Which cheap pedal utterly exceeded your expectations?

dogload

Especially after the ridiculous hype a while ago when people were asking a couple of hundred quid for them!

meltedbuzzbox

really?

dang

So its kind of like the Shredmaster now then? Gone from £200 > £50

ThePrettyDamned

Hilarious, how gear hype works.

dogload

Well somehow people got it into their heads that the old painted versions had magic bean properties and there were some selling on Ebay for frankly, mental money. 

samzadgan

DOD Milkbox...extremely good compressor for any money!

most of the Marshall pedals are really good, but are really cheap...and they dont get much respect...dont get why!?!

johnonguitar

Joyo Ultimate Drive for the win. Great pedal.

Digging the Danelectro Fab Distortion for rat-ish sounds

Zoom Ms-50 for 50 bucks second hand, dyno.

In fact I'm currently putting together a "shite" pedalboard that's going Soulfood or Bad Monkey -> Ultimate Drive -> Fab Distorion -> Zoom Ms-50

Bet I still sound more awesome with ten times more mojo than any of you losers

Grumpyrocker

Zoom G3 - not exactly one pedal, but does so much for so little money.

Zoom MS70-CDR so much in one pedal. Some really lovely sounds once you've figured out your own best way to use it.

Marshall Jackhammer - ridiculously good two-mode dirt pedal. Some folks struggle to get a good sound out of Dist mode, but once you work out how the contour control works (and how to get rid if you don't want to use it) the Jackhammer sounds brilliant. 

meltedbuzzbox

samzadgan said:

DOD Milkbox...extremely good compressor for any money!

most of the Marshall pedals are really good, but are really cheap...and they dont get much respect...dont get why!?!

I am guessing you mean the smaller chrome ish coloured ones?

I have the Jackhammer :-D (love that thing) and the Edward Compressor. I think the compressor is the best I have heard out side of the Xotic.

I can confirm that I have been pressing on that Jackhammer for 11+ years and it is still like new. Its been used heavily as well. 

IanSavage

Grumpyrocker said:

Zoom G3 - not exactly one pedal, but does so much for so little money.

Zoom MS70-CDR so much in one pedal. Some really lovely sounds once you've figured out your own best way to use it.

Marshall Jackhammer - ridiculously good two-mode dirt pedal. Some folks struggle to get a good sound out of Dist mode, but once you work out how the contour control works (and how to get rid if you don't want to use it) the Jackhammer sounds brilliant. 

Wisdom awarded for this; one of the best guitar sounds I've ever had was a stereo setup, one side with modulation into a clean bass amp the other side through a Jackhammer into a little wee valve amp (Peavey Classic 20). Sounded MASSIVE.

thermionic

A couple mentioned already - I picked up a used Guvnor 2 here for £30. I didn't expect it to sound more natural than my OCD clone, and the EQ will get you out of most tight corners. I also have a Dano Chicken Salad, haven't done the mods but I have played with the trimpot with some success. I keep thinking of rehousing it with a full-sized pot. When I was a poverty-stricken, Smiths-obsessed student in the late 80s I couldn't afford a CE-2. So I got a Rocteck Chorus for about £27 which sounded great and looked a bit like the more expensive Arion pedals of the same era - are they related? Despite the all-plastic construction it survived many years of gigging, always on the floor, no pedalboard. Sold it to fund a CE-2 eventually.