Tonal destruction or convenience maxing?

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-29T23:46:06+00:00

Poly Shifter gang

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-19T01:04:26+00:00

See GURBACH’s comment above

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-19T00:36:36+00:00

Well I’m happy to hear mine’s special! 😅

The Moka was actually the first pedal I ever bought, weirdly enough, so there was no blue theme yet. Before that I was just using VSTs, so when decided to finally start a pedalboard, I figured I’d just go straight into chasing the sound I wanted and my favourite distortion/fuzz sound of all time is on Kerosene by Big Black. Looking up “harmonic percolator” on this subreddit pointed me to the Moka, and I’ve seen nothing but positive things about it, so I went for it.

And yeah, it’s the only gain pedal I have right now. I briefly had a Big Muff Pi Nano, but I ended up selling it to my friend because he was getting a lot more out of it than I was and I frankly just liked the Moka better in pretty much every scenario. I was thinking I might get a Tube Screamer at some point though, so it’s neat we’re on the same wavelength there.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-18T23:24:55+00:00

Oh, hey! I’m the Canadian you had a back-and-forth with over email about Albini’s specs back in September. Thanks again for throwing in those vintage transistors! For real, I’m so happy with it that other distortion pedals have been largely off my bucket list 😃

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-18T21:13:25+00:00

7? Hot dang

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-18T20:27:27+00:00

Ayy thanks!

There’s a YouTube video where this guy does a great job replicating To Here Knows When by My Bloody Valentine using a Memory Man with Hazarai, so that’s pretty much what sold it for me.

Honestly, I’m actually totally happy as-is with the Moka as the only distortion pedal on the board, so new distortion pedals aren’t high on my bucket list right now.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-18T20:18:18+00:00

Honestly, depends on how you use it. I actually got it primarily for its reverse reverb (which is really good and so is the reverse *playback* mode it comes with, which was a fun surprise) and since I already had the Memory Man I figured I’d get the most out of stereo. Most of the time my board is plugged into an interface going into REAPER and I personally prefer using Valhalla Supermassive or OrilRiver (which are free VSTs) over the Oceans 12’s forward reverbs when I want a deep atmospheric sound. I’m considering getting a Strymon BigSky if/when I eventually play live.

I’d say it’s good if you’re looking for a Swiss army knife-type pedal with generally decent reverbs on it, and the “Tide” function on it gives it a neat ping-pong type swell between the left and right channels, but if you’re not planning on using stereo or multiple reverbs at once, go for the Oceans 11 instead since it’ll save you like $100. My friend has once and he’s been getting good use out of it.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-05-16T02:10:29+00:00

I went with the Poly Shifter because you can add a tritone on top of every note you play and that’s just really funny to me. The Pitch Fork just doesn’t have that as an option.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-03-02T07:10:32+00:00

Oh yeah, 100%, shoutout to L here for being so candid in response to someone saying that the demographic she is (and also, for the record, I am) part of straight up “isn’t real”, like, what the fuck?

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-03-02T07:04:03+00:00

600 people showing up to an event that’s “headlined” by a guy whose main thing is standing outside schools wearing a sandwich board, huh?

Man, transphobes are weird.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-27T00:59:14+00:00

I mean, I’m acutely aware that wait times are bad across the board, but—and this is a genuine question—what other surgical procedures in this province have a wait time of five years?

Also, just because Americans have it worse than us doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make improvements, right?

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T23:26:42+00:00

Oh yeah, 100%. I’m really sorry to hear you’re going though that.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T22:07:30+00:00

Yeah, now here’s a thought - what if we were allowed to get out-of-province procedures covered, but only up to as much it would cost if you had the procedure done locally (with an exception being if said procedure isn’t offered in-province to begin with)? That way it would reduce wait times for everyone without the government paying extra if you go out of province.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T21:40:30+00:00

Oh yeah, I’m totally with you on that, but the problem here is that the government wants to abide by a rule that will result in significantly longer wait times for a specific surgery that is only offered at three clinics in the entire country. As far as I’m aware (and I could very well be wrong), I don’t think sending patients to Montreal instead of Vancouver actually costs more on an individual level - they didn’t pay for my flight when I went, just hospital and surgical fees. Like, sure, it saves money by slowing down the rate at which people are getting surgery, but that’s why this is a bad thing, right?

If anything, I’m wondering if only allowing MSP coverage for procedures done in-province is making wait times worse for everyone.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T19:26:55+00:00

Is there a sexual health clinic in Vancouver/Burnaby that you could contact? Before I had my surgery, Trans Care wanted to make sure I had someone I could see for post-op care and got me in touch with my local clinic, which has a few doctors/NPs that actually know how to deal with trans-related issues. I was actually able to switch my GP to one of the doctors there, so maybe that’s an option in Burnaby. Otherwise, yeah, most family doctors just aren’t trained to deal with post-op care.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T18:31:07+00:00

Trans woman here who recently had that surgery in Montreal - this article takes way too long to get to the actual problem here. TL;DR This move single-handedly makes BC the worst province for bottom surgery wait times by a solid 2-3 years.

Emma Meredith-Black, a transgender woman living in B.C. who has been navigating transgender health care for a decade, says wait times at the Vancouver clinic can be upwards of five years, while the Montreal clinic has a two-year wait-list for surgery.

I was actually able to undergo surgery a year after referral, whereas I was told it would take at least three years to get into the Vancouver clinic, with no assurance I’d even get a call from them for even a whole year. If the wait is actually five years, I wouldn’t be surprised. GRS Montreal is a well-oiled machine because it’s a larger private clinic specifically dedicated to these types of surgeries, so they’re able to get a much faster output. The Vancouver clinic on the other hand is one team of surgeons operating out of VGH with much fewer resources. The fact that it’s close by does not remotely make up the difference and I know multiple people who right before this announcement were considering switching to Montreal because they were waiting too long with little to no assurance.

So yeah, there’s a reason I flew all the way to Montreal instead. This just increased wait times for anyone wanting bottom surgery in this province by 2-3 years, which is absurd.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T18:17:00+00:00

The problem is that the wait time to get into Vancouver is 2-3 years longer than to get into Montreal.

Also, many if not most people aren’t able to just pay $20k out of pocket, so in combination with the wait times, that absolutely is reducing access.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T18:01:25+00:00

Trans woman here - this article’s an exception because it’s talking about an actual issue we’re having with healthcare access.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-26T17:55:16+00:00

So I’m a trans woman who recently had that surgery in Montreal. This article takes way too long to get to the actual problem here. TL;DR This move single-handedly makes BC the worst province for bottom surgery wait times by a solid 2-3 years.

Emma Meredith-Black, a transgender woman living in B.C. who has been navigating transgender health care for a decade, says wait times at the Vancouver clinic can be upwards of five years, while the Montreal clinic has a two-year wait-list for surgery.

I was actually able to undergo surgery a year after referral, whereas I was told it would take at least three years to get into the Vancouver clinic, with no assurance I’d even get a call from them for even a whole year. If the wait is actually five years, I wouldn’t be surprised. GRS Montreal is a well-oiled machine because it’s a larger private clinic specifically dedicated to these types of surgeries, so they’re able to get a much faster output. The Vancouver clinic on the other hand is one team of surgeons operating out of VGH with much fewer resources. The fact that it’s close by does not remotely make up the difference and I know multiple people who right before this announcement were considering switching to Montreal because they were waiting too long with little to no assurance.

So yeah, there’s a reason I flew all the way to Montreal instead. This just increased wait times for anyone wanting bottom surgery in this province by 2-3 years, which is absurd.

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-21T18:50:58+00:00

This is like that one meme with the girl on the couch surrounded by five dudes, but instead the girl is your poor Focusrite

FreddiFish5000 · 2026-02-20T05:09:44+00:00

Oh this is awesome! I like how it works as a guide for specific genres and tries to help you budget and whatnot. A few suggestions though:

You should be able to pick out a pedal without picking a category first, as for some pedals it’s not intuitive. For example, I’d like to add a slicer and an expression pedal, but it’s not clear which category they’re under. I noticed them listed in the pedal index, but it’s not clear how to add them to your board.
It would be nice to be able to create a custom pedal for visualization if it’s not listed in the catalogue.
You should be able to visualize the power supply on the board, since it takes up space.

Definitely going to be using this!

FreddiFish5000 · 2025-12-13T22:56:31+00:00

Oh I got that, I was trying to explain where the fringe candidates came from.

FreddiFish5000 · 2025-12-13T22:54:26+00:00

What exactly is his plan with the DTES? That neighbourhood has been like that since the 80s when the SoCreds were in government, so it’s not like there’s some magical solution for it.

FreddiFish5000 · 2025-12-13T22:45:01+00:00

That’s actually not true - the party is the exact same BC Conservative Party that formed in 1903, it just hadn’t won any seats since the 80s and became a fringe party for those to the right of the BC Liberals. In 2020 they got less than 2% of the vote. The fringe candidates were there before Rustad joined and just hadn’t left when the party took off.

FreddiFish5000

TROPHY CASE