I have GAS (Gear Aquisition Syndrome). Consequently, I've tried a LOT of things. To illustrate, currently I have both the Kernom Ridge and the Chase Bliss Preamp MKII on my board. Naturally I do not play well, because I spend all my practice time watching gear reviews and shopping on Reverb.😔
I am familiar with this dilemma. I love electronics and gadgets. My could positively use more practice time but spend lots of time evaluating sound processing. Great respect for guitarist that tactically use guitar tone shaping tools to achieve dramatic rainbows of sound. Need to sound like an organ, a violin, a banjo, an orchestra swell, a saxophone a piano for a fill inside a song? Just so cool and dramatic. Life’s a trade-off .. choose wisely. LOL
@@abebrock5559I play bass and split my signal three ways to sound like a bass, a guitar, and a keyboard playing in unison. I couldn't pull it off convincingly without a large pedalboard featuring a number of modern digital effects for smooth-tracking polyphony, but my gear affinity has given me the power to be a self-accompanyist. GAS isn't necessarily bad as long as you're using that collection you're acquiring to make you a better and more unique player, just don't let it overwhelm or sidetrack you
Ive got a source audio ultrawave with a hub to allow it to work with midi and so I now want an L A Lady with all its 43 plus forms of dirt. Why buy pedals that just do only one type of dirt that cant switch settings. Try all the midi capable dirt pedals first.
to be fair the Preamp actually represents insanely good value (imo) for what you can get out of it. You could quote conceivably not have another drive pedal on your board, from full fuzz right the way down to a simple boost, for probably about the same price (or less if you manage to find a good 2nd hand Preamp deal) as you’d pay for all those pedals individually
Early on I bought a bunch of high end specialty boutique pedals. I thought to myself, if I'm just an average player at best, at least these high end pedals will give me a very slightly improved tone/sound. Then I bought several of the same type of pedals to match my high end stuff and A/B'd them one by one. I listened back and to my ear, the difference, if any, was so minimal I gave up on all high end pedal a long time ago. The Josh Scott did the video where he compared the high end stuff to the value priced "clones" and again, most had only minimal difference in sound/tone if any. The lesson for me is simple, if you find a high end spendy pedal you really love, start shopping for a value priced clone. Buy it and run it through your rig. Listen closely, record it and listen to the playback. For me, I can't tell the difference. Case in point, the now famous Bad Monkey. One of the big online sellers had a blowout sale on these years ago. 29 or 35 bucks per. I picked up 4 so I could keep two and give two away to friends. As it turns out I tried the Bad Monkey straight away the day they arrived. I liked it enough to put it on my board replacing my TS 9. Sounded great, did the job I wanted and I decided to keep them all. This way, if they broke along the way, I had a replacement ready to go. for that kind of money, we're not talking about being wasteful or hoarding. LOL When they popped recently I thought about selling a few on Ebay or Reverb. Something inside me said no man, don't rip people off. I held on to them and now I hear they're going to be mass produced once again. I feel good because I didn't take advantage of a momentary spike. That's just how I roll. Buying high value gear at lower prices has been my M.O. for years now. I'm still just an average player, and I'm happy.
@@skyemoz6559 Yeah, gotta admit that in my experience, there's a far greater difference in quality between boutique and non-boutique amps than in the pedal realm. There are still some unique boutique pedals though (nothing on the market could be a close alternative to my Empress Zoia, for example).
The amp is John's friend Jake Loosemore's on loan. Jake just got the thing in a trade (of god knows what geear lol) and left it with John for a bit of a workout and run through :-) (you may know this already, but in case an uninitiated person reads this thread..)
@@christopherjbutler - It’s all good, Christopher, and thanks for chiming in. My observation was in good fun. Being a regular viewer of John’s videos, I found the title to be a bit “clickbaity” since I know the type of gear he typically uses and presents. And then as he’s making his case for those Boss and Joyo pedals, all I can see is that Two Rock! Lol! Even if it was John’s amp, I couldn’t have cared less. John and I are opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to most gear anyway but I do enjoy his take on various pieces and, he is a fantastic player. So no harm, no foul, I just thought this particular discussion while sitting next to a high end amplifier was worth a chuckle. 🤭
Dude you are so close to the Silver play button :) Well done with the output .. you're pretty consistent! Still would like you to drop an album, or at least a single :)
Roland-BOSS have always been "Boutique" to me; they've just been taken for granted for being around for so long and especially since their gear is reasonably affordable. BOSS' reputation of reliability and longevity are Legendary too.
Think about, research, read the manual on, and learn the gear and demo it... and create new intros from scratch every day, with like a Disney dog-movie's amount of Dachshunds (one with recent back surgery) and a just shy of 1 year old baby, no less. And wedding and function gigs... I am such a lazy ass bum, I can't even make myself practice incrementally toward progress on a daily basis.. Hell, WEEKLY for that matter.. :-)
All roads lead back to Boss for me, with the Blues Driver pretty much being my go to pedal. Love it. Have the Angry Driver, but I really use the Angry Charlie side. Stacking the BD2 and SD1 covers a lot of ground. I’ve got a KOT but I rarely use it these days and I often question why I keep it 🤔
I swung back to boss myself and use an old DS-1 that I did the Keeley mod on. And after trying what seems like 8000 fuzz pedals and never being satisfied, it was the FZ-1w that finally gave me the sound I had been looking for. Now I'm looking to get the new PB-1w next.
@@nathanward3888 Have you tried the Mad Prof Golden Cello fuzz pedal? They truly capture that early Fuzzface tone. The EHX Big Muff Ram's Head is epic for nailing the Gilmour solo tone.
Enjoying the content as usual. Digging the new guitar. I like that in the last two, you kinda got into some different styles than the usual. Am also enjoying the Jonathan Cordy Fact bot. You've made the big time when you have your own fact bot!!!
I retired most of my pedals when I switched to Modeler, currently HX Stomp. The last Pedal I retired was my JamMan Stereo Looper, which stopped working properly. I replace it with the free Mobius Looper Software. It has "auto-sensing" to start recording, something the HX Stomp doesn't have.
So, tried several cheap and a few boutique ones to complement my Stomp, and nowadays also directly into my Supro Delta King 12. For me I found that I get the most out of the ones with decent, mostly active, tone stacks. Most quintessential a Boss GE-7. You especially should be capable of getting most diverse and satisfying use out of that given your great amplifiers... Another one, more boutique: Nordland ODR-CS, active 3-band tonestack plus continuous mixing of soft and hard clipping.
I gravitate towards the boutique pedals because they tend to have a lot more features than the cheaper/mass market pedals. I play a lot of different kinds of music, and I enjoy experimental sound design. And so, I prefer to pick pedals that fall into one of two camps: either they have a huge tonal range and can go from tame and simple to wild and chaotic, or they do one thing REALLY well. Further, I have a fairly small pedal collection, so I prefer to get as many tonal options as I can, from as few pedals as possible. A third factor is aesthetics: I am drawn to pedals that have pretty designs or imaginative names and control schemes. As such, some of my favorite pedals are from Earthquaker Devices. Most of them are extremely feature-rich and flexible, and can be used in a wide variety of contexts. They're fairly reasonably priced, but the pack a ton of functionality and tone into a small package. Case in point: the Avalanche Run. Beautiful design, gorgeous sound, can do everything from subtle background ambience to "I AM IN SPACE FLYING THROUGH A WORMHOLE". And it's stereo. I love it.
Love my angry driver (blues driver & angry Charlie) on the bd2 setting (set low gain) stacked into the ODR1, that with a dual delay (Andy Timmons halo is my favourite) great for bluesy to rock tones 👍🏼. Love your intros 👍🏼
Lots of love here for the Joyo American. Its been on my board longer and more consistently than just about any other. I use it as an amp modeller for anything blackface or tweed, and is a mor arganic, musical and convincing tone than anything I could get out of my Helix or GTK Core. I pair it with my 2-3 favourite gai pedlas, and use GTK Core for eeffects only. Best(subjective of course) combination for me. Would loe to see a Joyo American vs Helix Fender Amps comparison.That would be a giggle. Love your work! Cheers Neil (Australia)
At the moment I have a pedalboard with almost exclusively high end gear on it, but for years, actually from the month it came out until one or two years ago, my main overdrive was the EHX Soulfood. I loved that pedal and I still do. But every time I watched one of those comparison videos of Klon type pedals I kept hearing the same BS remarks. The Soulfood was always the one that they “didn’t connect with”, or it didn’t have “the thing”. And what they meant was it was the least Klonish clone of the bunch. Well… I owned and played a fair number of the so called best Klon clones and in my very humble opinion none of them sounded as pleasing to my ears as the EHX Soulfood. It’s a well known fact that most people listen with their eyes, as much as they listen with their ears. It’s an interesting given. And I’m fully aware that I’m guilty of that myself. Example: when I see two similar guitars, one of which looks like the guitar of your dreams and the other one not so much, but the less exciting guitar actually does sound better, I still feel like the cool looking guitar sounds better, because I WANT it to sound better. And if I could buy one of the two, I’d go home with the lesser sounding guitar and I’m going to convince myself that I will MAKE it sound good, even though I know it doesn’t. The brain is a fun thing to have, but it’ll always play tricks on you. 😊
Every Soulfood comparison I’ve watched proves that it’s the closest one to the Klon at a great price. I’ve purchased a Notaklön but, I won’t have it until January. The Anderton blindfold tests completely proves the purchase with our eyes instead of our ears theory. I love it when a BOSS or another regular priced pedal wins the sound off.
Loved Rabea's blindfold challenge on Andertons. Out of many back to back OD pedals the Bluesdriver came top in 2 different challenges. Now safely in my arsenal too. Great pedal.
I agree with you that it's about the sound you're after, not what someone tells you is great. I like the sound you go for. That's very similar to what I try to achieve. Never really got on with the Blues Driver. I typically run some compression up front and delay and reverb in the loop. The only amp that I use an OD pedal with is a Magnatone Super 15. I can get a really nice sing that barely morphs into feedback. Doing that with a Wampler Ego compressor into a Keeley D&M drive using the boost side at about noon. Analog delay and Strymon Flint reverb.
I use a NUX horseman clone it has both of the Klon sounds in it and I never see anyone talking about this affordable boost/drive I run a spark mini clean boost into a Wampler ego mini comp right into the NUX and get great sounds. Even without the added boosts the pedal sounds great for a simple setup. Regardless of the over played klon clone thing this is my drive pedal and with both circuits I have lots of options. Plus a small footprint with mini pedals this setup sounds great into vox, supro, fender and quilter solid state amps.
Wow! Really! Lindsey is amazing. Dig his style. Now I don’t feel so bad as 9/10 times all I’m using is an SD1. Funny, I use a Joyo AMS too with my sd1 into a Fishman Loudbox Mini to practice at home at low volume. Got a Blue Driver but sort of redundant as I run the AMS slightly dirty that cleans up with backing off the volume. I’m looking at making my entire real gigging unit simply a UA dream 65 with an sd1 And boss tuner directly into my PA. How is that for keeping it simple?
@@barryfrombarnsley2790 Yeah, if I was going to add something beyond reverb, which I guess I forgot to say, I do run, it would be a boss DD. I’d like to hear from people how much better a dream 65 is over the AMS, Joyo 12:19 American sound.
LB’s SD-1 settings: Level at about 4 o’clock, Drive at about 4 o’clock, Tone at about 2 o’clock. It’s just a standard Taiwanese current release pedal as well, no fancy vintage mojo or anything.
@@mkrj2576 I can’t comment on the quality of different amp modelling pedals, as I just use an old ‘70s Fender Twin with JBLs, so never had a reason to look at them and got no experience with them. With stuff like that I think it’s probably worth trying them in a store if possible, or maybe order both from somewhere that does free return shipping and send back the one(s) you don’t get on with.
Guess it mightn't be the worse idea to bash out some of my favourite great sounding but cheap pedals. Not all of these have the _best_ build quality, and some have a little noise, but they sound really good. A roughly £250-£300 pedalboard made from these would still sound killer, and cost similar or less than one of the recent full UA FX pedals, even on sale. From cheapest and nastiest down: 1. Behringer SF-300 Fuzz - sounds like some kind of monster, built like a child's toy hissy fit. 2. Caline Pure Sky - sounds great, but with a side order of slight noise if I don't power it by battery. 3. Joyo American Sound - same same, 4. TC Electronic Cinders - sounds BOSS. 5. Behringer Chorus sound impressiveness and variety isn't as great as the Fuzz but it's damn good AND very cheap 6. Mooer Yellow Comp - really nice transparent opto compressor, but with a hint of nice character. 7. EHX Hot Tubes - a boutique pedal builder would charge a fortune for such a unique and great sounding design 8. EHX Glove scratches my OCD itch 9. Flamma FS-02 is a better sounding reverb than it has any right to be 10. Flamma FS-03 the modulated delays rival the UA FX Del-verb DMM one for sheer vibe. Bonus pedals with dual or triple functions: Bonus I: HoTone Soul Press II, a bit more expensive but it's a 3 in 1 wah/volume/expression! Bonus II: EHX Hot Wax a great 2 in 1, Hot Tubes and the BB preamp like Crayon. Bonus III: Flamma Ekoverb: good Eko ... and verb but for the price of meh-ko.
I think Tom Bukovac’s reasons for using the Nobles ODR-1 is that it sounds good with any guitar and any backline amp. As a hired gun working on hundreds of sessions and gigs maybe that consistency is more important (for that context) than “wow” factor?
Trust me on this JC, snag yourself a Tone City King of Blues! I owned them all KOT, ordered and gigged an original Klon from Bill Finnegan, Zendrive etc. King of Blues is hard to beat! Let me know if you can beat it, regardless of price. And it’s like $65
Boss is great, good price, gets the job done, I have my share of more boutique pedals, but always end up with three or four Boss pedals in my rig. One piece of gear I couldn’t do without is my quilter phantom block. That thing saved my ass so many times. I used it to record, as a DI for acoustic guitar and bass, and even to play couple gigs. Saved me through gigs in places with shit electricity! Doesn’t sound really great, but it’s a great utility tool.
@@therealmiddy jokes aside, if you have a good sound guy It can actually sound pretty decent and Will get you through a gig no problem. Probably doesn't feel as good as other things to the touch, but i really think It's One of the best no nonsense kinda cheap utilities to Always have with you.
Yeah, I’ve actually played a gig with it and it sounded good. Nice and open. It sounds a bit too DI for leads sometimes and doesn’t take dirt pedals very well, but it’s a fully usable tone.
I've used thee Blues Driver into a DS1 into a GE7 EQ pedal for decades. Recently I picked up a Nobel's mini which is great and the Wampler Triumph and Phenom pedals. My travel board pretty much all Boss pedals but not many...I love the Dimension C and the Tremelo 2 pedal as well. I trust Boss pedals
I'll never stop increasing my chase bliss, old blood, jhs or exh collection. They inspire me to arrange things i may have never imagined i could. I'm no looking for A sound, i'm exploring all sounds.
I always look foreword to your opening tracks. And let's be honest here, you could have a pedalboard made of pedals from 'Wish' and I'd be impressed. Sound like a good video idea😜 100K subscribers is in your near future & well deserved ! ! 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Yeah, resistors and capacitors aren't Magick. The only difference that I never ever see covered in YT is noise. Some cheap pedals will have a higher noise floor but some other will be identical.
Real talk, there are hundreds of reverb shops TODAY who are making “boutique” stuff for $100 or less, I’ve got a mostortion with the NOS original op amps, a customized Nobels, and even an Expandora XL. The sub-130 and even sub 100 dollar world is crazy for really good pedals if you’re willing to seek some alternatives or smaller builders. I agree that the cheap NUX or other cheap brand stuff is honestly totally passable as well, I still have the $30 behringer compressor on both my pedalboards cuz it does what it says on the box!!!
Blues Driver ... love it. Fantastic pedal, especially with a Strat neck pick up. Tube Screamer ... like what other people do with them, but never tried one that I like playing through. Zendrive ... got some good tones, but found it difficult to dial in. Tumnus Deluxe (Klone) ... by itself, found it totally uninspiring, but when used to push the Brown channel on a Katana Artist, it did something i really liked. Also a fan of the Xotic Soul Driven. Not sure if that qialifies as boutique or non-boutique, but brand new price for me (AUD$240) was a chunk less than your average boutiquey pedal. The SD does a very wide range of OD tone, and importantly, feels really great under the fingers ... compressed, but not squashed, as if you are playing an amp that was pushed to compression.
The TC Electronic Cinders is even cheaper than the standard Boss Driver and sounds the same too. Build quality isn't the same, but still, if you want to get that sound on a tight budget.
I’d say it’s his legato playing primarily, combined with prominent wet effects. When he turns the other effects off and isn’t playing legato, I could imagine it’s another player (but still a great one).
I might pick up one of these Joyo pedals. I just found a mod to bypass the cab sim and make it switchable. Combined with adding a mooer radar and some good IRs, you could probably take it in a mesa or dumble direction pretty easily.
I've used an always on Joyo American Sound going into a tube power amp for the past 6 years. The Boss Blues Drive is the first level of OD that any other gain pedal hits first. The Joyo was $29 and the BD given to me. I've never had the desire to get rid of them after 100s of live gigs.
I noticed that a little bit being a watcher of your channel. Every video is pretty much just your tone which is unbelievable you can obtain that with any piece of gear you use. Some people might find that a little boring but I enjoy your tone. Do you have a video how you attain your tone with different pedals? Like a real in-depth nob turning video on how you set your amp, What are you back off in terms of EQ, where the master is, ect
As far as TrueFire, I really enjoyed Fareed Haque's survival guides. Significantly leveled up my rhythm guitar. Andy Timmons always great. Looking forward to checking out Marty Friedman's new course too.
I love my American sound, it’s simple and easy to use. I’ve used it on 90% of my function band gigs this year it’s just great. I also love the tc spark, Mooer yellow comp and proco rat. All great pedals that can be had relatively cheaply.
If you like the Blues Driver, maybe give the DigiTech Screamin’ Blues a try. It's a clone of the circuit with an additional "low" control, so kind of like a sweepable version of Keeley's popular phat mod. Also, it features a filtered output that's supposed to emulate a speaker cab for exactly the DI use case you mentioned in the video. Considering the hype around the Bad Monkey, it's surprising that no one seems to care about that pedal. I've been wanting to make a comparison video for a while now but haven't found the time to do so yet...
Yes I use the Bad Monkey on always-off mode just for the mix output. So I've wished I had the Screamin Blues instead since it's end of board and the BD2(w) kind of sounds like an amp when plugged into the BadMonkey in off-mode. For clean cleans I do turn off the BD2 and add a compressor, especially with humbuckers. I also have the Simplifier MKII now for another board which has more presence but it depends on my mood which I prefer. The Lion and Boss IR2 look cool too, on the digital side. I should try it.
I'm primarily a modeler guy and I still really enjoy having pedals around, of all budget levels. Typically I roll with more inexpensive ones though. I have an at-home board which is TC Electronic for the post-"amp" effects, American Sound for the "amp", then some nicer drives. I love my Keeley TS + BD variations: Super Phat Mod (vanilla and Germanium) and Red Dirt Germanium. My compact jam board is 2 Caline pedals, a JHS delay, and a Joyo Uzi. Still sounds plenty good. My gig board is basically an HX Stomp XL and a Boss DD-200. The key thing with is it's low-touch for full patch changes. The at home boards are not. If it sounds good, it is good. If you forced me to roll with an American Sound and a BD2, I could make it work.
The only "boutique" pedal I bought recently I don't regret spending a bigger sum of money on is the Friedman Buxom Boost. Very low noisefloor, no annoying mid honk a lot of other boosts produce, you can eq the low end via the tight control and you have a 3 band eq on it on top of it all you can disengage. Great sound and great features. When all else fails I always have my Boss SD-1 😂
I love your jab at Vertex 😂😂 Let's be real, he 100% made drama for the clicks and not by accident. He said he could show the diagram but that would be a waste of time, or something similar. Problem is, if he did, then he would be showing how the pedal in question had nothing in common with the pedal he claimed to have copied his pedal. There is no doubt he knew they are different, so he opted to not show it, else how would he drive clicks without a fake story
John asked about a Zendrive. I built an Aion Azimuth version as my first pedal build, and coincidentally I won a Warm Audio Warmdrive from a JHS show giveaway, so I have two versions of it. For whatever reason the Warm audio version is actually a more bassy smooth tone so I use that one. It's supposedly a Dumble sound in a box, so I use that into a clean Iridium setting as my main distortion tone.
I have that Joyo pedal. It was my introduction to “ampless” rigs. Of course my setup is way more boutique today, but joyo is on the quick and dirty practice board these days.
I run the Fulltone OCD. My Dad got one at a garage sale over ten years ago, it was my first overdrive pedal and to this day, I still use it/ love it for sure.
Loved the intro (again!). Re: favorite TrueFire courses, fans of your playing would probably dig the Robben Ford and Larry Carlton lessons. For the season: Carlton's short course on fingerstyle jazz arrangements of Christmas songs, "335 Christmas," has some real gems ("Silent Night" is my favorite). Robbie Calvo's courses also are in the kind of fusion+pop territory that some of your playing occupies. Also worth mentioning is that JamPlay's courses got merged into TrueFire's library several months ago, and there are some great courses from that merger, my favorite being the Phil Keaggy course. -Tom
Interesting stuff as usual - got me thinking about my pedals . . . which I seldom think about TBH. In the late 70s / early 80s my rig was De Armond Wah, Paul Crowther Hot Cake, Roland Dimension D, Sho Bud Vol Pedal, WEM Copycat into a 50w Fender Reverb Top w 2 x 10 Cab. Over the years that evolved a bit but recently I closed my main studio so have had to focus a bit more on going direct into Pro Tools (altho I do still have my Blues Jnr). I don't know if these are 'boutique' but I have my pure happiness rig of Paul's new Double Hot Cake, Effectrode Blackbird Tube Tone Engine (Fender / Dumblish), MXR Analog Chorus, Ventilator II Rotary Cab Sim, TC Electronic Alter Ego (3 tape delays in a row!), Strymon Deco & Flint and a Big Sky for live work if needed but still use my Dimension D & Bricasti in the studio for chorus & reverb mainly. TBH the Hot Cake & Effectrode are the two I really "need" to feel at home with - for the rest there are Boss & MXR pedals that I could easily cobble together and be happy with.
Other than the fact that it was one of the early OD pedals, I have never understood the fascination with tube screamers. I bought one years ago because I thought every guitar player needed one, but I never use it. I just can’t stand the nasal sound of it.
Unjustifiably unheralded; TC Electronics Novadrive for its sound, flexibility, programmability while being analog and great sounding. State of the art for what they do: Empress Compressor and their 2 new EQ pedals. Have ad use all 4 despite having gotten the Boss ME-90.
Yes! The return of the Joyo American Sound! Would be interesting to see what you think of the California Sound. That is their Mesa Boogie one. Apparently the worst of them.
I have the whole set - and the joyo tweedy bantamp amp head which is a 20w valve pre/ss power section dual Channel American sound in amp form with an fx loop. Great little amp
@@canopy-guitarsgear5615 awesome. I have the American, British and the Oxford. That's good to know about the Joyo bantamps. I wish Joyo would release updated versions of the Joyo sound pedals with switchable cab sim on and off.
The California is not bad, but different from the American. I used it for bass for a while and it was okay for that too. It has a fatter bottom end than the American. The worst one (IMHO) is the "Oxford" - supposedly an Orange amp clone. I have yet to find the magic combination on the knob settings for that one...
@@anthonypanneton923 haha i have the Oxford too. its one of my favourites. but not for the expected reasons. i love it because it makes the most disgusting terrible tones. but they're very useable in the right context. the bass mid treble knobs are super sensative. the tech 21 oxford suggested settings arent bad. there is a sweetspot where it sounds like a good classic rock crunch sound.
I learned a while back how most of the Boss pedals can easily be modified with a kit. De-solder a few parts and install some new parts in their place for an upgrade in sound quality. Or simply modify the values to reduce or increase certain tonal characteristics. Pedal mod kits are easy to find.
To me, it's not about whether or not the pedal is boutique. It's whether I'm paying an absurd amount of money for a Tube Screamer with a fancy paint job or whether my tone is that much better with a $200-300 overdrive pedal when I sound great with a $50 used SD-1. Sometimes, clones have added features the originals fall short on. Sometimes, they have upgraded components. Sometimes, the circuits are original. But as Brian Wampler and Josh Scott have shown time and again, you can get great tone from inexpensive gear.
Over the course of a couple of years I accumulated four of those Joy/Harley Benton T21 clones. The two I used most were the American and the British, later I got the ACTone and the California. Useful little units all. Things that have not left my board since I got them, in order of acquisition. D&M Drive, Dual Broadcast (love it for single coils), Suhr Riot (after killing 2 cheapo clones), Lightspeed, ODR-1b A 'lurker' is the Marshall Jackhammer (can make a very Riot sounding tone as well as a range of others). My whole board is currently Inserted into the Helix Floor - that was to get the ODR sound. Of course we now have an ODR in Helix - it is very close IMO.
I got the NUX SS shortly after this video on the strength of it. BUT All my stuff was in storage while the builders were all over my flat. I just got it out of the box and very nice it is too. 👍 Haven't compared it to any other pedals yet, "Dumblish" or "JAFTS"s, and just with the one guitar so far.
I have couple if pedalboards with stomp boxes or with Nux Cerberus plus few overdrives/distorions, but i rather always use HXFX for all the effects, more convenient solution for everything. That combined with Bluguitar Amp 1 ia light and as complex set up as you want and so easy to use in different kind of gigs.
I once asked a reliable drummer friend if my cheap-ish djembe was a "good" drum. He said there's no bad drum, only how you use it, and the right sound for the situation. I knew exactly what he meant. That was 20 years ago. Since then, I look at every piece of gear as a viable tool. There's no bad.
I recently, after buying boutique clones of etc, a Nobels ODR1- simpler, cheaper and amazing. I'll never stop buying boutique gear etc but im definitely going to jump into the originals first...unless its a klon, that would be an expensive tone journey.
I actually really rate Mooer stuff. I bought a bunch of their pedals on eBay to see what sounds I liked, and many of them are surprisingly decent. I particularly like the Blues Crab, Elec Lady, Trelicopter and Orange 90
Just a word of caution: I've had some reliability issues with Mooer, as has another guitar player I know. Playing through one of their amp sims (Cali Mk3) and suddenly my level drops like 20 dB. He had a similar problem with their Whammy clone. No complaints about how it sounded as long as it sounded. I have been looking to potentially pick up their Mod Factory.
Loved their Hustle Drive (OCD clone). The Mike Hermanns vid sold me on that one. Used it for a while on my board. I had one of their micro reverbs that created a horrible low feedback when I used it live one time. I didn't know it was coming from my rig. Fortunately, a gear head ran up to the stage and gave me a heads-up. Hit and miss with them.
I've got loads of Boss pedals that i bought cheap secondhand. DD2 spec DD3 i bought cheap gets a lot of use. Turbo overdrive is cool, super overdrive etc. A fuzz face from an eBay builder was cheap and sounds great. I've also built a few pedals from kits which again sounds great and are pretty good fun to put together. Really for most pedals based on basic designs there is no need to spend lots of money
I’m a big fan of a great guitar into a great amp, maybe a few pedals for color and they could be boutique or not just have to use what sounds good to your ears.
Behringer Vintage Phaser - around £30 and nails the sound of a 1970s EHX small stone (and without the annoying volume drop, so effectively a better pedal). Nothing else can quite get that sound.
I have the American Sound and its a good sounding, useful device. I also have a NUX SteelStringSinger (or something like that) - it may be a modified TS as far the circuitry, but if so its a VERY tweaked version, because it really doesn't sound anything like a TS to me. I really dislike the sound of TS pedals, but I like the SteelStringSinger. Its supposedly a "Dumble-in-a-box" type pedal. Whatever... not quite, but its useable. Another good pedal similar to the American Sound but with a different gain structure is the Caline "Americana." nice sounding pedal for about $40. Another good sounding overdrive I recently picked up ($99) is the Wampler "Triumph." It has two slightly different circuits in one box with an external toggle switch to go from one to the other. It also has some internal DIP switches to select various voicings for the two circuits. nice drive and tone.
Good video. I've owned a lot of excellent boutique pedals, but one issue I have with them, besides the price, is just how derivative they are. It's like the hottest boutique pedals do nothing new whatsoever but are rather some special variations of another classic or boutique pedal. It's just weird. I'm perfectly fine with my Boss Blues Driver, Chorus, EQ, and Delay. I take them with me on gigs on a small pedalboard and they do everything I need. If I can't do it with these pedals, I don't need to do it at all.
I had a Blues Driver. It didn't really work for me. I have a TC Magus, which I really like. I am currently using a Durple as a od/ boost, for my Fuzz pedals. I have problems finding stuff I like, because I use a few different fuzz pedals. I am trying to figure out a different pedal for the drive/boost..I have discovered, the hard way, that not eveything likes fuzzes..plus, I like my boost/od first, in front of everything else. Thanks!
The Zoom MS-70CDR is a great single space multi-effects. You can generally find them for $100'ish. It's not Strymon quality - but it get's the job done. It's loaded with effects. I play strictly plugins now - but I won't sell my NOC3 Pure Drive. It's a great drive pedal with a clean-blend. If you can find one used, they're generally $120-150. Mojo for days. Never got on with the Zen Drive either. Just kinda 'meh' to me.
I'm a little leery of the Joyo/Mooer-type stuff due to some reliability issues in the past, but I'll take cheap Boss all day any day. Good enough for Prince, good enough for me.
@@johnnathancordy I have the tech 21 bass amp. Both have been strong for a while now. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyo’s QC was at a lower level. My guess is if you get a good one you are OK to gig with it, but tested out for a while first at home.
I’ve never been about finding a signature sound. I’m always about trying to find the appropriate sound for the particular project. The downside of that is that I want almost every option in my toolbox. Even if my Nordland version of the ODR-1 hasn’t found a use yet, I expect that someday it will. But I’m generally not looking at either boutique or budget gear. My ears aren’t good enough to tell the difference between a boutique version and the Boss (or equivalent) one. And that’s probably true of lots of budget gear too, but I’ve heard a difference enough to decide to generally not bother. That all said, if something appears to really offer something unique, then I’m interested no matter what it is.
I really like my OCD V2 in 18v mode, one of the only boost/ drive pedals that keep your sound thick and don't and a high-mid honk. That said the pedal that I've never seen a replacement for is the discontinued DigiTech Harmony Man in 4CM, there are good harmonizes for sure but none as accessible and easy to use even if you had limited music theory.
I have been revisiting the NUX Cerberus lately because I have a flygig on the horizon. The drives it has built in are inspired by the JHS Morning Glory and Angry Charlie. I didn't love it at first going direct (the built-in cab sim isn't great, not even with my fave IR's) but then I mated it with the NUX Solid Studio poweramp/cab modeller. That sounds great!!! Only downside is there is not really a preamp and tone controls built in, but it didn' t need it. Fun stuff. The Solid Studio has some really great sims and can even be inserted between the power amp and the speaker and go to FOH while you're jamming on the speaker's tone. Saves a lot of micing hassles.
Did you end up keeping the nux amp academy? Would be good to revisit as they updated the fender and marshal models, along with some other firmware updates. And its decent value, headphone out, effects loop etc. Midi.
I have owned a lot of boutique pedals throughout the years. About a year ago i ditched most of them and replaced them mostly by Boss pedals cause Boss is simply the best. I still own some boutique pedals like Catalinbread, Mythos and Earthquaker but i also own Joyo and Caline pedals as well. Honestly, they're making amazing pedals.
TC mojo mojo works on bass and acoustic. I here drive on some CCM acoustic guitar sounds i dig, compression is big part. Nobles rd1, I got wampler version just because of the community he Keely and JHS have set. got an😊 analog man astrotone, it’s pretty flexible but I got to say all these overdrives sound get lost w my various affordable guitars. I have Source Audio EQ to adapt all this going into keyboard amp.
