The Boss BD-2 Blues Driver is an overdrive pedal sold since at least 2003. Users report its tone as round, expressive, smooth, and sultry. It responds sharply to small knob adjustments. It covers a wide sonic range — from clean overdrive to heavy grunge. It is available new and second-hand. Prices recorded are $50 (used), $79.99 (Kayes Music Scene), and $80 (Sam Ash).
The Boss BF-1 Flanger is a 1979 analog foot pedal designed for electric guitar. It uses four knobs — manual, depth, rate, resonance — to control a simple, unstable flange sweep. It has no bypass, no presets, no expression input, and no stereo output. It was discontinued and replaced by the BF-3.
The Boss BF-2 Flanger is an analog stomp-box flanger pedal sold from June 1980 to December 2001. It has 1/4-inch inputs and outputs, four controls (Manual, Depth, Rate, Res), and runs on 9V battery or AC adapter. It is not rackable. It was succeeded by the digital BF-3.
The Binson Echorec 2 is a delay/echo unit. No technical specifications exist. Its category is confirmed. Nothing else is verifiable.
The Bozak CMA-10-2DL is a 4+ channel analogue mixer. It routes four inputs to two outputs. It has no equalisation, no dynamics, no monitoring path, and no amplification. Its name appears in multiple inconsistent spellings. No use cases, dates, or technical specifications are verified in available sources.
The AKG C414 B-ULS is a large diaphragm condenser microphone. It is one of 13 products in the AKG C414 series. The source material gives no further technical, historical, or functional detail.
The AKG C414 EB is a large diaphragm condenser microphone. It is one of 13 products in the AKG C414 series. No technical, historical, or functional detail beyond that is provided in the source material.
The Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble is Boss’s first chorus pedal: an analog stomp box offering chorus or vibrato — never both — with dedicated controls, tone toggle, and fixed power.
The Boss CE-2 Chorus is an all-analog stomp box introduced in the early 1980s. It has two controls: Rate and Depth. It was Boss’s first compact chorus pedal and the first they housed in a stomp box. Production ended in 1990. It runs on 9V battery or transformer. It was made in Japan.
The Boss CE-3 Chorus is an analog guitar pedal built for stereo routing. It has no mix or level control. Its sound matches the CE-2 exactly — lush, hazy, shimmering — but its dual outputs enable wet/dry or true stereo setups. It is useful only where those outputs matter.
The Boss CH-1 Super Chorus is an analog stomp-box chorus pedal for guitar and keyboards. It has four dedicated knobs — Effect Level, EQ, Rate, Depth — and supports mono input with mono or stereo output. It runs on 9 V battery or AC power. It is Boss’s best-selling chorus pedal. It is not rackable.
The Colorsound OverDriver is a fixed-gain overdrive pedal. It has no controls. It offers no specifications. It does one thing, consistently, without variation.
The Roland CR-68 is a non-programmable mono analog rhythm machine from the late 1970s. It shares the CR-78’s sound set and 54 preset rhythms but removes all user programming. Its controls — tempo, level, accent, balance — shape playback in real time. Fills trigger automatically or manually. It has no MIDI, no keyboard, no memory. Its sounds are now more often sampled than played live. Add N To (X) used it.
The Roland CR-8000 is a non-editable analog drum machine from 1980/81. It gives you 13 fixed drum sounds, one mono output, eight user-programmable patterns, and a unique groove knob that alters timing and timbre simultaneously — especially in the hi-hats. That groove cannot be sampled. Everything else is compromised: the sequencer is poorly programmed, the control panel fails under external use, and there are no built-in effects. Artists including Fluke, BT, Jimmy Edgar, and Blondie used it. It belongs in a collection, not a production chain.
The Daking Mic-Pre IV is a 4-channel solid-state analog preamp with minimal controls and no colouration. It amplifies cleanly and intensely—revealing rather than refining the source. Its design prioritises workflow over flavour.
The Sony DTC-1000ES is a DAT deck in Sony’s DTC series. No technical specifications are available. Nothing else is verifiable.
The dbx 165 is a studio compressor. No technical specifications exist for it. It is categorised as a studio compressor. That is all that is confirmed.
The dbx 166 is a no-compromise stereo FET compressor built for speed and instrument tracking—not vocals, not mixing, not analysis. It delivers efficient, transparent compression with subtle warmth. Its design gives immediacy and reliability. It withholds metering, sidechain, vocal suitability, and fine dynamic control.
The Boss DC-2 Dimension C is a fixed-preset stereo analog chorus pedal made from 1985 to 1989. It offers five distinct chorus tones — one automatic, four selected by buttons — with no user controls. It reproduces the Roland SDD-320 Dimension D’s spatial effect: thickness, depth and width for a 3D sound. Stereo outputs widen the effect. Built-in noise reduction lowers hiss. It cannot be adjusted mid-performance. It belongs in a rig where consistency matters more than flexibility.
The Boss DD-3 is a digital delay pedal for guitar. It uses four knobs to control effect level, feedback time, delay time, and delay mode. It delivers clear, sharp echo without muddiness. It is extremely durable. It is probably the most well-known digital delay pedal.
The Boss DM-1 Delay Machine is an analog foot pedal — among the first delay pedals made by Boss — with three knobs (delay time, intensity, balance/mix), an output level switch (0 dB, -15 dB, -35 dB), built-in power cord, and 1/4 inch connections. It is not rack mountable. Its sound is warm, rich, and outstanding. It is considered one of the best delay pedals Boss has made.
The Boss DM-2 is a Japanese-made analog delay pedal released in 1981. It delivers warm, tone-enhancing repeats from 20ms to 300ms using three knobs: Repeat Rate, Echo, and Intensity. It has no MIDI, no computer control, and is not rackable. It was built for guitar and other electronic instruments. It thickens tone rather than cutting with precision.
The Boss DM-3 is the last compact analog delay Boss made. It runs from 1984 to 1988. Its 20ms–300ms delay is set by Repeat Rate, Echo, and Intensity knobs—the only Boss pedal with this shape and layout. It has an unlabeled stereo output and revised filtering to reduce noise. It does not do digital, modulation, or long delays. It does warm, decaying repeats with physical immediacy.
The Tascam DA-88 is a dedicated eight-track digital recorder using Hi8 tape. It occupies four rack units. It has XLR and RCA inputs. It uses large VU meters. Its audio quality remains acceptable today.
The Ibanez FL9 Flanger is an analog stompbox flanger pedal for guitar. It delivers swooshing phase-based effects via four knobs: Speed, Regen, Width, and Delay Time. It is not true bypass, so it colours the signal even when disengaged. It does not claim to be anything else — no digital emulation, no stereo outputs, no expression input, no presets.
The Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz is a discontinued analog fuzz pedal with three selectable modes and five physical controls. It lacks true bypass. It was succeeded by the FZ-5.
The Grace Design m201 is a single-channel solid-state microphone preamplifier. It provides clean, high-headroom gain with no EQ, no compression, no digital conversion, and no additional signal path options. It serves one purpose: to amplify a mic signal without alteration. It is not a channel strip. It is not an interface. It is not a tool for tonal manipulation. It is a specialist device for specialists who know exactly when they need it — and when they do not.
The MP-2NV gives two channels of the ME-1NV’s analog preamp circuit — no more, no less. It does not add features. It does not subtract fidelity. It occupies one rack space. It accepts mic and line-level sources directly. It meters input and output. It sounds warm, clear, and accurate — as verified by users.
The Hiwatt DR103 is a 100-watt all-tube guitar amplifier head built for clarity, dynamics, and power-tube saturation at high volume. It has four inputs, two speaker outputs, bass/mid/treble/presence/master volume controls, voltage and impedance selectors, and no effects loop or direct output. Its crystalline highs and strong presence suit rock over jazz. Saturation requires driving both channels simultaneously. It is physically heavy and operationally uncompromising.
The Ibanez MC924 is a 4-string bass guitar from the Musician series, introduced in 1978. It is heavy, sustain-rich, and exceptionally durable — one unit stayed mint for over 25 years. Its active three-band EQ and responsive pickups give broad tonal control. But its weight demands strap-locks live, and age brings failing switches and jacks. It is not lightweight. It is not low-maintenance. It is built to endure.
The JBL 4310 is an active studio monitor built for truth-telling. Its neutral and linear sound reveals flaws. It needs an external amp. Bruce Swedien preferred it over the 4311—so much that he dismissed the latter as 'pure dog-doo'.
The Marshall 2203 JCM800 Master Volume Lead is a tube guitar amp head introduced in 1981 and produced until 1989. It delivers aggressive, mid-forward distortion at manageable stage volumes — but offers no clean headroom, no effects loop, and no modern conveniences.
The Roland Juno-2 (Alpha Juno-2) is an 80s hybrid synth: analog filters and voice path, digital control over oscillators, envelopes, LFO, PWM, and chorus. It has 64 factory and 64 user patches, a velocity-sensitive 61-key keyboard, and a single digital wheel for editing. It lacks computer update capability and rack-mounting. Real-time sound switching is slow. It was built for studio use — not live performance.
The Korg Kaoss Pad 3 is a live-performance effects unit. It uses an X/Y touchpad for real-time control of 128 built-in programs—including reverb, delay, flanger, analog filter, drive circuit, and a vocoder. It samples onboard. Some effects sync to tempo. It functions as a MIDI controller. Connections are RCA only.
The Lexicon PCM 42 is a digital delay unit in Lexicon’s PCM series. No technical specifications are available. Nothing is known about its controls, its sound, its memory, or its use in practice. It declares only its category, its manufacturer, and its model name.
The Millennia HV-3D is a solid-state mic preamp built for fidelity, not flavour. It gives you three transparent gain stages per channel, 1.5 dB stepped gain, phantom power, no phase flip, and eight channels in two rack units — all on internal power. It excels on strings, voice, and piano. It fails on distorted guitar and bright cymbals. It is not subtle. It is literal.
The Roland MKS-70 is a 1986 2U rack-mount analog synthesizer module. It combines two JX-8P engines for 12-voice polyphony and dual-tone layering. It stores 100 patches, each built from two of 64 tones. Chorus has only off/slow/fast settings. Chase-play enables delayed voice repeats. Front-panel editing is cumbersome and tedious. Full SysEx control and PC editing require firmware v1.08. It has three stereo outputs: one per tone and one mix. It lacks arpeggiator, sequencer and keyboard.
The Boss OD-1 is a 1977–1985 overdrive pedal with Level and Overdrive knobs only. It uses a FET boost circuit that degrades the dry signal when bypassed. It delivers low-gain saturation by pushing an already overdriven amp’s front end—not by distorting on its own. It lacks tone control. It preceded the SD-1. It performs best in that narrow context—and nowhere else.
The Boss PH-1 is a compact phaser pedal released by Boss in 1977 as one of its first three pedals. It emulates Leslie speaker phasing with greater versatility. It has only two controls: Rate (speed) and Depth (dry/wet mix). Production ran from 1977 to 1981.
The Boss PH-2 Super Phaser is a discontinued analog guitar stompbox pedal built from 1984 to 2001. It adds a rate knob and two-mode switch to the PH-1 lineage. Mode 1 uses 10-step phasing. Mode 2 uses 12-step phasing. Controls are Rate, Depth, Res, and a 2-way Mode switch. LFO speed ranges from 100 ms to 14 s. Input impedance is 1 Mohm (FET). Residual noise is -80 dBm (IHF-A). Current draw is 20 mA at 9 V DC. Early Incubus used it for its distinctive ‘in-your-face’ phase character—especially in mode 2.
The Boss PS-2 is a mono digital pitch shifter and delay pedal with fixed +1/−1 octave modes and three delay time ranges. It delivers immediate, stable octave doubling and atmospheric delay tails — but offers no stereo output, no expression control, and no fine pitch adjustment. It belongs on a gigging guitarist’s board, not in a stereo studio chain.
The Boss RV-2 is a fixed-function digital reverb pedal. It gives guitarists six preset spaces — no editing, no tone control, no stereo input. It is stomp-box-only. It runs on nine volts. It is discontinued. It was Boss’s first reverb.
The Rane Serato SL 1 is a purpose-built bridge between vinyl and digital audio. It does one job: translating timecode signals into Serato Scratch Live 2.5. It asks for turntables, a mixer, and a laptop — and gives back stable, low-latency control. It offers no flexibility, no expansion, no autonomy. It is obsolete as a product, but functional as a node — if your setup still runs on it.
The Soundcraft 2400 is an analog mixer made by Soundcraft. No technical specifications are published. Nothing else is confirmed.
The Soundcraft Ghost 32 is a dual-path analog mixer that delivers 64-channel mixing by combining 32 fader-based A channels and 32 knob-based B channels. It prioritises routing flexibility and hands-on control over silent operation or real-time EQ parity.
The Roland RE-201 Space Echo is a non-rackable desktop analog tape echo unit with three inputs (two mic, one instrument), five magnetic tape playback heads, 1/4" wet/direct outputs, footswitch input, and controls for time, feedback (intensity), low/high EQ, dry/wet mix, and reverb. Its reverb has a compromised tonal character ('trs CRADA'). It uses an actual reel of tape — distinguishing it from imitators. It does not offer precision, stability, or clean reverb. It does deliver saturated, decaying, pitch-wobbling repeats no digital model fully replicates.
A fixed-function digital floor pedal for guitar. Eight synth-effects deliver octave, fifth and third on demand. No editing. No true bypass. An always-on preamp degrades tone even when off. AC-powered. Stereo out. One treadle. That’s all.
The Boss TR-2 Tremolo is an analog foot pedal for guitarists. It has three knobs: Rate, Depth, and Wave. Rate goes faster than the PN-2. Wave shifts the LFO from triangle to square. It is not rackable.
The Trace Elliot AH250 is a bass guitar amp head made by Trace Elliot. No technical specifications are available for it.
The Trident Series 24 is an analog mixer made by Trident. No specifications, availability, usage history, or technical details are provided in the source. It is documented only as a category and manufacturer assignment.
The Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer Reissue is an analog overdrive pedal in the Tube Screamer series. It has three knobs: tone, level, and overdrive. It uses the JRC4558 chip. It runs on a 9-volt battery or AC adapter. Its metal housing is 4.9" x 2.8" x 2" and weighs just over a pound. It delivers warm, smooth, mid-heavy overdrive suited for solos and blues-rock—not high-gain riffing. It is very strongly built.
The Boss VB-2 Vibrato is an analog foot pedal that modulates pitch — not volume — for electric guitar and other electronic instruments. It uses depth, rate, and rise time controls, plus a mode switch. It has no MIDI, no rack mounting, and no presets. Its strength is expressive, natural-sounding vibrato. Its weakness is inflexibility and a learning curve. It belongs in the hands of players who value analog immediacy over convenience.
The Wurlitzer 200A is a 73-key electro-mechanical electric piano with built-in speakers, output jacks, a sustain pedal, carrying handles, and two knobs — one for volume, one for tremolo speed. Its keyboard action is tactile and easy to play. Its tone is uniquely recognizable. It is a newer model than earlier Wurlitzer electric pianos. It offers more tonal range than those earlier models only via dedicated tremolo and volume controls.
The Yamaha BB2000 is a Japanese-made 4-string bass from the early 1980s. It uses passive electronics, two pickups (JB and PB), and simple bass/treble tone controls. Its voice is defined by low-mid growl and high-mid harmonic sweetness—unmatched by Fender, Music Man, or Sadowsky. It excels in funk, pop, fusion, and jazz. It lacks modern flexibility: no active circuitry, no mid-sweep, no blend control. One player replaced their 2012 Fender Jazz Bass with it after five years of regular use—and called it superior in all aspects.
The Yamaha DM2000 is a discontinued digital mixer console built for professional live sound reinforcement and studio tracking/mixing.
The Yamaha PM1000 is a channel strip. No technical specifications are available. Nothing else is confirmed.
The Rickenbacker 4003 debuted in 1980 as a near-twin of the 4001 with an updated truss rod system made for roundwound strings. It has neck-through construction, has stayed in continuous production, and has spawned five-string, eight-string, fretless, limited-edition and signature versions.
The Hammond A-100 is a console tonewheel organ introduced in 1959. It is effectively a self-contained version of the B-3 and C-3, with an internal power amplifier and speakers, and it was built in many chassis styles identified by the last two digits of the model number.
The Chamberlin M1 appeared in 1970 as a table-top, much more durable Chamberlin design. It dropped the rhythm tapes, rewound its tapes with a return-roller system and used higher-quality playback heads. About 130 were built before production ended in 1981.
The 59DC was one of the first two reissues of Danelectro's Shorthorn line, sold between 1998 and 2001 with two pickups. The Shorthorn design it reissues is a dual cutaway hollow body of Masonite and poplar, with a Coke bottle style headstock and a seal shaped pickguard carrying stacked tone and volume knobs.
The Electric Mistress is an analog flanger from Electro-Harmonix, first sold in 1976 and the first flanger in pedal format. Every version after the first blue and red one has a Filter Matrix mode that freezes the flange at any point for chime-like tones. The Deluxe version is still in production, and NEO Mistress and Stereo Electric Mistress are digital recreations.
The Emax II replaced the original Emax in fall 1989. It is a true 16-bit sampler with more polyphony and digital filters, priced from $3,595. The Emax II Turbo of 1990 added 8 MB of built-in sample memory and an internal SCSI hard disk. It stayed in production until 1995, one of the longest runs of any E-mu product.
The Emulator II, released in 1984, was E-mu's second sampler. It stayed an eight-bit machine but improved fidelity with companding converters and a 27.7 kHz sample rate, and it added resonant analog filters, more flexible editing and far better real-time control. At about $8,000 it was priced like the original, and far below a Fairlight.
FireworX is a multi-effects processor from the Danish company TC Electronic. It holds distortion, compression, noise and curve generators, ring modulation, vocoding, parametric EQ, tremolo, reverb and delay, and the effects can be routed in a large variety of ways. It won best Hardware Signal Processing Technology at the 1998 TEC Awards, and producers and DJs used it with CD players for live sets.
The J37 is Studer’s first multitrack machine, released in 1964. It recorded four tracks on one-inch tape. At EMI Studios London, later renamed Abbey Road Studios, The Beatles used a pair of J37s to record Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. Studer went on to build 8-, 16- and 24-track machines with tape up to two inches wide.
The Mk II was the update to the first commercial Mellotron, released in 1964 with the full set of sounds selectable by banks and stations. About 160 were made. It has two manuals, an organ-style cabinet and two internal 12-inch speakers with an amp, and it was meant for the home rather than the road.
The MXR Micro Amp (M133) is an op-amp boost pedal released in 1978. It has a single volume control and offers 26 dB of boost, meant to add volume or distortion, depending on where it sits in the signal chain, without colouring the tone. It has become perhaps the most commonly used boost pedal on the market.
The Musicmaster Bass is a Fender student-model bass introduced in 1971 as a variant of the Mustang Bass, on the same body and neck shape. Where the Mustang Bass has a split-coil pickup, the Musicmaster has a single-coil pickup that is a six-pole Stratocaster guitar pickup under a solid plastic cover. Production ended around 1981, and Squier reissued it for one year in 1997.
The Nord Lead 2 was launched by Clavia in 1997, two years after the original Nord Lead. It raised polyphony from four voices to 16 and added a ring modulator, a sine waveform on oscillator 1, filter distortion, four individual outputs, more patch storage and a PCMCIA slot. A refreshed Lead 2X followed in 2003 on the same synthesis engine.
The Pianet N was Hohner's most popular Pianet, made from about 1965 to 1977 in two variants. The N stands for natural wood finish. It has inverted-V legs, a folding top that doubles as a music stand, a transistorised pre-amplifier, a floor pedal for volume and standard vibrato, and it plays through an external amplifier.
The Pianet T was made from 1977 to about 1983 and headed Hohner's second group of Pianets. Plastic suction pads pluck its reeds, an electro-magnetic pick-up like the one in a Rhodes converts the vibration, and the instrument needs no electrical power of its own. Vinyl-covered, with a hinged lid, it was built for live use but has no built-in amplifier.
The Akai S950 is an expanded version of the S900 sampler, released in 1988 alongside the higher-end S1000. It took over some of the S1000's improvements, including time-stretching, and raised the maximum sample rate to 48 kHz. Like the rest of the S900 series, it can loop a sample alternating forwards and backwards, which the S1000 series cannot. Akai has discontinued it.
The ShredMaster is the high-gain pedal in the trio Marshall released in 1991 with the Bluesbreaker and Drivemaster. It is a conventional distortion pedal with Gain, Bass, Contour, Treble and Volume controls in a black, wedge-shaped metal case. Poor sales ended the run within a few years, and Marshall reissued it in 2023.
The L-series was the best-known Steinberger design, first made as a bass; the first Steinberger basses were built in Brooklyn in 1979. It dropped the headstock, moved the tuners to a tailpiece and made the whole instrument from a graphite and carbon-fibre blend in two pieces. The L2 is the version with two EMG pickups. Listeners were split on a sound that some called clean and others called synthetic.
The Virus B is a virtual analog synthesizer from Access Music GmbH of Germany, released in 1999 as the follow-up to the Virus A. It is a desktop (rackable) module without a keyboard, with improved converters and expanded polyphony. It has two filters per voice and a modulation matrix, and a keyboard version was sold as the Virus KB.