Best drive pedals for under £40

EricTheWeary

ThePrettyDamned said:

Okay, I'll be slaughtered for this

But behringer. Seriously, they have every flavour of drive for about 20-40 quid. They're probably not that reliable, but for 20 quid, it's more about 'sound seeking' than it is 'performance quality' and I think that justifies their inclusion.

Their metal cased vintage tube overdrive can be had for about £32. In the same series as their Time Machine which is the Billy Bargain of all delay pedals ( apart from being the size and shape of a MKI Vauxhall Viva).No idea what it sounds like though. |)

dean2371

The Behringer Tube Screamer is great if you're not fussed about the name

ThePrettyDamned

Looks like the EHX Soul Food might be added if you like the sound of a Klon.  

stickyfiddle

If you put a very low value on your time all the poodle pedalparts kits come in under £40..  

Me, obsessed? Maybe a bit..

Dave_Mc

JayGee said:

Danelectro Cool Cats. 

There's a Transparent OD Mk 1 on my board (along with a Peach Fuzz and a Vibe) and I used to have a Distortion (the red one) on there which also makes a good drive if you keep the gain down and goes back on the board to substitute for the red channel of my Mesa 5:25 for "backline provided" gigs.

They're really good sounding pedals, not good for the price, just good sounding full stop.

I gather the other Drive (the silver one) isn't too shabby either but haven't tried one myself...

Good call, forgot about them. Not too sure about the reliability (my V1 drive died with only light home use), and background noise is slightly higher than I'd ideally like (not to mention they're annoying shapes to get at the controls) but the v1 trans od in particular is awesome, and the v1 fuzz is pretty nice too.

vasselmeyer said:

The Digitech Screamin' Blues is excellent as is the Bad Money which most people seem to think is a TS clone but I understand that it's based on a DOD Juice Box.

The Joyo Sweet Baby is really good and their AC-Tone is just fantastic. I'm really not sure about their build quality but for just messing about with or rehearsing with, you can't beat them.

Yeah I think it is based on the juice box. From looking at the schematic (and hopefully someone who knows more about this than me can either confirm or contradict this ) ) it didn't look too dissimilar to me from a TS either (apart from the active bass control and some different component values).

And yeah I agree regarding Joyo. Most of their dirt pedals are pretty good, as long as bomb-proof reliability isn't a priority.

siraxeman

Yeah I can't think of more to add all good choices so far...i've got the Dano MKI's of the Overdrive (silver) and the Gold TOD...the TOD is my fave of the two....one of the best OD pedals i've ever used ever. Bad Monkey, SD-1 - had 'em and sold em...no compaints tho served me very well but I got the Hardwire and Visual sounds OD and Dist pedals. Got the Mooer Cruncher and Black Secret - both great but I think they're over £40 new?? Hmmm I'm that way now I don't see the point of expensive ODs...and I have a Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe that is very similar to the Mooer Cruncher that costs a fraction of the price...makes me think its money down the drain when I see the likes of Fulltone selling their dual SD-1 clone for what it sells for.

Flanging_Fred

It's a bit noisy but the Danelectro FAB Distortion doesn't sound a million miles away from my Mk1 Mashall Guvnor.

monquixote

siraxeman said:

 I have a Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe that is very similar to the Mooer Cruncher that costs a fraction of the price....

The thing is that's an MI Crunchbox clone and Mooer have no R&D costs because they just ripped off the circuit.

The real one is only £100 so still looks bargainous compared to Wampler stuff. 

xSkarloey

I've got a Joyo Deluxe Crunch and it is very good. It's basically the JCM800 sound. Has a presence control which gives a lot of flexibility.

Daphon pedals are okay. Sometimes rebadged as Chord. Can be had second hand fairly cheap. I've got the overdrive which is basically a SD1 copy. Lots of white noise at high gain though.

timmysoft

It's hard to beat the ds1, I'm not really into the cheapo clones, not when the real deal is only £40 anyway!

kelvinburn

Mk2 marshall guvnor. Hugely underrated for QOTSA type compressed drive

Dave_Mc

siraxeman said:

Got the Mooer Cruncher and Black Secret - both great but I think they're over £40 new??

Yeah the black secret is great (I haven't tried the cruncher, I have the joyo crunchbox clone ) ), but then I paid MarcMart prices for it (~£28 IIRC). At that kind of money it's awesome. It also offers something that a genuine pro-co version doesn't- the switchable clipping. Obviously not a massively difficult mod if you know what you're doing, but not everyone does, and (presumably) it'd void your warranty. I know I prefer the vintage setting for some things and the turbo setting for others, having had the option of both in the one pedal I wouldn't really want to have to make do with one or the other when having both is such a simple mod. Pro Co does offer clipping settings on the Deucetone Rat, but I don't want/need two rats (plus it's as expensive as two anyway). They really should offer a single rat with the clipping switch for maybe £10-£20 more than the bog standard rat. If they did I'd probably buy one. But they don't so I won't feel bad about going Mooer.

Skarloey said:

Daphon pedals are okay. Sometimes rebadged as Chord. Can be had second hand fairly cheap. I've got the overdrive which is basically a SD1 copy. Lots of white noise at high gain though.

Yeah i got their SD1 clone from Marcmart, ~£13 IIRC ) I mean the SD1 is hardly dear either, but that's still a third of the price, especially when i'd never tried one with my rig. I like it a lot. If I gigged I'd probably get the boss version, but as it is the Daphon does me fine. I only use mine as a boost, though, so I haven't noticed too much background noise. Also, I've never actually tried the sd1 in a setting to see just how bad the bypass bleed is, but the Daphon doesn't seem to have any problems in bypass mode. Which is also nice.

xSkarloey

As a boost is exactly how I use my Daphon mostly. Sounds great going into another drive pedal. I also end up using conputer based amp sims for recording and funnily enough the Daphon does okay thickening up drive tones without everything getting too fizzy or wasp like. I assume the SD1 does all this too. Either way, mine was only £8 all in off ebay so I can't complain too much.

Dave_Mc

Yeah I mean for that kind of money if it's even half decent you're doing well. I'd say mine's more than half-decent. I think I prefer it to my bad monkey and joyo tubescreamer clone- at least for certain things. If a TS is too smooth with a certain amp/speaker, the daphon/sd1 is normally the way to go (for me). Conversely with some other amps/speakers the daphon can be too fizzy so the TS is the thing.

The other thing I think I prefer about the daphon/sd1 is that you can raise the drive control a little if you're not getting enough boost. With my ts-types raising the drive to anything above zero makes things too nasal for my tastes. Now, I think the daphon/sd1 has less drive than a ts with the drive on 0... but I still reckon I can raise it above the level of the TS. I'm definitely getting more boost out of it, at any rate.

gjonesy

Ive just dropped £20 on this - Caline CP-18 Orange Overdrive Pre AMP Pedal for Electric Guitar UK SHIPPING NEW http://bit.ly/Kwf30P Supposedly a xotic bb clone, will let you know once I give it a whirl

longi

Chord OD-50, exactly the same as an SD-1 but with the JRC4558 chip instead of diodes which the modern SD-1 has. Utterly brilliant pedal for £19.95 which has booted off my Hardwire CM-2 from my pedal board for the time being!

Dave_Mc

gjonesy said:

Ive just dropped £20 on this - Caline CP-18 Orange Overdrive Pre AMP Pedal for Electric Guitar UK SHIPPING NEW http://bit.ly/Kwf30P Supposedly a xotic bb clone, will let you know once I give it a whirl

Would be interested to hear what that's like- I very nearly picked one up back when those chinese online stores had those crazy prices, but the prices shot up before I got round to it )

xSkarloey

longi said:

Chord OD-50, exactly the same as an SD-1 but with the JRC4558 chip instead of diodes which the modern SD-1 has. Utterly brilliant pedal for £19.95 which has booted off my Hardwire CM-2 from my pedal board for the time being!

Yup, that's the Daphon overdrive I've been banging on about. Good to get some more info on that. 

I think they also sometimes go under the names of Swamp and Wholenote too. 

Dave_Mc

Presumably the modern SD1 also has a chip instead of just diodes or it wouldn't amplify at all ) But yeah it may well have a different chip, I dunno. The 4558 is the "mojo" one for a tubescreamer, but they're all pretty cheap chips and I doubt they make an absolute ton of difference.

ICBM

You cannot replace a chip with diodes. (Or not and expect the pedal to work, as Dave_Mc said!) Where did this particular bit of internet wisdom come from?

The chip does make a small difference, but ironically (since the people who tend to care about these things tend to be the ones who want to use their overdrive pedals as a "clean boost"), normally only when the gain is up high. "Better" chips also sound "worse" generally - the reason the JRC4558D sounds good is because it has poor frequency response and rolls off the top-end a bit.