Darkglass Anagram

[admiralchew]

Just now, Kev said:

 

That wasn't the worst of it for me.  Sure, releasing his own pedals with almost identical construction in and out so soon after the split and not expecting backlash was very naive, that and telling fibs about the reasons behind it (being stuck with "predrilled" enclosures that somehow had the PSU socket in a different position from the corresponding DG pedal...), but when Spencer started selling off Darkglass prototypes as his own for profit because "he designed them", I lost all respect for him and the brand, haven't used anything 3Leaf since.

 

All that being said, the animosity was between Doug and Spencer, rather than Darkglass, who have since become a huge company owned by Korg, and I highly doubt programming a Doom 2 model was revenge or getting him back, its just a popular pedal that's very hard to get hold of.  From what I've heard, it completely nails it too.

That’s interesting extra background and a very good point about Korg making the running rather than Doug

 

I’m still interested in an Anagram. I’m more in pedal-selling mode for now but I think 2026 may be the anagram year for me.

[MrDinsdale]

2 hours ago, admiralchew said:

I'm a bit torn about that. I've been quite interested in an Anagram and I have to admit that having a Doom 2 on board is enticing. It just feels a bit odd to put boutique pedals on it. I wonder where the line is (if there is a line).

 

It's obviously okay for Darkglass to put a dent in their physical pedal sales by including their own pedals. There are also a lot of copies of big muffs, mu-trons and other pedals made by large-scale manufacturers. I don't think the case for inclusion is as clear cut as the Darkglass pedals but these pedals have been copied a lot already so the cat is out the bag (Musitronics recently made a joking post about wanting the name of Klon's lawyers challenging Behringer so there is a degree of frustration). There isn't much recourse in law to protect the circuit designs and I've definitely had a lot of third-party versions of original pedals (I've got a Meatball and had a FTe version too) so I'm already torn. Adding a boutique-builder's pedal feels a bit different. I wouldn't want John Snyder at EAE, Dave Jordan at Non-Human Audio or Taylor Livingstone at Iron Ether to decide that there's no point trying to sell units or develop a new pedal if it'll be the next FaT Model, Low Snoris or Deluxe Zerograph (or some catchier version of the name) on the Anagram.

 

As @Kev alluded to, there's some extra history between Darkglass and Spencer. My understanding was that there was an unamicable split and, left with a lot of enclosures which Spencer had purchased for the purposes of assembling Darkglass pedals (and which were not of the type used in the existing 3 Leaf pedals which had bespoke enclosures), he decided to build them out and sell them under the Pike Amplification brand. There seemed a lot of bad blood on forums about that and I can't admit to knowing any more than the above (again gleaned from forums) but the Vulcan is still my favourite overdrive, and I've owned the Vintage Microtubes, Microtubes X, B7K Ultra, ADAM and still have the Alpha Omicron from the Darkglass line, and to my ears the Vulcan seemed to sound quite different to each of the Darkglass line up, with just the history and shape of the enclosure suggesting a tie between the two.

 

Anyway, apologies for derailing the Anagram thread with these musings! Happy New Year to all (and enjoy the Anagram to anyone that has one!)!

 

 

Yeah I’m still not sure how I feel about stuff like that. Doesn’t bother me as much for bigger gear manufacturers, certainly not when the gear that’s being modelled is out of production. Even products that are wildly out of the budget for most people to contemplate like the Nobel where it’s unlikely to impact sales.

 

Captures don’t bother me much either, I’ve bought gear based on using captures that otherwise I would’ve been waaaaay less likely to splash out on.

 

Large businesses modelling gear made by smaller boutique builders feels pretty unethical to me.

[joeabass]

In other news the new orange amp is very good. Gigging on silent stage with IEM so relying on anagram for a convincing amp tone and this is nailing it, probably my favourite model in here now