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Looking for advice on budget guitar pedals.


RABid

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Looking for advice/suggestions. I'm building a budget pedalboard, just for fun. The goal is to use it for guitar, bass and keys. I'm looking for small pedals, under $50, and under $30 is preferred. I've ordered a used Behringer PB1000 pedal board that holds and powers 12 effects. So far I have a Behringer tuner, KMise analog chorus, and Donner vintage analog delay. Looking for suggestions to fill out the pedal board. Especially OD, distortion, flange, digital delay, reverb and tremolo. I know that some of the cheap stuff is very usable, and some is crap. Let me know what you have found useful and what other brands to look at.

 

Oh, and the pedals need to be accessible. I notice that Behringer pedals are sold out most everywhere.

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Shop for used pedals!!!! You'll save tons of money that way. Tons of stuff on Reverb, Guitar Center used online, eBay and craigslist. Sometimes in pawn shops and thrift stores.

 

Boss pedals are bulletproof, I've found them for $30 or less pretty often. I found one once at Goodwill for $12 that looked like it had been dragged behind a car on the freeway for 100 miles. It worked perfectly.

 

There is a Boss pedal that has both OD and distortion and a way to blend them, don't remember the name but that's a 2-fer. I LOVE my Tech-21 Tri-AC, got it on craigslist for $90 which may sound "spendy" but it has 3 footswitches that can be quickly preset on the fly, very useable Fender, Marshall and Mesa tones, from clean to insane and takes up 2 spaces but again, bang for the buck. I've kept that one for a long time while other pedals came and went.

 

FWIW, I got tired of all the cables and fussing about and switched to guitar amps with multi-effects built in. Main gigger right now is a Boss Katana 100 Combo, that has almost 60 Boss effects that can be programmed with an easy to use program. The 6 button footswitch is great for gigging and just one cable to hook up. I plug straight into the amp. There is tap tempo for delay (this is a must-have feature for any delay!!!).

 

I've also got a Peavey Vypyr VIP 3 I picked up used for 100. The built-in effects are good but the presets are mostly horrible. You have to learn how to dial it, then it can sound amazing. That is also intended to be used as a small gig bass amp and works OK that way so it's more full range than many options. Tons of effects in that one!!!!!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Thanks. I have a Katana Artisan mkii and a Helix floorboard. But I want knobs to turn, buttons to push, and colors to mix. :) I'll also use them with my modular synth. Been watching Ebay. Selection lately seems to be limited. May have something to do with the shortage of Behringer pedals. Everyone may be looking at Ebay for alternatives. I have to wonder if Behringer City in China has been hit by Covid because everyone is out of stock on most Behringer pedals.

 

I also have a Vypry VIP3. I picked it up planning to use it for both guitar and bass. It was very disappointing for bass and I plan to donate it to my local rural high school for jazz band.

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Thanks. I have a Katana Artisan mkii and a Helix floorboard. But I want knobs to turn, buttons to push, and colors to mix. :) I'll also use them with my modular synth. Been watching Ebay. Selection lately seems to be limited. May have something to do with the shortage of Behringer pedals. Everyone may be looking at Ebay for alternatives. I have to wonder if Behringer City in China has been hit by Covid because everyone is out of stock on most Behringer pedals.

 

I also have a Vypry VIP3. I picked it up planning to use it for both guitar and bass. It was very disappointing for bass and I plan to donate it to my local rural high school for jazz band.

 

Try Guitar Center Used online. Maybe things have changed but my experience with Behringer products has led me to ignore them completely. Unreliable, noisy junk in my experience. If you like them, have fun.

I recommended Boss because I know first hand how reliable they are and they hold value. If you pay a fair price you can expect to at least break even when you sell something. That NEVER works with any new pedals regardless of brand - yes there are exceptions but it can take a long time. A friend has the original Ibanez TubeScreamer, it's worth some bucks now and I still think it sounds like crap. So it goes.

 

I agree that the VIP 3 is not the best bass amp, I mentioned only for small gigs. It is at it's best if you can put it in a corner, at least for bass. It won't do a low B either. I've been impressed with it for guitar sounds but I may be seeking something different than your preferences. I always turn the Power Sponge knob on the far right all the way down so I can turn up the Master Volume a bit and get some output tones instead of preamp tones. I never use any of the amps in the "red light" high gain setting either. I am more into a natural overdrive, like you get from a Fender Princeton if you turn it up a bit. The Vypyr will do that, in the orange or green amp settings depending. I use effects like spice, I don't put three tablespoons of ghost pepper on a fish fillet, maybe just a hint.

 

That might not be what you want and that's OK. You do need a Sanpera pedal to get the most out of any VIP.

 

And yes, the Tech 21 stuff is a bit spendy but you get quality gear that sounds great. I just ordered their Sansamp Bass Driver DI V2 and can't wait to get it. $160 used including tax and shipping but it is an incredble pedal. A friend has one. It will become one of my channel strips in my studio, there is a lot more than bass tones in that box.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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The trouble with individual pedals is that they build up very quickly, add in quality non-daisy chain power supply, a mounting board and velcro and you are soon at $500+.

 

Consider an all in one board by Boss, Line 6 or Helix.

 

I sold all my pedals on eBay for a total of £700 when I bought an ex demo Boss GT100 for £200.

Col

 

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I have both MFX units and discrete pedals. Each has their plusses and minuses.

 

First, I"ll echo the sentiment about buying used. There are definitely deals to be had on sites like Reverb, Guitar Center, Music-Go-Round and eBay. You might also check your local Mom & Pop shops.

 

I will also say that my personal experiences with cheaper brands mirrors KuruPrionz"- some of those pedals may SOUND good in your chain, but they"re generally not durable or reliable.

 

Brands I"d look for that have a decent rep for durability coupled with decent tones: Boss, DigiTech, TrueTone (aka VisuslSound), Line 6, MXR.

 

Personally, I"d stay away from fuzz, distortion and OD pedals going into any kind of modeling amp. The newer generations may be different, but historically, modelers don"t work well with dirt boxes. You"ll get a better overall tone using modelers" own fuzz/Dist/OD emulators.

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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The Danelectro Fab Overdrive is the best $15 I've ever spent on gear. My son had a Danelectro tremolo pedal at one time, too. Sounded decent; but was plastic and fragile. If you're just planning to use these at home for fun, go for it. If you plan to gig with them, maybe look for something sturdier.

 

Electro Harmonix pedals can also be had at decent price point on the used market.

 

Whenever possible, try before you buy.

"Am I enough of a freak to be worth paying to see?"- Separated Out (Marillion)

NEW band Old band

 

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Go to Guitar Center's Used Gear links, look under Effects, and you could spend the rest of the day looking at your computer screen. Here, this should get you started . . . Used pedals at Guitar Center

 

I see a lot of used Boss, MXR and EHX pedals for very reasonable prices, many of them well under your $50 threshold. I've also bought a number of oddball pedals online, through GC's links, and found some fun things.

 

Behringer pedals aren't a bad deal for the money, although not all of them sound as good as the pedals they're copying. I have no experience with the ubiquitous Donner/Mooer/Joyo pedals, or any of the other super-cheap Chinese-made mini-pedals, because I avoid them. OTOH, some of my friends in the EM community have had good luck with them, but they're mostly being used in tabletop rigs, where they're not getting the level of abuse they would living on the floor and getting stepped on.

 

One thing to be aware of with that big Behringer pedalboard; the Power Supply is essential a daisy-chain, no individual isolated power Outs. Lots of potential for noise issues, ground loops, and even pedals starving for power because of one high current draw Digital pedal. A friend gave me one a while back, and I passed it on to another friend who had no pedalboard at all, but again, he's using it for a desktop rig.

 

I also have to cast a vote for MFX. Much as I enjoy turning knobs, and plugging in absurdly long effects chains, an all-in-one unit gives you access to a lot of sounds, and a lot of effects, for less than it would generally cost you to assemble a full pedalboard, even buying budget pedals.

 

Good hunting!

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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I keep seeing people recommend multi-fx... which is strange because the OP said he has a Helix, but wants little boxes for fun. I have an HX Stomp... I'm sure it will come in handy in some or other situation eventually, but I have no fun and feel no inspiration dicking around with it, really. I play with software in my day job as a graphic designer, I think I want an escape from that... Chaining little boxes together is fun for me... I have a local rep as a stompbox wizard for nailing tones and doing special effects with them (I did the "Mad Calliope" section of "... Mr. Kite" for our Sgt. Pepper shows by running an Earthquaker Devices Ogranizer into an Earthquaker Devices Rainbow Machine into a Boss DD5 set on the "reverse" delay setting, with a slide on my finger, jumping around and "outrunning" what the delay could catch and replay, so it came out in fragmented bits of organ riffs... The keyboardist who put the show together said he couldn't figure out how to do it live, and using a pre-recorded thing scared him because of tempo, but "I'll bet you can just turn on some pedals and recreate it"). I blame a fascination with Adrian Belew when I was 14...

 

Tips on brands? There have never been more brands making music gear than now. And anything is cheap/er if you wait until someone needs to get rid of it. I've gotten some deals during the past few months because stores are slashing prices on new and used stuff to keep money coming in... and there's guys who have to have everything new thing the first day it comes out, and don't keep any of it, or don't like things so they're constantly selling it to get the next thing and they have to discount it just for opening the package. Also, the culture of pedal dweebs is incredibly shallow... if someone doesn't have the original box and every bit of "box candy" that came with it, or it has some scratches, suddenly the pedal is "worthless" to them... and they're trendy: "Dude... you've got boutique pedals but then you have a couple of Boss pedals? What's up with that?" They work, sound great, are reliable and a bargain and they pretty much started all of this insanity along with MXR and EHX... plus, if you need a back up or one dies on the road you can find a replacement in the local pawn shop or Guitar Center for cheap and carry on...

 

My fave chorus pedal is a recent Delta Labs (from when Guitar Center resurrected that brand) that I got for $12. I got a T. Rex Tonebug Reverb for $30... Lovepedal likes to do flash sales on facebook or shopify so I've bought lots of their pedals that are seriously good for, like, $50. I've bought a lot of stuff for cheap as "Deal of the Day" specials or from certain big box-type outlets that blow stuff out pretty much every day. Also, the worst distortion pedals are usually the most fun, from an experimental side... people tend to be herd-like in what they pursue, so if you just figure out what they're overlooking there's bargains to be had. It pays to be unfashionable!!! Well, maybe not in clothing...

 

I like the Donner stuff I have, a Harmonizer and a Flanger/Phaser, and they were very inexpensive. I personally avoid Behringer because I've been onstage with people whose amps or pedals left this mortal coil suddenly and they were screwed. I've picked up Akai pedals as deals of the day... I have a couple of Pigtronix pedals that get into the synth world that people freak out over and they were both $99 Deals of the Day as opposed to their regular $250 price tags, so I count that as "cheap." Danelectro makes some cool stuff that people discover and then they become expensive...

 

The last thing I got was a $37 "Klon" rip off pedal from a Wish ad on Facebook... just for laughs. I A/B'ed it with my Klon KTR... do they sound the same? No... no they do not. Do they sound similar? No... no they do not? Is it useless? Actually, no... for $37 it's actually an okay "tone focuser" that brings some clarity to a tube amp... not on the level of a Klon, or a Komet Mirasol or a Vertex Steel String or a Chase Tone Secret or others I have and use in that way, but they all cost a hell of a lot more than $37, and I have to take into consideration that somebody in the audience probably doesn't have the picky, experienced ears that I do. It's not much of an overdrive or distortion pedal alone, but I put it in front of a Solo Dallas SoloX Boost (the "Angus Young" pedal) which itself is not distorted on its own and it kicked it into some really cool overdrive... and with an amp that's on the verge or breakup it pushes it into overdrive nicely... it only sucks if you think youre getting what it's dressed up to be... but just for what it is I think it's worth $37.

 

Happy hunting... maybe I'll see you in the 12 step program to stop buying pedals my wife is going to eventually force me into...

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Tips on brands? There have never been more brands making music gear than now. And anything is cheap/er if you wait until someone needs to get rid of it.

 

So much truth.

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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I'm having fun with this. My most expensive purchase is a Joyo reverb. Bought a Tone City Durple and Wild Throw from Andertons. I watch enough of their videos on YouTube. It was time to buy something. It is amazing that they can send me and order from England to Kentucky in 3 days, but Positive Grid cannot send me a Spark in 4 months. Also bought a Donner and a KMise off of Amazon. Trying to get a variety of brands. So far, 6 pedals in 5 brands including the Behringer tuner. As for the comment about the power of the Behringer case, I've had the same reservations. May end up getting another iPsot Pro, though it will cost as much as the case. And oh, yes, I am a retired IT nerd. I don't enjoy making music with a computer. 30 years ago I was using a computer on stage in my band. Now, ugggg.

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