Dead On Arrival

Lots of folks are worried that buying something on the used market means risking that you're getting a less than perfectly functioning pedal. It's happened to me a few times over more than a decade, but not nearly as often as the nay-sayers would have you believe.  

So of course, when I go ahead and order the JHS Lucky Cat from Cosmo Music here in Ontario, I end up with a pedal that is DOA (dead on arrival).


I ordered it on Cyber-Monday, and it was delivered the next day.  That's a pretty impressive turn around.  Unfortunately, I was home with a sick kid, and I always have online purchases delivered to my office, which is about an hour's drive away.


That meant waiting until Wednesday night to finally get a chance to play with my new toy.

When the moment finally came... Nothing.

The pedal's left LED came on to indicate operation, but the sound was unaffected, and the tap tempo LED was dark.  No amount of tapping would solve the problem.  Turning the mix knob to 100% wet (clockwise) killed all sound.

So, the pedal was passing the dry signal through, but the effected sound wasn't happening.

Bummed out, I called the retailer and explained the situation.  They were happy to issue a return label, but they didn't have another in stock, and the next shipment wasn't arriving until mid-January.

I'm not waiting that long.

I asked for a refund (though I'm still waiting for my return label), and proceeded to go and order the pedal from Amazon.

It arrives Monday.

It's better than January I suppose.


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