Bad Device Chain Challenge

Background

The "Bad Device Chain" Challenge comes from a long-past discussion we had with friends while we were teenagers. There were a number of bad pedals, but the one that was given the high honor of "the worst" (actually the word used was "sh****est") but we aim to keep this a "relatively clean" site.

And the pedal that was "the worst", in our estimation, is/was the DOD Performer 555-A Distortion. It sounded like a fart machine. The pedal's aesthetics were horrible, aka: It was possibly the ugliest pedal you could buy. It felt as heavy as a brick. It took two 9-volt batteries and STILL sounded worse than pedals that only used *1* 9-volt battery. It was physically poorly designed, with a battery door that would intermittently fall off. By the time we had gotten around to agreeing that making "Sh***y!" was a good idea, the battery door had already fallen off so many times that it was lost. The failure to design a decent enclosure was compounded by an 18-volt AC power adapter that required a 1/4" jack - same size plug as an instrument cord. And of course, the pedal needed an LED power indicator because it was (except for the sound changing, of course) otherwise impossible to tell if the pedal was "on" by engaging the pedal!

After musing it over with friends, the idea was to take this pedal and record a badly written, unmelodic, uninspired, and mediocre-sounding song called "Sh***y!". The only vocals would be someone yelling "Sh***y!" at various random times when the chords would stop so someone could yell "Sh***y!". Looking back, we thought it would be fun to write a tribute to the pedal that befit the pedal's inherent qualities.

The attempt at getting "Sh***y!" written and recorded was as half-hearted as the idea for the song.

By the time there was actually any real impetus to get the song started, the wires that connected the 9-volt batteries (2 of them, remember!) to the rest of the pedal had broken.

The 555-A Distortion was dead.

Therefore the idea for making "Sh***y!" was dead.

The Challenge

But lo these many years later, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of a previous defeat, we have a new and conceptually superior challenge. It's simple: Write and perform a really-good sounding song using the crappiest-sounding equipment possible. We call for all people who are suitably inspired to create great sounding songs while limiting yourselves to the worst-sounding equipment:

• bad-sounding instruments
• inferior pickups
• crappy-sounding effects
• fizzy, low-fi, or cheap no-name amplifiers that you might find at Goodwill...
• cheap microphones

All connectors must work. Bad cords do not contribute to helping crummy instruments/effects/amps sounding crummy. Therefore parts of a performance "dropping out" due to broken or bad cords fail the challenge.

And yes, we have found, via eBay, another DOD Performer 555-A Distortion. We even have the battery cover and all wires. And we also have the stupidly-designed 1/4" 18-volt power cord. Plus, if the battery wires to the pedal break, we now have a soldering station and knowledge to fix them.

But we need your suggestions as to the crappiest musical equipment. We'll try and get the absolutely worst pieces.