Diminishing Pedal Market

Dominic

Suddenly,especially with intro of Helix HX it seems harder to sell average pedals........of course there are nutters who want to pay a billion pounds for a Klon and other fabled machines but it does seem that multi digital units from Helix,Kemper,Mooer,Zoom etc have got so good and are good VFM that the non highly collectable pedal market is being eclipsed. OR  Is guitar music/playing  getting more "pure"and the days of Flange/chorus/phase/Fuzz are diminishing ?

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

Supply and demand - is it not just that there are now a ludicrous number of choices for pedals, and there is a completely flooded second hand market? 

It always amazes me the amount of different pedals and other gizmos people buy, and then end up selling a few weeks/months later cos they've found the next greatest overdrive/fuzz/chorus etc on the road to the perfect tone...

meltedbuzzbox

Pedals are still shifting. Things like the Broadcaster, KOT, Thorpy stuff etc seems to fly quickly enough (although it is typically dirt pedals that seem to be most popular). 

Not sure about the helix killing the market. As a helix owner I always use my pedals over the fx on the helix. YMMV and all that jazz

impmann

Not seeing that myself...

Pedal market appears boyant to me.

However, perhaps some of the magpie effect is wearing thin - its got to the point where its hard to remember which new uber-boutique drive pedal its fashionable to have GAS about. Plus there are a limit to the number of parameters that the average human being needs to have control over on a pedal...

John_A

Having a few pedals in the classifieds with no-takers I think you may be right  

Heartfeltdawn

Dominic said:

Suddenly,especially with intro of Helix HX it seems harder to sell average pedals........of course there are nutters who want to pay a billion pounds for a Klon and other fabled machines but it does seem that multi digital units from Helix,Kemper,Mooer,Zoom etc have got so good and are good VFM that the non highly collectable pedal market is being eclipsed. OR  Is guitar music/playing  getting more "pure"and the days of Flange/chorus/phase/Fuzz are diminishing ?

We hit "Peak pedal" ages ago. Since then guitar music has been declining, the drop in value of the pound means fewer rare pedals from the US are coming over, and the churn through overdrive pedals is much reduced. When the online world meant people like me could find pedals they'd never imagined before, it was this whole new world. For the younger generations who have grown up with the internet, it's passe. 

You also have to factor in tightening budgets for the consumer and I'd say a bit of awareness that you don't need a £200 analog chorus for the one song you have in your pub set that needs some warble. From my observations, you've got a drop in price on the secondhand pedal market for a number of the usual boutique names but the old faithful like Boss are either level or increased. Undoubtedly though the Mooer stuff have had an effect as well as the digital options for modulation and delay etc, not so much for overdrive. 

One last thing: I'd also suggest that the US market has lost a bit of its lustre now we have some excellent builders over here. You don't need to pay those import duties for US pedals now you have the like of Thorpy doing his work. 

DesVegas

I've certainly noticed on here that a lot of pedals are not getting sold as often as they did a year or two ago

Dominic

Agreed.........

Slimbert

I just put it down to trends.

I still buy and sell pedals but not at the rate that I used to. I'm settled with a lot of my pedals. I have no reason to change things around as often as I did.

I do agree that the number of people active in the pedal party seemed to peak a while back but there's still lots of interest, lots of new stuff coming out, a healthy ish 2nd hand market, and I think it'll all continue for a good while to come.

The recent demise of Digitech is a worry though...whatever anyone says, money is always the deciding factor when it comes to business.

ICBM

I’ve largely lost interest in them. Part of it is that I’ve got a decent multi-FX so I don’t feel the need for them, part is that I can’t be bothered with all the cabling and hassle, and part is that I detest the typical ‘boutique’ pedal design which has now become so fashionable even major manufacturers are adopting it - true bypass, metal click switches, flat casings with knobs where you can kick them etc... basically undoing everything that Boss fixed forty years ago.

That’s the practical stuff - but I also really dislike the Emperor’s New Clothes approach of a lot of (although not all) smaller builders, and the now established cliché of the generic pedalboard with some variation on the same collection of must-have pedals irritates me for some reason. It’s become formulaic and boring.

sgosden

Second hand everything market is slow. Something to do with the economy that I couldn't accurately explain. But know I don't have as much "fun money" as I used to. I'd guess lots of other are in the same same boat. 

JezWynd

ICBM said:

I’ve largely lost interest in them.

Me too. I don't know if it's having a nicer instrument but I'm enjoying hearing the basic instrument sound through a good amp & cab. I have a few core effects that I need/want plus a couple of alternatives for each; I've moved on nearly 40 pedals this year with no intention of replacing them. Is this what throwing away your bra in the 60's felt like?

Wazmeister

ICBM said:

I’ve largely lost interest in them. Part of it is that I’ve got a decent multi-FX so I don’t feel the need for them, part is that I can’t be bothered with all the cabling and hassle, and part is that I detest the typical ‘boutique’ pedal design which has now become so fashionable even major manufacturers are adopting it - true bypass, metal click switches, flat casings with knobs where you can kick them etc... basically undoing everything that Boss fixed forty years ago.

That’s the practical stuff - but I also really dislike the Emperor’s New Clothes approach of a lot of (although not all) smaller builders, and the now established cliché of the generic pedalboard with some variation on the same collection of must-have pedals irritates me for some reason. It’s become formulaic and boring.

Great post mate, and pretty much how I feel these days...

Anacharsis

I don't think it is the high end multi-fx so much as hype fatigue and clear heads prevailing over ad copy. I like the pedals that I have, but I no longer pay much attention to what is new. ICBM's post condensed a lot of truth, at least as I see it.

Pedals are fun, but not nearly as fun as music.

Paul_C

My current music making is all about pedals, but I can only afford so many

I like soft-switches and would rather have flat cases because my feet rarely get near them, so the knobs are in no danger. 

Funnily, I get some of my sounds from a fairly old Vox Tonelab ST as well as the more expensive and other-worldly things I love to buy, and I'm quite happy to buy something second-hand and cheap rather than brand new and pricey.

Dan_Halen

I see the opposite. I used to buy, try and then inevitably sell loads of pedals. I've had the same eBay searches saved forever with a few of my favourite manufacturers or specific pedals and have seen a steady rise. Stuff that you used to be able to pick up for 80/90 quid seems to go for 110/120, popular vintage pedals such as the Boss DC-2 have nearly doubled and even when the brand new price has slightly dropped e.g. Strymon Flint or El Cap to >280, people are paying 210/220  for these when you could have grabbed one a year back for 180.

There's also definitely a trend of people being prepared to pay more for single stomp boxes than ever. When the market started to really take off a few years back it was people with mainly Boss, maybe a Keeley modded TS, maybe an MXR or something but you'd be looking at about 80 quid new and 50/60 quid second hand. People are now seemingly happy to pay 200+ for a TS or Muff clone. You look at a board now with Strymon, Chase Bliss, Eventide, JHS, Wampler, Xotic and these guys have dropped like 2/3k on pedals.

I've got an AX8 which can probably cover 95% of what my collection of pedals can but there's something so alluring about those shiny little boxes of joy that I can't get away from.

Teetonetal

Can only speak for myself but helix takes care of all my standard use cases. My love of ambient is well and truly taken care of by meris and moog. Got a small boss board for the few occasions I want to keep it simple (tuner OD delay)

Been through enough pedals to realise that a vast amount are subtle variations on decades old designs.

Haven't bought or sold anything since Oct 2017 and no plans to do so.

builttospill

I'm repeating myself here but I've avoided the boutique pedal market for financial reason kids etc, but also because I feel exhausted and overwhelmed by the pedal choices us guitarists have. I''l be honest my head has been swayed by the Hudson Broadcast hype but I'll stick with my Boss SD-2 for now.
I own an all Boss board including 2x Boss drives and I'm more content now than I was when I owned £600 worth of OD's on a Pedaltrain Jr.
I keep banging on about this but the Boss stuff is intuitive and it sounds great. I recently played my first gig with my band with a proper stage set up inc monitors mic'd up amps etc. We'd only ever done an open mic type event prior to this and I was really happy with the sound and felt confident with my pedalboard setup.       

hotpickups

I must admit that I've just settled down with pedals. Spending time now getting to know then rather than flip them a few months off from buying them. Can't say they'll be going anywhere soon now. A good chunk of any spare cash I've got now will go to my guitar build I've commissioned anyway 

impmann

I'd agree about the prices being asked for old pedals - and that a lot of them *ARE NOT* selling for these daft prices.

I've been watching the old Boss DC2 Dimension pedals and in recent months the prices asked have skyrocketted... and guess what, the same pedals are all still for sale as they were 6 months ago.

I'm noticing this a lot with all manner of old gear (not just musical stuff) right now. Prices shoot up because a pretentious prick starts advertising something at a hyped price... the sheep then follow suit thinking "this is worth a fortune" and so the prices spike. But nothing sells for  ages until the prices fall to a less ridiculous but overstated amount - because it looks better value than the previouly daft price.

With a DC2, this is a £90-100 pedal. No more. Anything above that being asked is vintage-mojo-classic-antique-Mike-Brewer-Drew-Pritchard-'old-aaht-yer-rand' fluff - they aren't rare, and its one of the few effects that can be really easily captured by digital modelling. TBH, the model in the Line6 M5/M9/M13 sounds pretty much identical... so why are some dumbasses believing that its worth £300????? They aren't selling, boys n girls...look it up.

steer

Multi Effects get better and better. The first multi I played in the mid 90s was abysmal. The current generation are excellent.