# Dot on Shaft Pedals???



## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Anyone tried one of these? I noticed their phaser on ebay but I cannot find any samples or reviews on the net.

The price is right, but I have a feeling there _is_ a reason they are so cheap.

TG


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Thanks Jordan,

Your experience is pretty much what I expected. I may as well save the cash and put it towards something good. OTOH, I'm still a bit tempted since sometimes you find one pedal in a cheapy line that is really good.

TG





jroberts said:


> I bought one of their analog delays off of E-Bay for about $35. The build quality is really good. Very solid metal casing. Nice and heavy. The sound? Not so great. There is a distinct metallic ringing sound in the repeats. For $35 I didn't really expect it to sound that great, though. I just bought it as a project, to rip it open, mess around with and mod. Hell, the casing is probably worth $35. Maybe I'll build myself an overdrive or fuzz or something and put it in that case.
> 
> The guy who runs the company is really nice. He shipped quickly, packed well, followed up to make sure I got it, and included a free set of Dot on Shaft strings. I almost feel bad for him that it doesn't sound that great. I hope he does well, but it won't be on the strength of the sound quality of that delay pedal.


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## Yerffej (Feb 7, 2006)

jroberts said:


> I bought one of their analog delays off of E-Bay for about $35. The build quality is really good. Very solid metal casing. Nice and heavy. The sound? Not so great. There is a distinct metallic ringing sound in the repeats. For $35 I didn't really expect it to sound that great, though. I just bought it as a project, to rip it open, mess around with and mod. Hell, the casing is probably worth $35. Maybe I'll build myself an overdrive or fuzz or something and put it in that case.
> 
> The guy who runs the company is really nice. He shipped quickly, packed well, followed up to make sure I got it, and included a free set of Dot on Shaft strings. I almost feel bad for him that it doesn't sound that great. I hope he does well, but it won't be on the strength of the sound quality of that delay pedal.


you can get hammond boxes at an electronics store for like $7.00. (for next time)


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## nine (Apr 23, 2006)

jroberts said:


> I almost feel bad for him that it doesn't sound that great. I hope he does well, but it won't be on the strength of the sound quality of that delay pedal.


I wouldn't feel too bad for him. He gets cheap shit built in china with his logo on it for fifty cents and then sells it over here for 35 bucks. I'm sure he's doing alright. Heh heh.


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## GuitarmanBlue (Aug 1, 2006)

jroberts said:


> I bought one of their analog delays off of E-Bay for about $35. The build quality is really good. Very solid metal casing. Nice and heavy. The sound? Not so great. There is a distinct metallic ringing sound in the repeats. For $35 I didn't really expect it to sound that great, though. I just bought it as a project, to rip it open, mess around with and mod. Hell, the casing is probably worth $35. Maybe I'll build myself an overdrive or fuzz or something and put it in that case.
> 
> The guy who runs the company is really nice. He shipped quickly, packed well, followed up to make sure I got it, and included a free set of Dot on Shaft strings. I almost feel bad for him that it doesn't sound that great. I hope he does well, but it won't be on the strength of the sound quality of that delay pedal.





Had exactly the same thing happen to me. I also bought the delay & altho' the price was great, it didn't do it for me & I kept my Danecho instead (for now). I actually sold it to my bass player & didn't lose any money luckily.
These are Chinese knockoffs & unfortunately sound as cheap as they cost.

Mike is a really good guy to deal with & the guitars he also sells look really nice & are getting pretty good reviews but I just can't get past the made in China thing.


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## Scottone (Feb 10, 2006)

GuitarmanBlue said:


> Had exactly the same thing happen to me. I also bought the delay & altho' the price was great, it didn't do it for me & I kept my Danecho instead (for now). I actually sold it to my bass player & didn't lose any money luckily.
> These are Chinese knockoffs & unfortunately sound as cheap as they cost.
> 
> Mike is a really good guy to deal with & the guitars he also sells look really nice & are getting pretty good reviews but I just can't get past the made in China thing.


I can't help but think these might be tweakable into something that sounds good. Maybe one of the DIY pedal gurus will come up with something.


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## jcon (Apr 28, 2006)

GuitarmanBlue said:


> Mike is a really good guy to deal with & the guitars he also sells look really nice & are getting pretty good reviews but I just can't get past the made in China thing.


FWIW, most of his guitars come from Korea...

Cheers,
Joe


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## Scottone (Feb 10, 2006)

jroberts said:


> That's exactly what I was thinking when I put a bid in on one on a whim.
> 
> I already have one mod I recommend for it - the "name badge mod". As soon as you take it out of the box, rip the "Dot on Shaft" name badge off. It cleans the pedal up nicely by getting rid of that terrible name.


lol....ya gotta wonder where that name came from


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## torndownunit (May 14, 2006)

Ya I don't want to knock the guy because I think he uses the forums, but that is without a doubt the worst product name I have ever heard. I honestly could never play a guitar with that written on the headstock.


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## DotOnShaft (May 2, 2006)

*The Worse the Better*

THank You for the compliment. It does have a bad tone to it don't it? People make fun of it all day, but at the end of the day, people are talking about it and have a good chuckle. Did over 300K in first year of business. Sold over 700 Guitars since January 2006. 

“The Dot On Shaft name is incredibly significant to me because it represents principles that are near and dear to my heart and beliefs that I choose to live by. My wife Natalie and I try our best to run this company the same way we approach day to day life. We strive to be independent from the rest, innovative in ideology, intelligent in thought and iconic in stature. A common characteristic between each of these values is the letter i which is nothing more than a dot on a shaft when examined more closely. Many conclude that the name refers to the dot markers on the shafts of our high quality guitars but for us that perception is just a nice complimentary tie to our steadily growing business!”


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## Hamm Guitars (Jan 12, 2007)

I don't see the problem with the name - am I missing a joke here?

I build, import and sell guitars myself so in the past 15 months I have been doing my homework on the whole guitar industry. Most of you would be suprised to find out how few of the guitars that you assume are made in North America really are truely made here. The government of China actually subsidizes musical instrument factories (among other manufacturers) so there is no way any company paying North American wages can compete with them. Indonesia, Korea and a few other overseas manufacturers are also selling guitars for cheaper than we can make them here.

So where does that leave us? Mike mentions on his website that he has spent alot of time and money sourcing out his products, I can assure you that this is not easy. I have spent thousands of dollars on sample orders from overseas guitar manufactures only to find out that 80% are pushing out total crap. Some of them look good, but have serious design flaws. Others look bad but play O.K., and alot of them are just plain bad. There is also a huge problem in getting something that is not a direct rip-off of another manufacturers guitar - possibly made at the exact same factory.

I am assuming that Mike's company does the same thing that I do, find a manufacturer that is willing to work with you and make a good quality product. Even after you arrive in this situation, you still have to reject 15% of every shipment due to damage or inconsistent quality. Every guitar has to be inspected, possibly modified to suit your needs, set up and intonated before it goes to market. The last thing you need is for a bad product with your name on it to reach the market.

The pedals that are being refered to here were sold at a reasonable price, I could see ripping into the company if they were overcharging for them but they didn't do that. Everything that I have heard about Mike and his company has been very positive, you have to respect that. He has no problem admitting that the delay pedal isn't all it's cracked up to be, so at least He's honest about it. 

For the record, I have never met Mike and have nothing to do with his company, DotOnShaft. I just believe in giving credit where it's due.


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## Agata0023 (Mar 15, 2007)

How is the flanger? I've been thinking of getting one. Anyone have a review? Thanks.


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## Guest (May 24, 2007)

jroberts said:


> Check this out...
> 
> http://www.analogman.com/delay.htm
> 
> That is the Analogman delay pedal that people are clamouring to get ahold of. Looks just like a Dot on Shaft analog delay with a few cosmetic changes. They are obviously sourcing them from the same supplier. I guess they do make for quite a good pedal if modded properly.


That's freaking _HILARIOUS_.

So Mike: is it the same on the inside? Or just a coincidence Analog Man ended up using the same enclosure?


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

if the pedal really isnt htat great, i'd buy the D.O.S. pedal, a dano pedal, rehouse the dano in the DOS, and then sell the rehoused DOS.

im sure with a few simple changes the DOS pedals would sound pretty sweet


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I was fortunate enough to win Last Month's giveaway draw. One if the items was a Dot on Shaft pedal. I picked the flanger.


I tried it in the effects loop of my new tonelab LE at rehearsal and was so impressed with it that I decided to use it at a gig this past Saturday, even though the Tonelab has a nice flanger built in.


Well, in all honesty it's a VERY nice sounding flanger. I've had many of the well known makes and this is as good as any I can recall and in fact is much quieter than several I've had.

It reminds me a bit of the Electric Mistress or ADA, but is quieter than either.


I was expecting a piece of junk like the Behringer delay I bought on a whim.

I can't comment on any on the other Dos pedals, but this one rocks!


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## Kapo_Polenton (Jun 20, 2007)

Well if we are moaning about delays, I don't like the BYOC delay I built that is supposed to model the old analog pink pedals. I also kick myself for having traded my DD-3 which at the time i never used for a used blues driver and still paying tax lol. The BYOC in my opinion does not handle gain well. If you want to play pink floyd and self oscilate its cool, if ya wanna get some hard rock delay, don't bother. I should probably just go back to the DD-3 and actually use it this time. Its been on Shenker's pedal board for years for a reason i suppose. 

In my opinion , it would be nice if dot on shaft could get into a classic line like teles and strat style guitars. Maybe they have them and i missed them. The company name is a bit odd but then again, you won't be reading the name on the headstock when you listen to it.


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## cohenj (Feb 7, 2006)

*Dot on Shaft?*

I appreciate that Mr. Dot on Shaft is a decent fellow and that he's bringing in decent imports and selling them at a fair price. 

The thing I don't get is the name of his company. To me "Dot on Shaft" is something discussed only between a man and his doctor, just before the pennicillin shot is administered.




Jeff


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Milkman said:


> I was fortunate enough to win Last Month's giveaway draw. One if the items was a Dot on Shaft pedal. I picked the flanger.
> 
> 
> I tried it in the effects loop of my new tonelab LE at rehearsal and was so impressed with it that I decided to use it at a gig this past Saturday, even though the Tonelab has a nice flanger built in.
> ...


Hey, I know who makes that pedal. The design is unmistakable. 35$ or so for his pedals? Great price. That's about what these sell for here in Korea (prices from the largest Korean online music store: 32 for an overdrive, 39 for a flanger, 42 for a chorus, etc). Whoops...Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Sorry if his prices go up. 

I love looking at the Dot-on-Shaft site because I can often guess which factory makes his gear (and it's the good ones, too). 

PS. If any of you are interested in getting a guitar custom made, give him a call and ask about the Kraken guitars.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Take a gander at the schematics for most of the amplifiers produced in the early to mid-1950s. The vast majority will look alike, largely because there are certain things you absolutely HAVE to do if you're using a 5Y3 rectifier tube, 6V6 output tuve and some sort of simple preamp. Indeed, many of the early designers took their designs straight out of what passed for application notes at the time (e.g., Radio Tube Handbook).

The same is largely true of many effects these days, whether they come from DOS, Daphon, Johnson, Behringer, and a truckload of other pedal-makers. Once you decide to make a chorus pedal, you're pretty much sucked into using the Matsushita (or currently the Cool Audio) chipset, a 2-opamp LFO, 3-4 poles of lowpass filtering built around a transistor before the delay chip and after, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. In other words, while there is some room for small differences, design-wise these puppies are going to end up being VERY similar to each other. Take a look at a few dozen schematics for commercial phasers, flangers, and delays, and with very little exception, they will pretty much all use a single FET, switched with a 2-transistor flip-flop to lift the wet signal from a mixing stage and "cancel" the effect. For the most part, differences will be in build quality, chassis type, and perhaps feature set.

Again, I don't say this to slag these pedal-makers, any more than I would slag Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, and everyone else making a 5W Class A amp in 1954. Some aspects of the circuit are simply compelled by the nature of the circuit and core components, and it is hard for manufacturers to establish some sort of distinctive personality on top of that.

Indeed, the vast majority of pedals ARE currently manufactured in China. It IS one big friggin' country with a lot of skilled workers who can apply that skill for much less than North American workers. Moreover, while use of through-hole components and conventional PCBs is something that a guy can still do here in his basement, once you decide to make the move to surface-mount, that tends to push you towards approaching assembly facilities in Asia that can do that for you. You can pretty much bet that if a pedal costs less than $100, the chances are very good that it was made in China.

I've known designer RG Keen for over 15 years, and some comments he e-mailed me when production of the Visual Sound Workhorse amps started up in China were quite interesting. While stuffing circuit boards with high quality control was no problem whatsoever to the labourers there, with no real native rock culture, and little sense of what the amps were supposed to sound like to the ears of musicians, he found himself having to go over and tutor the folks building the amps on tone. That is, I suppose, yet one more reason why any use of Asian manufacturing facilities/labour tends to necessitate a fairly standardized approach to design; if you had to rely on tuning a circuit by ear, you'd be kind of stuck. Consequently, pedals made by Asian jobbers tend to be conservative in design, and the sort of thing a completely unmusical person can paint by numbers, so to speak. Not a sin, really. I can't imagine the legendary Abigail Ybarra is any sort of guitar slinger and tone-meister even though she winds/wound pickups for the greats, and I can't imagine everyone at Peavey in any of their southern plants who puts tolex on amps is a walking Bob Thiele either.

Incidentally, Asian jobbers that crank out pedals under different manufacturer names is far from a recent phenomenon. The Univox Superfuzz appeared under at least a half dozen manufacturer names that I know of, and even something as seemingly idiosyncratic as the Mutron envelope filter seems to have been produced under around a half-dozen licensed names. I had a "Funky Filter" (bought in 1978 for $25 from Pongetti Music in Hamilton) and had absolutely *no* idea it was really a Mutron. http://filters.muziq.be/model/musitronics/mutron3

Finally, many of the review comments one sees about pedals tend to be based on the reviewer's experience with one copy of pedal X and one copy of pedal Y. In a world of 5% tolerance resistors and 10-20% tolerance caps, there can be more than enough variation in pedal performance that the reviewer may mistakenly be thinking that pedal X is noisier or more whatever than pedal Y, when they are really comparing an example of each. Though quality control has increased dramatically in the last 25 years (and you certainly would NOT have seen 1% resistors in anything made before 1980), there is still some pedal-to-pedal variation to be expected. Ironically, though you would think component tolerance, multiplied by the number of components used for a pedal would make the more complex designs more variable, it tends to be the case that the simplest designs (e.g., Fuzz Face derivatives) show more pedal-topedal variation, simply because in a simple design each component, and differences between them, matters.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

mhammer said:


> That is, I suppose, yet one more reason why any use of Asian manufacturing facilities/labour tends to necessitate a fairly standardized approach to design; if you had to rely on tuning a circuit by ear, you'd be kind of stuck. Consequently, pedals made by Asian jobbers tend to be conservative in design, and the sort of thing a completely unmusical person can paint by numbers, so to speak.


Sure... If you say so...

http://www.moollon.com/default_e.asp

http://www.ultimateguitargear.com/tone_party_reviews_moollon.htm


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## 1PUTTS (Sep 8, 2007)

I have a DOS Overdrive and it sounds great to me. To each his/her own, I guess. That's probably why there's 15 gajillion different types of pedals available. Try many, use what you like and sell the rest.


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## NB_Terry (Feb 2, 2006)

iaresee said:


> That's freaking _HILARIOUS_.
> 
> So Mike: is it the same on the inside? Or just a coincidence Analog Man ended up using the same enclosure?


The Analogman delay is a tweaked Daphon. He describes the whole process here; Check the history section.

http://www.analogman.com/delay.htm


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

NB-SK said:


> Sure... If you say so...
> 
> http://www.moollon.com/default_e.asp
> 
> http://www.ultimateguitargear.com/tone_party_reviews_moollon.htm


I'm talking about the pedals you see showing up for $14.99 or $29.99, not the higher-priced stuff you see. It is ENTIRELY possible to get your boards stuffed in China, shipped back and tweaked to perfection here. It is also possible, if you have small production runs, to have a few trained people who KNOW how to take a wave-soldered SMT board that someone who could give a crap about music has assembled, and turn out a decent product from China with North American or Eurpoean guidance. If I have misconveyed that the labourers are too dumb, I apologize. What I am intending to convey is that if you don't have a long enough culture of anything in a particular place, it is difficult to find people with the skill and knowledge who can tell when something needs refinement or a few design changes. I have yet to find anyone west of Winnipeg or East of Montreal who has the foggiest idea about how to make a decent rye bread, so it isn't just pedals, and it isn't just China.

Incidentally, unadventurous does not automatically imply bad-sounding. As cheap and conventional as they are, many folks have been very pleasantly surprised by the Danelectro FAB series.

As for the Daphon/Analogman connection, that's not really anything different than Robert Keeley does, or any of a number of after-market pedal specialists. Very often, existing well-made commercial products come sooooooo close to being replicas of some more desirable classic with a more musical tone or set of features that it makes little sense to invest the time reinventing the wheel by arranging for a different chassis or board layout. Not really any different than that amazing casserole your mom used to make using a can of Campbell's mushroom soup or whatever.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

mhammer said:


> What I am intending to convey is that if you don't have a long enough culture of anything in a particular place, it is difficult to find people with the skill and knowledge who can tell when something needs refinement or a few design changes. I have yet to find anyone west of Winnipeg or East of Montreal who has the foggiest idea about how to make a decent rye bread, so it isn't just pedals, and it isn't just China.


European guidance, lack of refinement? That argument is a bit ethnocentric, don't you think?

Besides, some Chinese factories have probably made guitar pedals for over 2 decades.

PS. No decent rye bread west of Winnipeg or east of Montreal? You haven't looked very hard.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Ethnocentric? I don't think so. It would be ethnocentric if I thought and indeed racist if I thought they couldn't learn how. Clearly there IS a tradition of effect manufacturing in a variety of Asian and Pacific rim countries, but to hear folks talk about it, the factories where pedals and other music products are being made in China these days are NOT established facilities. We are NOT talking about places like the old Parsons Street facility where Gibson products were made from WW I. We are talking about entire manufacturing cities of hundreds of thousands of people that have simply appeared within the last 5 years. The folks who populate those factories have migrated from elsewhere in China, and in contrast to the folks who come up with domestic designs (and most traditional and cutting edge things do tend to come from North America, Europe, and Japan, where there IS a club scene and live rock) may well have NO experience whatsoever going to a club and hearing a band actually USE equipment like that. Someone recently posted a link to an audio writer's video tour of the Behringer facility. If you thought that Lavalin-Bombardier or the Oakville Ford plant or Oshawa GM plant were big deals, you should see this place. It goes on and on and on, and includes residences for all the labourers that have relocated there.

My point is that when production relies on simply following directions, rather than following a tone in your head, the reasonable expectation is that the design will be on the conservative side of the spectrum rather than the adventurous. The other factor is that when the profit margin is so slim that you are relying almost entirely on high volume sales to generate revenue, you aim for the lowest common denominator, rather than accepting that your market is a highly defined niche. That's the same business strategy whether you are selling $1.29 burgers or $15 pedals.

As for rye bread, I've looked. I have lived in St. John's, Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Ottawa, Hamilton, Edmonton, and Victoria. I've even transported Ottawa rye to bakers in those outlying areas for them to learn from. I stand by my geographical boundaries of where decent rye bread can be found. It's not an ideological stance. Once upon a time you could not get decent bagels outside of Montreal, but the "knowledge" seems to have found its way out and extremely good bagels can now be found in many places. Sadly, not so for rye bread. (And for the uninitiated, a "real" bagel can be easily identified by not having a discernible top or bottom. If there is anything flat about one side and puffy about the other, it's essentially a roll with a hole. I'll set my biases about the only legitimate heirs to the throne being "white seeds" and "black seeds" aside, and graciously accept that something with - uggh - blueberries or raisins in it CAN be a bagel.)


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

mhammer said:


> As for rye bread, I've looked. I have lived in St. John's, Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Ottawa, Hamilton, Edmonton, and Victoria. I've even transported Ottawa rye to bakers in those outlying areas for them to learn from. I stand by my geographical boundaries of where decent rye bread can be found. It's not an ideological stance. Once upon a time you could not get decent bagels outside of Montreal, but the "knowledge" seems to have found its way out and extremely good bagels can now be found in many places. Sadly, not so for rye bread. (And for the uninitiated, a "real" bagel can be easily identified by not having a discernible top or bottom. If there is anything flat about one side and puffy about the other, it's essentially a roll with a hole. I'll set my biases about the only legitimate heirs to the throne being "white seeds" and "black seeds" aside, and graciously accept that something with - uggh - blueberries or raisins in it CAN be a bagel.)


I've lived across the street from a bagel bakery in Montreal (Cote des Neiges area). It had a wood oven and all, so I know what you mean about when you talk about what a real bagel should look like. As for my rye bread...I get mine from a Russian bakery (Vladivostok is closer to my home than Montreal is to Halifax, so there are some Russians in my area (had a few drinks with a retired Russian Colonel and veteran of the first Afghan War once...but that's a story for another day)).


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