Budget pedals - Donner, Nux, Biyang, Toms Line etc

lincolnblue

Whenever you search for generic pedal types on ebay e.g delay pedal, reverb pedal etc you get lots of pedals come up from companies that produce budget pedals e.g. Donner, Nux, Tom's Line etc.


Whilst you can take a punt and see what they're like, chances are re-sale value would mean you'd lose money even selling on straight away. Are there any manufacturers to avoid? I'm after a dealy pedal but don't want to risk buying some of the £25 new pedals to find out it's rubbish

professorben

Donner and Rowin seem to be just Mooer in a different colour or typeface. 

monquixote

Depends what you want to do. 

I've had Tone City and Joyo pedals break on me so I wouldn't gig them. For mucking about at home they are usually fine.

bingefeller

I would go for Mooer as I've had them before and they're good for the price.

ThePrettyDamned

You can often find old digitech, hardwire, boss and dod FX pedals for similar money that, even if they're no "better" probably last better and may be a more interesting purchase. 

professorben

Case in point Boss PowerStack £30 in my local shop. 

JD50

I have/ have had Rowin, Behringer, Nux. All decent and no structural faults despite cheap price.

Dominic

mooer are really excellent so are Belcat

JezWynd

I've found the budget end of the market to be pretty poor generally. There are a few gems (Mooer Black Secret, Elec Lady etc.) but I found putting a few together resulted in unwanted noise and generally poor sound. I don't gig though, so perhaps I'm hyper-critical.

VJIves

I had a Nux looper, and it was great. Really solid housing too.

professorben

JezWynd said:

I've found the budget end of the market to be pretty poor generally. There are a few gems (Mooer Black Secret, Elec Lady etc.) but I found putting a few together resulted in unwanted noise and generally poor sound. I don't gig though, so perhaps I'm hyper-critical.

Pretty much as with any company. 
Some hit some miss. 

jonnyburgo

The Little Rowin reverb I had was much better than the Mooer shimverb. The shimverb had a nasty metallic sound to my ears.

Dopesick

As many have said, the majority of the bite size pedal family aren't really that bad.

I have a Mooer Hustle Drive and it's great for my low to mid gain drive sound...unfortunately I am starting to realise that pedals of this size are becoming more of a hindrance - you stomp on it and if you're not dead on accurate, it will fall on it's side, no matter how much velcro you use (velcro just sticks to the board because of the small surface). I don't think I'll be getting anymore.

samzadgan

for what its worth...i bought a Nux poly tuner recently...i also have TC polytune. I use both of them chromatically, and I tune to B. I actually find that the Nux is much quicker on the low strings, whereas the TC takes ages to register my B, E an A strings.

not commenting on resale or long term durability...but pure functionality, the Nux is a winner.

nick79

On a whim i bought a NUX CH-3, think it cost me about £15 (brand new) on ebay. 
Its fine, in fact for £15 i'm really chuffed. It does what a chorus pedal should and it's not noisy.

Obviously it's not in the same league as something like an MXR or Boss pedal but it cost a fraction of those and for what i need it for it does the job. 

lincolnblue

I wonder if the gear snob in me is one reason I'm hesitating to buy

ThePrettyDamned

lincolnblue said:

I wonder if the gear snob in me is one reason I'm hesitating to buy

Go on ebay and search dod. You'd be surprised - lots of pedals available. 

I got a boss ce3 for about 40 quid. There is a (imo) superior sounding dod FX 65 on ebay for the same. Boss od3 isn't too expensive, nor is the sd1.if you're lucky you'll find the excellent sd-2 for a reasonable price - it's going rate varies massively. 

Corvus

I've got the Donner Jet flanger = Mooer Eleclady. For 20 something quid there wasn't a lot to lose, it's really good though. Seems you can go by the more common Mooer demos for sounds and more easily find what the original pedals are they're based on.

gubble

The donner tremolo I purchased for around £19 on amazon.

When it arrived the box said 'trellicopter' on it and the instructions inside even said Mooer on them.

From a delay point of view I highly recommend the Belcat analogue delay. Costs under £20 brand now, sounds great and has been a staple on my board for around 8 years / 300+ gigs

Dominic

gubble said:

From a delay point of view I highly recommend the Belcat analogue delay. Costs under £20 brand now, sounds great and has been a staple on my board for around 8 years / 300+ gigs

Yes .......it's outstanding for slapback

Cookiemonster

Aural dream pedals. Have a look at those. They have a doubler. Which looks a bit like the mimic