the dod carcosa. Think this is going to be my next Ginean
. Would love to see a review of the four ginean mini pedals, they do distortion delay overdrive and another can’t remeber, not sure if they are clones of dod also?
, I think ethically grey area? But u can’t patent a small guitar pedal circuit so I have heard. And most pedals we buy from establish brands are a tweaked topology of a classic pedal with a few twists on it. So I’m thinking this is completely fine. I’m pretty sure Dunlop Dod boss etc can get by without my few quid and it appeals to my punky worldview kinda so have at it! Or this could potentially be a corruption of my moral standing due to having the budget for Ali express pedals only at the moment. lol
Just got the clone in the mail. I wish I could afford the D.O.D. but I got the crazy green one.
I know my friend Peter Steele from Brooklyn NY. We know each other from studio bouncing... my band was called Exit 13 a NYC based metal band..you hopped on the band wagon at the time with biohazard, anthrax, Ramones, corrosion of conformity, all NY based bands know and met each other..the glory years..... .He had one he used in the studio recording bloody kisses album. He was given this petal from another member of the circle of band friends...He used it on the bass guitar. It was a studio secret from the outside to know his gear ... Well he used it because he had a bond with the bottom end and it was very doomed sounding when you dragged the note after the measure and rest....like the song he cover "summer breeze". ....that's where you here the petal clearly ... It made his bass sound thicker and hide the fret buzzing from being detected on his bass. That's why Type O negative was never copyed to exact tone.
Why do you do this to me Ryan?!?!? I just bought one! Thanks.
They make a very cool, diverse Fuzz that's a clone of the Caracosa. Bought two!
What is the name of that Fuzz ?
@@Mr.Steve-O Hairy Show Fuzz
@@fernaliciousthanks, the Carcisa ys a great fuzz, being a modern take on the sound it can ho anywhere in the signal path and sound good with any type of signal.
I'll look at that.
On my channel i checked this out a few days to a week before anyone else on youtube had. Not a flex i literally did it because no one else checked it out at the time. Its nice to see someone more reputable with a budget to actually produce a decent video on it do it.
I didnt question why they cloned it. I was just glad it wasnt something cloned a billion times and rebranded kmise, cuvave, donner, azor caline whatever lol. I dont get why there are a billion muffs, or timmys, or 250. I mean to an extent. Different price points or whatever but i build pedals so.. i mean i can make a distortion plus for like 20 bucks myself. I didnt see a bunch of cheap ring mods and i used to have a frequencu analyzer i loved so when i saw a cheap pedal not commonly copied i jumped on it. Like if a company choose to clone a danelectro black coffee id buy it. Not because i love how a black coffee sounds but just simply because its something different.
thats exactly why i bought it, who the heck clones a gonkulator?
This could be right at home on a Flaming Lips,
Dukes of the Stratosphere, stoner doom rock, and you were only moments of away from Smoke on the Water to my ears... I'd love to hear what keyboard Bernie Worrell might have plugged it into!!
Bizarre pedal, great video. That circuit board does look exactly the same though.
I love all things gonk…… I play bass and am proud to be in a band with two great guitar players and we all gonk!
Worth getting to rebox and put the freq control on an exp jack
The Ginean Hairy Show Fuzz (DOD Carcosa) is pretty good, too.
So what does the trim pot do?
Looks like the “massive distortion” from this line is just a rebranded BoneShaker too.
Well this is interesting... I just impulse bought a Gonkulator from Reverb. Now I learn about this clone. Amazon has a "ChiMiao" branded clone that looks exactly like the green Ginian clone. Is it the same factory with a new name? Or a ripoff of a gray market clone? Maybe I'll get both and compare. Or just to have two.
Ordered this without being able to find anything about it and then get this recommended haha
Also had no idea is was a gonkulator
Gonked in stereo - may never be the same.
7:47 this is the point in the video when I went to AliExpress and bought one. I’ve bought things from them before, they are legitimate. Kind of. The price can’t be beat.
The Ginean board is dated April 2021. Is that about the time Harman gave up on DigiTech/DOD? The Cortek purchase was in April 2022, and they'd been running down stock for months, maybe a year, before that. Everything must have ground to a halt for a while. Even if the OEM management wasn't involved, it might have been a moment that somebody thought nobody would care if a copy of the CAD files went home with them.
I watched an AliExpress seller's inventory of this pedal drop from 300+ just hours after this video released to sold out a day later.
If you want a ring mod to compliment what key you're in you need to play a major scale. Ideally pentatonic. So tuning it to c would have made A blues licks sound better.
I'm... the way this makes me feel is possibly very odd... becuase wow I need this.
The clone gonk is now available on Ebay, well UK and Australian Ebay anyway.
It looks like a Moogoo pedal. They make counterfeits though most are not renamed. Their OCD is white with Fulltone printed across the pedal. They also did a Maxon EQ. Moogoo appear to make Mosky and DemonFX. The modulator comes in the same casing they used for the Fulltone pedal. Some of the Moogoo pedals even clone the board so if Fulltone had a name or whatever on the board so would the counterfeit.
You can not sue for circuits. You never could. For a Short time you could but you would get a garage door opener guy making a circuit for switching but a pedal guy could by logic use that same circuit never having seen the product and get a law suit. The Greer Light Speed is a Timmy v.2 with 2 parts having a bit more voltage but the actual circuit is identical. Brian Wampler did a video converting a Boss SD-1 into a Tube screamer by merely taking out a couple of parts that took maybe 3 to 5 minute's. The Big Muff EQ circuit is used as an EQ in pedals that are not even a Fuzz. It came from a popular Radio circuit although guy making pedals now never touch a radio but learn from a Muff.
- Theorie -
They bought the discontinued revision 0 boards and shoved them in overstock enclosures.
They probably can't actually produce the boards from scratch. These will most likely be gone when they're gone.
These are most likely legit Version 0 Gonk reissue boards, bought on the open market, so DOD made their money either way in that case. In fact, they did great because otherwise, they were going in the trash
I might be wrong but I thought that while schematics are not copyright(able), PCB artwork IS copyright(able) - so it might be legal to design and produce your own PCB design of a schematic for some other companies pedal but not to just wholesale copy the PCB 'artwork'. At least if you had to design the PCB artwork and test it then there was some effort put in. The soldering and finish of the PCB in the clone looked a bit messier than the DOD so seems unlikely to be produced on the same line but that aside, part of what you pay for with the original is warranty and customer support both of which I would expect to be much better from DOD.
I have 2 Ginean pedals, one called Massive Overdrive and one called Factory Fuzz. The Massive Overdrive is a DOD Boneshaker and the Factory Fuzz is a DOD Carcosa. The artwork on the Massive Overdrive is what sold me though, hot pink pedal with unicorns.
I now feel the urge to make a Ginean pedalboard
Have you been able to decipher whether any of them are a DOD 250? I actually came across this Gonkulator clone while trying to figure out which 250 clone was the best bet on Aliexpress. Of course now I want the ringmod too lol
Factory fuzz?? U mean Ginean Hairy Show Fuzz??
@@leonruvalcaba1549 Both Factory Fuzz and Hairy show are the same pedal but with different artwork (the Factory Fuzz is more inline with the modulator as it has an adorable goat on the front).
@@leonruvalcaba1549 they do at least two fuzzes, I'm not sure if they are the same or not, but mine's orange and called the Factory Fuzz
Where do I get that distortion without the modulator?
DOD Grunge
Doesn't even sound close to me@@efreeteater2270
Stereo Bass VI is siiiick!!!!
I love the shape of the afforda-guitar lol its like a star fish!
I love you and your Princeton rig jingle that lives rent free in my head.
The copy gonk has been on reverb too in the last year and a half at times too.