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[Ned Ward]

Wow - finally, after years of denying, having attorneys issue cease & desists to degoopers and having people banned from forums, the owner of Vertex finally gave a "you caught me" mea culpa after Michael Landau publicly acknowledged the fraud and distanced himself from him, and Joe Bonamassa cussed hymn out for charging $2,000 for screwing up his pedalboard. Interesting reading.


http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=1477492


This guy Mason has a career in esoteric home stereo products.


I'd avoid all of his Vertex products at all costs and this person in the future. Fool me once, shame on you, fool us 5 times...

[Tim McCulloch]

Wow - finally, after years of denying, having attorneys issue cease & desists to degoopers and having people banned from forums, the owner of Vertex finally gave a "you caught me" mea culpa after Michael Landau publicly acknowledged the fraud and distanced himself from him, and Joe Bonamassa cussed hymn out for charging $2,000 for screwing up his pedalboard. Interesting reading.


http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=1477492


This guy Mason has a career in esoteric home stereo products.


I'd avoid all of his Vertex products at all costs and this person in the future. Fool me once, shame on you, fool us 5 times...

The admissions are actually rather breathtaking. 

[Keith Broughton]

The admissions are actually rather breathtaking.

There are quite a few other "business people" who could do the same.

[Bob Leonard]

Wow - finally, after years of denying, having attorneys issue cease & desists to degoopers and having people banned from forums, the owner of Vertex finally gave a "you caught me" mea culpa after Michael Landau publicly acknowledged the fraud and distanced himself from him, and Joe Bonamassa cussed hymn out for charging $2,000 for screwing up his pedalboard. Interesting reading.


http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=1477492


This guy Mason has a career in esoteric home stereo products.


I'd avoid all of his Vertex products at all costs and this person in the future. Fool me once, shame on you, fool us 5 times...

This guy is the equivalent of me saying I designed the original tweed bassman. I was aware there was controversy long ago but just avoided his products. He'll be lucky now if he can find a security job guarding shipments of joke store rubber dog shit.

 "Joe Bonamassa wrote:

Hey Guys,

I'm sorry to be chiming in so late but I must warn all you fellow gear nerds to stay away from Vertex effects and pedalboard services. Mason is not truthful nor is his work good or in most cases his own. He had me on his site without permission as a user and happy customer. I am/was neither happy nor do I use any of his products. My pedalboard sounded awful, took tons of gain away, and added a huge ground hum. It also cost $1400 and that was after I pitched a fit when the $2000 bill came to my tour manager all the while seeing unauthorized You Tube videos of my " new rig" a rig I never tried nor signed off on. Fortunately Dave Friedman at Rack Systems came in and saved the day for $400. All I wanted and asked for was to have some cables cut to size. I didn't want to waste Dave's time so I gave it to Mason. BIG MISTAKE.... I am very disturbed by his actions and have heard recently that he has been called out on some Wah Wah pedal stuff. Bad News Bear that cat is unfortunately.

So... In closing...
Just trying to keep my fellow guitar nerds from getting ripped off like I was.

Caveat Emptor
Joe Bonamassa."

[Ned Ward]

This guy is the equivalent of me saying I designed the original tweed bassman. I was aware there was controversy long ago but just avoided his products. He'll be lucky now if he can find a security job guarding shipments of joke store rubber dog shit.

 "Joe Bonamassa wrote:

Hey Guys,

I'm sorry to be chiming in so late but I must warn all you fellow gear nerds to stay away from Vertex effects and pedalboard services. Mason is not truthful nor is his work good or in most cases his own. He had me on his site without permission as a user and happy customer. I am/was neither happy nor do I use any of his products. My pedalboard sounded awful, took tons of gain away, and added a huge ground hum. It also cost $1400 and that was after I pitched a fit when the $2000 bill came to my tour manager all the while seeing unauthorized You Tube videos of my " new rig" a rig I never tried nor signed off on. Fortunately Dave Friedman at Rack Systems came in and saved the day for $400. All I wanted and asked for was to have some cables cut to size. I didn't want to waste Dave's time so I gave it to Mason. BIG MISTAKE.... I am very disturbed by his actions and have heard recently that he has been called out on some Wah Wah pedal stuff. Bad News Bear that cat is unfortunately.

So... In closing...
Just trying to keep my fellow guitar nerds from getting ripped off like I was.

Caveat Emptor
Joe Bonamassa."

My local guy is a dealer for him and stocks the Landau chorus, which is great - if I didn't have a 1987 Ibanez Super Stereo Chorus that I A/B'd against it, i'd buy one - and the volume pedals, but luckily he never carried either the $115 cables (belden wire, Neutrik ends and sleeving? WTH?) or the Axis/BBE Wah, so luckily he's fine. I'll see him Saturday and find out what Vertex is telling dealers (and if he plans to still be a Vertex dealer).


Tim - and the admissions aren't finished yet - people want to know what exactly was improved on the Arion stereo chorus and if the boost pedal is an original design.


It's sad because there are many boutique pedal guys out there who make great stuff and are very transparent about their designs - no goop, no BS. I hope this doesn't tarnish sales of folks like Paul Cochrane (Timmy pedal), Robert Keeley, David Barber or others. Robert Keeley is a great example of a guy who started off modding pedals and being very clear about it, and then branched off into his own designs. Great sound and because of it, I've had a Dunlop Wah and a TS9 modified for him to be usable as well as buying his compressor, Katana Boost and the Fuzz Head pedal.

[Tim McCulloch]

So I take it "goop" means to use someone elses product and change the packaging around the innards, perhaps with a minor component change and then represent it as a fully new/different item?

[John Roberts {JR}]

It's sad because there are many boutique pedal guys out there who make great stuff and are very transparent about their designs - no goop, no BS. I hope this doesn't tarnish sales of folks like Paul Cochrane (Timmy pedal), Robert Keeley, David Barber or others. Robert Keeley is a great example of a guy who started off modding pedals and being very clear about it, and then branched off into his own designs. Great sound and because of it, I've had a Dunlop Wah and a TS9 modified for him to be usable as well as buying his compressor, Katana Boost and the Fuzz Head pedal.

I don't know if he qualifies as a boutique pedal guy, but an old friend of mine has a pedal company I would like to add to your list of good guys. "Amptweaker", by James Brown who is a real design engineer with decades of experience designing commercial guitar amps and knows what he is doing.

Re: "funny wire", is there a 7-step program for reformed snake oil salesmen?  There have been multiple articles published about wire debunking the silly claims. I even wrote about wire in my old "Audio Mythology" column back in the '80s.

Fools and their money do not have a natural attraction.

JR

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

So I take it "goop" means to use someone elses product and change the packaging around the innards, perhaps with a minor component change and then represent it as a fully new/different item?

I think goop means covering your resultant circuit "improvements" with epoxy or some other opaque substance that deters reverse-engineering and/or inspection.

[Bob Leonard]

I think goop means covering your resultant circuit "improvements" with epoxy or some other opaque substance that deters reverse-engineering and/or inspection.

Absolutely correct. Usually the components are covered with black epoxy, example Dumble, Klon, etc.. to prevent blatant reverse engineering and copies. That's what this asshole Mason did with his repackaged wah pedal thinking out of site, out of mind. The board, etc. remained the same and when opened the only change was the epoxy on some key components.

I don't think Keeley, Exotic, Love Pedal, etc. need to worry. They have solid reputations built on unique products or the development of new products based on tried and true designs. There aren't that many changes that can be made to a boost pedal that make it truly unique, and all pedals date back to the first fuzz, overdrive, chorus, delay, reverb or wah designs from the late 60's in one way or another. Hell, if I was going to build my own amps I would certainly start with a bassman circuit just like Jim Marshall. What I wouldn't do is put my name on a bassman, cover the tone section with epoxy, and sell it as my own made and designed in house product. The worlds just not that stupid. Or is it?
 
See if you can spot the goop.
 
 

[Ned Ward]

I think goop means covering your resultant circuit "improvements" with epoxy or some other opaque substance that deters reverse-engineering and/or inspection.

Exactly. ARP synths did this back in the 70's as they were fearful that others would copy their designs, but also if something broke down, they could sell the replacement parts. Good in theory, but any service center that's tried to hacksaw a black blob of epoxy to fix an ARP would say otherwise. On the other side, Moog was wide open with their synth designs, and people could run down to Radio Shack to get spare caps, resistors, etc. if needed.

[Ned Ward]

I don't know if he qualifies as a boutique pedal guy, but an old friend of mine has a pedal company I would like to add to your list of good guys. "Amptweaker", by James Brown who is a real design engineer with decades of experience designing commercial guitar amps and knows what he is doing.

Re: "funny wire", is there a 7-step program for reformed snake oil salesmen?  There have been multiple articles published about wire debunking the silly claims. I even wrote about wire in my old "Audio Mythology" column back in the '80s.

Fools and their money do not have a natural attraction.

JR

John - thanks for the recommendation - just looked at their site and looks like some nice pedals! like the different design as well.

[Ned Ward]

Absolutely correct. Usually the components are covered with black epoxy, example Dumble, Klon, etc.. to prevent blatant reverse engineering and copies. That's what this asshole Mason did with his repackaged wah pedal thinking out of site, out of mind. The board, etc. remained the same and when opened the only change was the epoxy on some key components.

I don't think Keeley, Exotic, Love Pedal, etc. need to worry. They have solid reputations built on unique products or the development of new products based on tried and true designs. There aren't that many changes that can be made to a boost pedal that make it truly unique, and all pedals date back to the first fuzz, overdrive, chorus, delay, reverb or wah designs from the late 60's in one way or another. Hell, if I was going to build my own amps I would certainly start with a bassman circuit just like Jim Marshall. What I wouldn't do is put my name on a bassman, cover the tone section with epoxy, and sell it as my own made and designed in house product. The worlds just not that stupid. Or is it?
 
See if you can spot the goop.

You're right Bob. David Barber lists the schematics for his pedals on the barber site - nothing to hide, and while his pedals are variations of things that have come before, I sure do like how he voiced his Direct Drive.  It's more a tonal change for many of these pedals, and as long as people are upfront on what they're doing or modding, things are great. It's when asshats like Mason of Vertex pass off BBE's work as their own.


Would imagine BBE wahs will start going up in price… they're going on Ebay for around $150 vs. the $399 vertex price.

[Lee Brenkman]

Exactly. ARP synths did this back in the 70's as they were fearful that others would copy their designs, but also if something broke down, they could sell the replacement parts. Good in theory, but any service center that's tried to hacksaw a black blob of epoxy to fix an ARP would say otherwise. On the other side, Moog was wide open with their synth designs, and people could run down to Radio Shack to get spare caps, resistors, etc. if needed.

In the VERY early days of ClearCom we potted the electronics in the belt packs UNTIL the patents were approved.

I guess we were REALLY smart, except for the jacks, the volume pot and call light EVERYTHING was buried in the "goop". ;-)

[Tim McCulloch]

In the VERY early days of ClearCom we potted the electronics in the belt packs UNTIL the patents were approved.

I guess we were REALLY smart, except for the jacks, the volume pot and call light EVERYTHING was buried in the "goop". ;-)

Potting has other benefits, most revolving around durability and protection.  The US military was fond of it, IIRC.

[ProSoundWeb Community]