Electro Harmonix HOG

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jckinnick
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Electro Harmonix HOG

Post by jckinnick » Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:38 pm

Anybody fooled with one of these? They look interesting.

kayagum
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Post by kayagum » Sun Jun 17, 2007 7:18 pm

If you couldn't figure out the issue with your last thread, you surely can't handle this device. Learn the basics first.

Besides, if you're messing around with converter cables, you can't afford this.

Sorry to be crabby, but you asked, and I've had beer....

jckinnick
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Post by jckinnick » Sun Jun 17, 2007 7:25 pm

I make plenty of money. And youve got to learn somewhere.

Knights Who Say Neve
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Post by Knights Who Say Neve » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:15 pm

It sounds like crap. Cool idea, though.
"What you're saying is, unlike all the other writers, if it was really new, you'd know it was new when you heard it, and you'd love it. <b>That's a hell of an assumption</b>". -B. Marsalis

thethingwiththestuff
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Post by thethingwiththestuff » Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:01 am

yeah, me and my bandmates have become pretty bored with our guitarist's use of it. its kind of a lame pedal.

kayagum
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Post by kayagum » Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:29 am

Back on topic (sorry for the crabby post before)....


I've messed around with it at the store, and as far as I can tell, you can make your guitar sound like a pipe organ or some weird ambient pad.

The freeze chord can be useful, but probably better (and cheaper) to use a looping pedal.

I think this would be more useful with the expression pedal (which I didn't get a chance to use).

From a vibe standpoint, it's got art rock written all over it, and not necessarily in a good way. I guess I would need more time with it, and I don't have $500 burning a hole in my pocket right now.

takeout
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Post by takeout » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:59 am

I don't have a HOG, but I do have a POG, which I use to get a fake Hammond sound on bass to cover keyboard parts. I might experiment with faking a 12-string guitar out of it, but other than that?

KennyLusk
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Post by KennyLusk » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:47 am

just my 2 cents but for less than the price of a hog you can score a 90's digitech rp-12 that has the same effect and includes a very cool footcontroller. line that signal thru a tube pre and it's golden.
"The mushroom states its own position very clearly. It says, "I require the nervous system of a mammal. Do you have one handy?" Terrence McKenna

DGoody
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Post by DGoody » Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:38 pm

FWIW, I have both the POG and HOG, and they're incredibly powerful if you take a moment and learn them, and experiment. I think we tend to get too used to instant gratification, and expect something to do something cool out of the box.....

I've done things like reamp vocals through either pedal to ever so slightly futz with the vocal sound without being overwheming.... ie-octave shifts and freezing notes for effect and layering - to over the top shit that' borderline useless....


Either way, these are good pieces of kit that simply require care and attention to their potential...

GooberNumber9
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Post by GooberNumber9 » Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:33 pm

I gotta +1 DGoody on the HOG verdict. I played around with one for about an hour in a store not long ago. The first 20 minutes was messing around and not being able to understand why anyone would pay so much for it. The last 40 minutes was spent cackling madly while making some really amaszing and non-guitar-like sounds and sitting firmly on my wallet. I think I scared other patrons with how much I liked that thing.

I managed to not spend crazy amounts of money on a pedal that wouldn't fit on my pedalboard that day, but just barely.

To each his or her own,

Todd Wilcox

Knights Who Say Neve
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Post by Knights Who Say Neve » Thu Jun 21, 2007 12:15 am

DGoody wrote:FWIW, I have both the POG and HOG, and they're incredibly powerful if you take a moment and learn them, and experiment. I think we tend to get too used to instant gratification, and expect something to do something cool out of the box.....
You're implying that people who don't like these boxes have short attention spans. Perhaps you should rethink that. Perhaps they tried the HOG several times, for 20-40 minutes each time, wanting to like the box each time, but in the end just not able to get past the bizzare insectoid whine it puts out. That was certainly the case with me. If you like that sound, cool. I didn't, but not for lack of experimentation or out of some necessity for instant gratification.

[/i]
"What you're saying is, unlike all the other writers, if it was really new, you'd know it was new when you heard it, and you'd love it. <b>That's a hell of an assumption</b>". -B. Marsalis

lg
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Post by lg » Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:04 pm

Knights Who Say Neve wrote:
DGoody wrote:FWIW, I have both the POG and HOG, and they're incredibly powerful if you take a moment and learn them, and experiment. I think we tend to get too used to instant gratification, and expect something to do something cool out of the box.....
You're implying that people who don't like these boxes have short attention spans. Perhaps you should rethink that. Perhaps they tried the HOG several times, for 20-40 minutes each time, wanting to like the box each time, but in the end just not able to get past the bizzare insectoid whine it puts out. That was certainly the case with me. If you like that sound, cool. I didn't, but not for lack of experimentation or out of some necessity for instant gratification.

[/i]
i'd have to side with DGoody, wih the caveat that i haven't actually played around with this particular pedal- HOWEVER there are a number of things i've bought in the past that i could say pretty much the same things about- i.e. a bit underwhelming at first, but after actually bringing them home and working with them (sometimes over the span of weeks or months) i've gotten to know what it is they do that i like, and only then do i make a judgement about their relative value to me. some things don't make the cut, and i get rid of them, but that's the exception rather than the rule, because you never know when that little sansamp (for example) might come in handy. now this isn't a cheap box, and for the price one might hope to be blown away from the get-go. like i said, i haven't tried it.

fwiw, i had an experience just last night- we were tracking some bass and i suggested using my valvotronics tube DI in addition to going straight into the preamp my friend had brought over- that way we could mix to taste (we were supposed to be recording with a head & cab too but that's another story). anyway, i patched everything in, and for some reason we weren't getting a very hot signal coming out of the DI (maybe impedences were out of whack, whatever), but the result was that my friend said fairly quickly, "look, let's just go straight into the presonus, and not worry about that extra channel". it was hard to argue at that point, because i wasn't running the session, but i know for a fact that the valvotronics is a sweet box (and has sounded quite good on other occasions) and with a little tweaking probably would have been an excellent addition to the sound. nevertheless, we didn't give it a chance. all i'm saying is that more often than not it's not the gear but what you do with it, and some things just take longer to unfold.

as for the guy who said his bandmates got tired of their guitarist's use of the HOG, well...maybe time to think about a different guitarist- anyone who gets too far into a particular sound or effect to the point they can't hear its monotony- that seems like the fault of the player, not the equipment.

Knights Who Say Neve
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Post by Knights Who Say Neve » Thu Jun 21, 2007 3:07 pm

lg wrote:
Knights Who Say Neve wrote:
DGoody wrote:FWIW, I have both the POG and HOG, and they're incredibly powerful if you take a moment and learn them, and experiment. I think we tend to get too used to instant gratification, and expect something to do something cool out of the box.....
You're implying that people who don't like these boxes have short attention spans. Perhaps you should rethink that. Perhaps they tried the HOG several times, for 20-40 minutes each time, wanting to like the box each time, but in the end just not able to get past the bizzare insectoid whine it puts out. That was certainly the case with me. If you like that sound, cool. I didn't, but not for lack of experimentation or out of some necessity for instant gratification.

[/i]
i'd have to side with DGoody, wih the caveat that i haven't actually played around with this particular pedal- HOWEVER there are a number of things i've bought in the past that i could say pretty much the same things about- i.e. a bit underwhelming at first, but after actually bringing them home and working with them (sometimes over the span of weeks or months) i've gotten to know what it is they do that i like, and only then do i make a judgement about their relative value to me. some things don't make the cut, and i get rid of them, but that's the exception rather than the rule, because you never know when that little sansamp (for example) might come in handy. now this isn't a cheap box, and for the price one might hope to be blown away from the get-go. like i said, i haven't tried it.

fwiw, i had an experience just last night- we were tracking some bass and i suggested using my valvotronics tube DI in addition to going straight into the preamp my friend had brought over- that way we could mix to taste (we were supposed to be recording with a head & cab too but that's another story). anyway, i patched everything in, and for some reason we weren't getting a very hot signal coming out of the DI (maybe impedences were out of whack, whatever), but the result was that my friend said fairly quickly, "look, let's just go straight into the presonus, and not worry about that extra channel". it was hard to argue at that point, because i wasn't running the session, but i know for a fact that the valvotronics is a sweet box (and has sounded quite good on other occasions) and with a little tweaking probably would have been an excellent addition to the sound. nevertheless, we didn't give it a chance. all i'm saying is that more often than not it's not the gear but what you do with it, and some things just take longer to unfold.
Right, but for 450 dollars maybe it should do something out of the box that doesn't sound like shit. I've bought and sold and used a fair amount of stuff and out of necessity have gotten fairly good at knowing what I like and what I don't like. That rather hard-won ability is not a result of a short attention span. It's the result of experience.

BUT, if YOU like it, YOU like it, and that's fine with me. My objection is to the idea that not liking it is somehow indicative of a desire for instant gratification. That's bullshit.
"What you're saying is, unlike all the other writers, if it was really new, you'd know it was new when you heard it, and you'd love it. <b>That's a hell of an assumption</b>". -B. Marsalis

lg
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Post by lg » Thu Jun 21, 2007 3:40 pm

Knights Who Say Neve wrote:Right, but for 450 dollars maybe it should do something out of the box that doesn't sound like shit.
i don't know where the line is drawn that anything over a certain price ought to make angels spit gold straight out of the box. having said that, i'll go try it and if i think it sounds like shit, i'll buy you a beer next time you're in town, whattya say?

this reminds me a bit of rick walker's 'meditations on the awful sounds of the alesis SR-16 drum machine':

http://www.loopers-delight.com/LDarchiv ... 00484.html

Knights Who Say Neve
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Post by Knights Who Say Neve » Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:40 am

As bad as it sounds to me, I'm sure somebody will do something cool with it.
"What you're saying is, unlike all the other writers, if it was really new, you'd know it was new when you heard it, and you'd love it. <b>That's a hell of an assumption</b>". -B. Marsalis

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