Super Budget Pedalboard - Looking for Pedal Recomendations - (No politics of gear please)

[tapper mike]

$500....

Line 6 Pod Go
Best money I ever spent on amp/effects pedal board.

[ghettosynth]

The RAT and Klon are great circuits but I'm not sure that's a great dirt section to pick out before you know what preamp is being used.

I suspect it is more economical to choose the right dirt pedals early on than to find the cheapest and keep repeating the search when the results are disappointing.

Ah, you miss the point. I don't give a shit about what is more economical in the long run. I want to know which budget pedals people think are decent. I don't care if I buy one to five too many $30 Chinese specials. I have zero interest in buying one to five too many $250 boutique pedals where I can't hear the difference between them and the low budget imports.

Sure, I'm not trying to push you to the $250 boutique pedals at all! More that it may be better to take a boring $60 Boss/TC Electronic/Digitech pedal over the $30 clone of a cool-but-inappropriate $250 pedal.

Nothing wrong with Boss/TC/Digitech. But I sense you might still be trying to solve a problem that I don't have. The only amp is the end of the chain amp/cab simulator and that can be whatever I'm in the mood for.

I'm definitely looking for opinions on the Boss IR2. As far as alternatives, I don't want anything with screens on my pedalboard. I don't mind a tiny little oled/LCD, but no big touch screens.

For now, I want the sound of a Klon and a Rat, most likely not together very often. I may not keep the rat, I've just never had one and I like the sound of them.

Ah, but what is the sound of a Klon, really? The Klon tones that people lust after generally involve using them to boost an amp that people also lust after. Think of it as a posh tubescreamer;

Yep. I used to have a TS-808, an original. I didn't buy it because it was cool, I bought it because it was the cheapest thing in the pawn shop. Fast forward a few years to the internet era and I discovered that other people thought that it was the bees knees. I did the experiments with modding a TS-10 to be the same as a TS-808, I couldn't tell the difference. In the end, I sold them both for more than I paid for them. The TS-808 sold for a LOT more than I paid for it. I thought it was useful in most/many contexts, often in front of some other distortion.

I've heard about the klon, never owned one, I'm not bothering to build one, but I am going to buy one for $30 to play with it. I'm pretty sure that I'll like it in a similar vein to the TS-808.

I bought a bunch of nice fuzz pedals that mostly sound terrible into my Kraken V4 preamp (which, on a decent non-pedal setting, tends to cut the input lows and sizzles up the high end). Then I got a simpler, lower-gain preamp (low-gain side of Sushi Box Detective, basically a simple class-A tube stage into Fender tonestack) and it takes the scooped/full-bandwidth fuzz pedals much better.

Oh yeah, we're way out of how much I care about the details at this point. If I really need a particular sound for something then I'll dial it in with plugins or my still too excessive collection of rack mounted gear. This is to sit on the floor and give me the basics of a few sensible sounds without faffing about with presets or computers. If it helps, I play mostly single coil guitars. My main guitar right now is a cheap nashville partscaster. I'm on the hunt for the right tele, I may never find it, I don't care all that much. My second guitar is a Godin strat-ish sort of thing. I suppose it's a better guitar than my partscaster, but I don't like it as much.

[khanyz]

What were they lacking when they were lacking?

The build quality was very poor. The first one had loose knobs and a misaligned and inset power socket that meant a power jack wouldn't fit properly. Also, they were very noisy, especially the fuzz, but not consistently so. There were settings where they sounded good but one minor tweak and noise. If you search Mosky in the pedal thread, you'll read my frustrations with them.

A couple of pedals to check out:
- Aroma/Tomsline Black Teeth is the rat clone I have. It's good. I also have the G-Fuzz and build quality is good too.
- The Xvive Tuner seems to be the same as the EHX tuner but much cheaper.
- The mini TC Electronics Mimiq is only mono but it thickens the sound nicely.
- Valeton do nice multi FX for ~£30.

[.jon]

Harley Benton isolated power supplies are awesome value for money!

Some Behringer pedals sound awesome for very little money, Josh of JHS pedals has a video about them.

You can also check out pedal DIY kits, I have a bunch of Uraltone kit pedals, and my favourites are their RAT and Big Muff clones, boutique quality parts for cheap.

[Uncle E]

Then comes overdrive and distortion, right now I think that the Moskey Audio Silver (klon clone) followed by the Moskey Audio Black Rat (proco rat clone) will fit the bill at about $30 each. Open to suggestions for good reasons.

It's worth finding a Rat with an LM308 inside. The real ones are not that expensive and the slew rate of that opamp is 40 times slower than the one used in current Rats and Rat clones. This isn't about politics, you will hear and feel the difference.

[Uncle E]

I can suggest, if you want an eq, Caline CP-24 from Amazon. Also, EHX LPB-1 if you want a boost pedal. Both are quite affordable.

+1 for LPB-1

[Uncle E]

I have that MM Silver. It's great! It's absolutely awful at being a clone but it's so far off that it's its own thing.

[Uncle E]

I've seen Caline and Joyo as identical pedal, also around $50 or so. Think one and the same manufacturer.

Different factories. I've been to both. The owners of Joyo and Mooer are husband and wife, that might be who you're thinking of.

[khanyz]

I have that MM Silver. It's great! It's absolutely awful at being a clone but it's so far off that it's its own thing.

It's still cleaner than I'd like, more a booster than overdrive to my ears. The Hotone Grass is much better, pre distortion.

[Uncle E]

So, maybe a different question would have framed this better. If you had the choice of throwing $500 in the trash or spending it on pedals for fun, and you had to buy at least eight pedals, what would be the most fun you could have for that $500? You don't have to include the prices of the input splitter or the output cabinet modeler in that $500. Those are separate and can be up to $500 additional for the pair.

Danelectro Chicken Salad. Almost no uni-vibe clones get the modulation right, yet somehow that stupid Danelectro does it. Look for JHS's video on it, you'll see what I mean.

I make a pedal for $40 that is literally two distinct Big Muffs circuits in one pedal (Triangle and Ram's Head), so you could say that's $20 per pedal. Both sides have the same input impedances as the originals and the second Muff doesn't react properly to being fed with the first Muff, causing your pick attack to suck out and bloom in all kinds of crazy ways when they're used together.

http://youtu.be/lwd24CdnsZs?si=ycanJz-eEMV9xx6s

[Uncle E]

It's still cleaner than I'd like, more a booster than overdrive to my ears.

You might like the MXR Timmy better. The real Tim and Timmy pedals are fantastic distortions, very different from the Mosky.

[khanyz]

^ Cheers but at £150 I'll stick with my Liquid Sunshine & Plimsoul!

I guess that my Mosky pedals were just duds, like the Biyang Rat clones with the wrong resistor.

BTW the Rowin LN-322 Frenzy Fuzz is just that (in a good way). It can't be based on anything (?) but sounds great.

[imrae]

There used to be some great value clones on UK ebay by Svaha Aqstics and Otalgia (websmurfer) but they seem to both be on hiatus now. Maybe for USA Uncle E's stuff is competitive.

I'll have a think about that $500 challenge, but will probably use DIY stuff from Fuzz Dog. Does that need to include the preamp? If not, what amp/preamp do we assume?

[Uncle E]

I guess that my Mosky pedals were just duds, like the Biyang Rat clones with the wrong resistor.

Biyang made an analog delay that had such erratic timing that it became a cool sounding modulation delay. So bad, it’s good!

[Magic Russ]

A used Boss ME-3 at $250 will cover most of your effects needs. That will leave you $250 for other pedals to put in its three loops to cover the things you don't feel it does well.