My First Stomp Box

My love affair with effects pedals started back in the 1970's when I saved up enough to get an Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man pedal. There was no Internet or YouTube back then, so any information I got about gear came from going to a music store, from friends, or from Guitar Player magazine ads.

The Deluxe Memory Man had three effects: chorus, vibrato, and echo (delay.) It was truly one of the first multi-effects pedals. I didn't really understand all it could do when I got it, but it looked cool and had lots of knobs and buttons, so I figured it had to be good.

Wow, was that thing crazy. By mixing the echo (delay) with either chorus or vibrato you could get some extreme effects. And by twisting the knobs while a chord or note sustained, you could get some psychedelic or "spacey" effects that were very cool to my teenage ears. You could also get some very sweet sounding delay and chorus. I spent many hours, and had tons of fun experimenting with that pedal.

Unfortunately the pedal died after a couple of years. I never thought about getting it fixed back then. I don’t know if that was even an option. It didn’t matter. When I moved out of my parents house it disappeared. I have often thought about replacing it but I just never got around to it. And often memories are better than reality. I do remember it was fairly noisy.

Now I see so many players with large pedalboards loaded with tons of pedals. I would have done the same if I could have afforded it back then. But my budget forced me to stick with just a couple of pedals. And I think there is probably something to be said for taking just one pedal and getting every possible sound out it, instead of just adding another pedal. 

If I remember correctly my second pedal was a Morley Wah/Volume, then a MXR Phase 100…

What was your first pedal?