FX Pedals Thread: News, Views, Etc.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

Has anyone heard of Ammoon pedals? Some of them look like repackaged Joyos -- same/similar pedal names, different artwork, same knob configurations -- but I'm wondering if the internal parts are the same.

This delay claims to be 600ms to 3 seconds: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AXZ27DO that would be something else if it proved to be true...

Ammoon do have the cheapest looper I've seen -- small footprint for less than $40. Tiny pedal... https://www.amazon.com/ammoon-Electric- ... B01GG0YR60

[Uncle E]

I've been offered a good deal on an EHX Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi. My first thought is whoopee another great flavour of Electro Fuzz. Well Fuzzish as it's more overdrive/distortion than Big Muff.

It sort of sounds like a distortion version of the modern Little Big Muff. I liked Behringer's Vintage Distortion better.

[khanyz]

I've been offered a good deal on an EHX Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi. My first thought is whoopee another great flavour of Electro Fuzz. Well Fuzzish as it's more overdrive/distortion than Big Muff.

It sort of sounds like a distortion version of the modern Little Big Muff. I liked Behringer's Vintage Distortion better.

Yes, after a bit more listening I passed on it. I had a bit of an in-store play with a few others and, for the moment at least, my FX lust is sated. Kind of disappointing and surprising at the same time .

The only thing that interest me are the Jet City Jettenuator and the AMT Chameleon Cab pedal. I'm thinking they could combine well and the pedal would also be good with my Blackstar pedal.

[Uncle E]

Did you see AMT Pangea convolution cabinet emulator?

http://www.jrrshop.com/amt-pangaea-cp-1 ... tor-and-eq

[khanyz]

Did you see AMT Pangea convolution cabinet emulator?

http://www.jrrshop.com/amt-pangaea-cp-1 ... tor-and-eq

I've seen similar ones but not the AMT one. I can see it's use for live work but I quit that years ago. These days I'm just a studio bunny and if using IRs, would want more control over them. However, I'm a knob twiddler when it comes to writing/composing so the Chameleon Pedal would suit my process up to demoing songs.

When using IRs, which I do a lot, I prefer to modulate them (Reverberate) and add an envelope driven filter (FabFilter Micro). Actually, FabFilter Simplon can be a good basic Cab Sim, there's no envelope follower though (which would be an awesome addition, but probably make it too close to Volcano to be economic).

[SJ_Digriz]

Seems like using Chinese mass production chips is causing an explosion in the mini pedal arena. There's literally dozens of companies doing it now. Heck these Donner pedals aren't actually that bad for $40 or so a wack. I obviously prefer my expensive full size pedals, but geez the price/performance difference is getting ridiculous. If you're just setting up a portable live rig that you don't want to worry about ruining/losing gear you can afford 5 each of these things.

https://www.amazon.com/Donner-Guitar-Pe ... ner+pedals

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

Methinks Uncle E has the skinny on which factory is producing what, but it does seem like a single factory complex will pump out multiple mini-pedal brands. For instance, you have your Mooer, Andoer, Donner, Rowin, etc. Oftentimes the form factor and sound between competing pedals is (apparently) the same.

Joyo might be my favorite Chinese brand, though I've not tried their mini-pedals ("Ironman"?) yet. Then you have Caline, Biyang, ammoon, etc. It seems like Biyang are their own brand ("Wang's"), but I wonder if Joyo and ammoon for instance might intersect on certain pedals, wrt to the same factory/specs.

At the very least, it looks as though ammoon might 'borrow' the form factor; not only from Joyo, but from other brands like Boss.

Anyway, yeah the world is being flooded with pedals! Agreed that loading up on inexpensive gear is a good approach to bar gigs.

[Uncle E]

I've been going to the China trade shows for about 10 years (I'm half Chinese) and I do know a lot of these companies personally. There are many connections between them, such as the owner of Mooer being the wife of the owner of Joyo, plus there are so many engineers who've left the bigger companies to start their own. Also, there are several factories that used to make pedals for Electro Harmonix, EBS, Akai, etc. who are continuing to produce those old pedals under their own names.

I made a pedal using miniature surface mount components before and they sound a lot different from full size components. They're not necessarily worse, in fact I quite liked the darker sound they gave my pedal, but it's a big enough difference that you should try them and not take them at face value.

[khanyz]

It could be a handy excercise to reamp the same riff/chords through similar pedals. So you'd compare:

Boss Blues Driver (baseline)
Boss Blues Driver Waza (discrete components?)
Biyang Blues
Tomsline Bluesy
Joyo Blue Rain (?)

and so on.

Also check here https://spartanmusic.co.uk/blogs/smblog ... nes-a-list for equivalents.

[Uncle E]

The Blues Driver and Biyang Blues sound absolutely nothing alike. The Blues Driver gets JCM800 levels of gain, whereas the Biyang Blues barely even distorts at all.

[khanyz]

So how accurate is the Spartan Music list (have they just gone on name for some)?

[SJ_Digriz]

I made a pedal using miniature surface mount components before and they sound a lot different from full size components. They're not necessarily worse, in fact I quite liked the darker sound they gave my pedal, but it's a big enough difference that you should try them and not take them at face value.

The main thing I've noticed is that they are good in a very small range of the available settings. They have a tiny pronounced sweet spot. High settings tend to get noisy and have weird, non-intuitive results. Low settings have crappy noise floor and or cross talk/chatter that is audible. But, the middle-ish range where they sound good, actually sound really good.

[resynthesis]

I made a pedal using miniature surface mount components before and they sound a lot different from full size components. They're not necessarily worse, in fact I quite liked the darker sound they gave my pedal, but it's a big enough difference that you should try them and not take them at face value.

The main thing I've noticed is that they are good in a very small range of the available settings. They have a tiny pronounced sweet spot. High settings tend to get noisy and have weird, non-intuitive results. Low settings have crappy noise floor and or cross talk/chatter that is audible. But, the middle-ish range where they sound good, actually sound really good.

Noise and cross-talk could be poor PCB layout. I haven't used many of these pedals but I have two Mooers which I'm really impressed with and which aren't noisier than the pedals they're cloning (Fuzz Face and Keeley DS1).

Uncle E, which pedal (or what type of pedal) did you build? We noticed some differences with SM opamps but none with transistor based layouts once we matched resistor and capacitors.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

Today, I received 3 ammoons. They look exactly like Joyos, but with different 'silkscreen' graphics on the face. Will have to hear how they sound.

DHL out of China is fast. It only took 4 days, while the estimated arrival date was 3-5 weeks beyond today.

[Uncle E]

So how accurate is the Spartan Music list (have they just gone on name for some)?

It ranges from very good (Digitech Bad Monkey, Danelectro Cool Cat Drive) to lower quality versions of the real things (Biyang OD10, Mooer AnaEcho, Caline Orange Burst, Electro Harmonix Soul Food) to not even close (Behringer Vintage Distortion, Joyo Ultimate Drive, Joyo Ultimate Octabe, Biyang Blue).

Mind you, I think the Behringer Vintage Distortion, Joyo Ultimate Drive, and Biyang Blue are all extremely cool pedals. They just sound nothing like the pedals Spartan says they're copying.