Underrated pedal brands

Fiftyshadesofjay

Carl Martin. I’ve got a Blue Ranger on my board currently, my brother found it in a Cash Convertors for £15. Little to no info on them on the Internet but it sounds great, like a higher gain TS that moves into fuzz at higher gain.

Edit - with the one caveat that the colour and typeface look like absolute s**t, probably part of the reason they weren’t very popular.

Reverend

Voxman said:

ICBM said:

Voxman said:

[Behringer]

I agree...

The TO800 is in fact identical to an original, hyper-expensive TS-808 - there's a video by JHS pedals where he A/B's them in real time with a loop-switcher and there's no change in the sound at all .

Which is the conclusion we came to when we had them side by side and we then realised it was the wider tonal range in the To800 that made it sound better to our ears. The original sounded slightly darker with the gain on higher settings, whereas the To800 tone could go higher and it just sounded a bit brighter. 

Interestingly I just found some shoot out vids and several folk commented the same, ie it was slightly brighter, which is why I preferred it. 

How many boutique pedals are made with Behringer components anyway? I seem a lot of people sate that a cheap pedal will never, ever sound as good as an expensive pedal. However, when A/Bing a maxon 808 and a bad monkey, using Gibson SG and LP into jmp 2203 amps the whole band agreed the monkey had the edge

ICBM

Reverend said:

How many boutique pedals are made with Behringer components anyway? I seem a lot of people sate that a cheap pedal will never, ever sound as good as an expensive pedal. However, when A/Bing a maxon 808 and a bad monkey, using Gibson SG and LP into jmp 2203 amps the whole band agreed the monkey had the edge

The Bad Monkey isn't quite the same circuit though, it has dual EQ. (And possibly other differences, I would need to check the schematic.)

But yes, the vast majority of boutique pedals will be made with standard Chinese-made components used in most older mass-produced pedals - not newer ones which usually use surface-mount parts.

In terms of component quality the holy grail of vintage Tube Screamers *is* a cheap pedal.

personalnadir

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

Carl Martin. I’ve got a Blue Ranger on my board currently, my brother found it in a Cash Convertors for £15. Little to no info on them on the Internet but it sounds great, like a higher gain TS that moves into fuzz at higher gain.

Edit - with the one caveat that the colour and typeface look like absolute s**t, probably part of the reason they weren’t very popular.

Lucky! The Cash Converters online shop seems to charge more for Behringer and TC Electronic pedals than they'd cost new now. 

Bennyboy-UK

I always liked the Danelectro Fab Tone

Another mention for the Tech 21 XXL...

Schmo

XTS Xact Tone Solutions, gotta be one of the most under-rated brands at least here in the UK !

Had a good chunk of the range at one time or another - the Pegasus Boost and Atomic OD being mainstays.
The Imperial covers the Nobels ODR thing, the Precision Multi Drive is a tweak-able take on the Tubescreamer, the Winford very dynamic covering a range of drive levels...

Love those guys and their pedal range...

DesVegas

The Rowin mini clone range are excellent. Far outplay the Tone City ones IMHO

Puddlesurfer

Korg era Vox pedals other than their wah. Some excellent innovative drives.

meltedbuzzbox

Moog

Just such complete sounds from all the old vintage favourites to totally bat shit mental.

shaunm

GFI, 

BintyTwanger77

Coppersound - don’t see them mentioned much on here, but before they released that mentally priced octave pedal (the Jack White one), they produced some great pedals that seemed to go under the radar, like the Foxcatcher (brilliant transparent OD with boost).

Boo Instruments - Brixton-based, make some excellent pedals, solidly built, stark-looking metal enclosures (can be made with light-up baseplates). I had their Tremolo and it sounds great, and they make a lovely boost and delay, amongst others.

Also, already mentioned but further shouts for Fredric Effects (their klones and Super Unpleasant Companion fuzz are so good) and for the hyper-inventive and criminally underrated Alexander Pedals.

downbytheriver

Nocturne - they aren’t just for Gretsch, Analog Alien - some superb and unique pedals and a sneaky +1 for Rodenberg (if you like TS style pedals)