Looking for a cheap, good, weird, cool, effects pedal for synthesizers.

[justin3am]

also, you dont want to record everything in stereo anyway, mixing will become a massive pain.

As a person who works with a lot of stereo sources, I agree with this.
In general I prefer desktop effect boxes or rack effects for synths.

That said, I have a bunch of those old Line-6 ToneCore modules and three of the stereo dock pedals and they work pretty well with synths. They were discontinued but if you are patient you can find the these pedals for <$50. My favorites are the Verbzilla, Echo Park and Liquid Flanger. The Ottofilter and UberMetal are also pretty cool.

[RichieWitch]

If you're dying to put your foot on something, buy an expression pedal and plug it into the Pedal/CV port on the Deepmind. Instant cool-weirdness right from the synthesizer.

[yellowmix]

Recommending against the June-60. It's geared to make guitars sound good, synths weren't really considered. Also it sounds nothing like a Juno chorus. You will be disappointed.

Also recommending against the Zoom multieffect. No sense menu diving into third rate FX unless you are playing live or intend to do DAWless jamming. Sounds like you're in the studio, where plugins blow most digital pedals away. If you want pedals under $100 look to what excels in that price range instead of trying to cram functionality into a budget.

Distortion and overdrive circuits are relatively inexpensive, and analog distortion emulation is CPU expensive. But are you looking to distort your synths? Also, synths benefit greatly from filtering/multibanding the distortion. The other issue is synth level vs line (guitar) level, since distortion is highly level dependent. You could try turning the synth volume down but now you've raised the noise floor. The "proper" way to solve this is with a reamp box, which eats your $100 immediately.

If you are committed to pedals, understand you are going to want a lot more things like that. You know TC pedals don't come with a power brick? Most pedals don't. You could buy a brick at around $10 apiece. But then you'll fill up a power strip. So look up guitar pedal power supplies. Something as cheap as a Onespot may work for the first couple pedals but you'll want a real box supply with multiple voltages and amperages, and you'll likely want true isolated power. Most pedals will work with 9V/100mA but a lot of newer ones can be really hungry, upwards of 12V/18V and 1000mA.

Also cables. For each pedal in the chain you'll need one more patch or instrument cable. And whether it's right-angled or straight on the ends depends where the input and outputs are located. Maybe pick up some bulk cable and some connectors and soldering supplies and learn to make your own custom length and types. It's a useful skill to have whether you use pedals or not.

[lfm]

If you're dying to put your foot on something, buy an expression pedal and plug it into the Pedal/CV port on the Deepmind. Instant cool-weirdness right from the synthesizer.

+1 - really good idea and good investment too.
Controlling parameters live from mod wheel and expressions pedal is really interesting approach.

You can control just about anything in the internal effects like that.

And sustain pedal is really cheap as well to do on/off kind of things of internal stuff already there. So wanting stompbox something - get a sustain pedal as well. It can be assigned to many interesting things.

Unless going for rack units which are designed to take keyboard level signals - going for external effects is crazy. And there isn't any in the $100 range.

And in the case of DM - from start looking for external effects is obsolete.

I guess OP is window shopping and looking forward to his synth - but getting a stompbox for guitar it will be a waste of money and just something quickly put away on a shelf somewhere.

So for $100 - you get both an expression pedal and sustain pedal - and it will be something you actually use all the time.

And it can be assigned to something different in each preset you are playing - to control what you want.

[Fox_GAMING_NTF]

Recommending against the June-60. It's geared to make guitars sound good, synths weren't really considered. Also it sounds nothing like a Juno chorus. You will be disappointed.

Also recommending against the Zoom multieffect. No sense menu diving into third rate FX unless you are playing live or intend to do DAWless jamming. Sounds like you're in the studio, where plugins blow most digital pedals away. If you want pedals under $100 look to what excels in that price range instead of trying to cram functionality into a budget.

Distortion and overdrive circuits are relatively inexpensive, and analog distortion emulation is CPU expensive. But are you looking to distort your synths? Also, synths benefit greatly from filtering/multibanding the distortion. The other issue is synth level vs line (guitar) level, since distortion is highly level dependent. You could try turning the synth volume down but now you've raised the noise floor. The "proper" way to solve this is with a reamp box, which eats your $100 immediately.

If you are committed to pedals, understand you are going to want a lot more things like that. You know TC pedals don't come with a power brick? Most pedals don't. You could buy a brick at around $10 apiece. But then you'll fill up a power strip. So look up guitar pedal power supplies. Something as cheap as a Onespot may work for the first couple pedals but you'll want a real box supply with multiple voltages and amperages, and you'll likely want true isolated power. Most pedals will work with 9V/100mA but a lot of newer ones can be really hungry, upwards of 12V/18V and 1000mA.

Also cables. For each pedal in the chain you'll need one more patch or instrument cable. And whether it's right-angled or straight on the ends depends where the input and outputs are located. Maybe pick up some bulk cable and some connectors and soldering supplies and learn to make your own custom length and types. It's a useful skill to have whether you use pedals or not.

It's funny, in the videos I've seen of it, it sounds close. But I'll remove it from the list.

[vurt]

if you like how something sounds,dont listen to anyone else
we can offer advice, at the end of the day,you are the one using it

[Fox_GAMING_NTF]

if you like how something sounds,dont listen to anyone else
we can offer advice, at the end of the day,you are the one using it

Ok, thanks! I'll have to think about it, oof.

[Fox_GAMING_NTF]

if you like how something sounds,dont listen to anyone else
we can offer advice, at the end of the day,you are the one using it

Ok, I think I'm not going to get it, oof. : / I gotta find something cool though... maybe not even something that is an effects pedal, just something cool, oof.

[kvotchin]

Recommended the pedal I did, because it was within OP’s spec, give or take some small change. In other words, if someone asks for an effects pedal recommendation, I’ll try to give them one.

But okay, given the OP seems open to all kinds of persuasion, yes, the sustain and expression pedals idea is a solid one.

Also, I agree that the June pedal is both overrated in general and not good for synths.

[thecontrolcentre]

Some cool effects ...

https://www.dreadbox-fx.com/effects/

https://www.strymon.net/

Not cheap tho' ...

[bM3w]

The Eventide H9 is being used in many modular synth videos, but it starts at 4x $100

https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/ ... ocessor/h9

[gaf_thit]

The Eventide H9 is being used in many modular synth videos, but it starts at 4x $100

https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/ ... ocessor/h9

I bought the H9 max once and was so excited to start using it... but then I was menu diving and so on, using a tablet to control parameters etc, so I found myself drifting back to plugins and selling the H9. Yes, it is a superb product, but for me in a home studio I didn't use it enough considering it's price.
With pedals I value the hands-on experience. That said I have used a Digitech GNX3000 a lot with synths, using it's exp.pedal to good effect, but my guess is that an exp. and sustain pedal coupled to the DM12 is a sure win. I have the DM6 and still haven't dived to the bottom of that deep ocean of possibilities...
(Too-much-coffee-too-early-post)

[Fox_GAMING_NTF]

Recommended the pedal I did, because it was within OP’s spec, give or take some small change. In other words, if someone asks for an effects pedal recommendation, I’ll try to give them one.

But okay, given the OP seems open to all kinds of persuasion, yes, the sustain and expression pedals idea is a solid one.

Also, I agree that the June pedal is both overrated in general and not good for synths.

Ah, ok, thanks.

[MeneerJansen]

Cheap and cool for a synth? A Small Stone from Electro-Harmonix (the Behringer VP1 clone sounds exactly the same).

Or the Zoom MS-70CDR like somebody else said (also contains a fairly good clone of the Small Stone). But you din't like the MS-70. If the MS-70 isn't cheap and versatile enough then I'm afraid noting will please you...

[Fox_GAMING_NTF]

What about aesthetic things? Like lights, etc.