PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production Asian off-brand and re-branded guitar & bass effect pedals.

This week I have been looking into obtaining some effect pedals for my guitar and bass to use when I need to take a break from playing the banjo. It's something that I always wanted to mess around with. I saw the price of the high priced name brand ones, Boss, MXR and ZOOM and realized that to obtain what I wanted would break the bank. For those living on a fixed income like me, you know what I mean. Someone then told me about the off-brand Chinese models like Donner, Amazon Basics, NUX, AZOR, iSet, Joyo, the list goes on and on.

Outside of the ethics of NOT BUYING AMERICAN, is there any reason to NOT spend $25 on a pedal instead of spending $150 on the name brand since they are only being used at home and not that often.

I spent probably 12 hours this week watching video after video on YouTube and to be honest, the reviews were quite good.

FYI: MXR pedals, owned by Jim Dunlop, are only assembled in the USA, The parts are made in Asia. BOSS pedals are made in Malaysia and have been since 2019. ZOOM pedals are made in Japan. So I guess ethically there is nothing really American about these devices and it only comes down to what you get for your $$$.

Thoughts?

When I was gigging I had a chorus, fuzz, flanger, delay, and wah wah pedal. All of them were DOD or MXR and they were built like tanks and quite expensive.

When Circuit City went under I bought an off brand chorus, flanger and delay pedal from them for $15 each. They sounded pretty much the same as the expensive pedals but they were all made of plastic and not metal like the DODs and MXRs. So I think for casual home use inexpensive off-brand pedals should be OK. YMMV

PS - I still have all of those pedals stored in my shed. If you want the name of the above off brand I can get that information for you, however they may have been a store brand for Circuit City, don't remember.

Back in the old days when I was gigging on a regular basis, I had a tube amp and a Gibson guitar. I didn't use effects pedals. The amp was a Mesa Boogie and I still have it. I was never really a fan of the pedals. Yeah I have had a few through the years but currently, I only have a Joyo Ultimate drive and I haven't used it in about a year. The thing with the physical pedals is that you are stuck with that one sound and can't easily change it.

That said..... when I started into digital music, I was looking for a better way to record the guitar. Something with more sonic options. I bought a Line6 Pod2 and used it for many years. All it is, is essentially a fancy FX pedal for guitar. It has about 16 models or presets and an equal number of FX built in. In addition, the knobs you'd normally expect on any amp. I ran it direct into my interface for recording. I bought mine used for $250 which was well under the cost of the Pod2 new.

Last year, I bought a Spark 40 amp. It is also a modeling amp with more models...close to 40, and they are developing more all the time, plus effects pedals and they are developing more of those as well. Currently, you can easily access over 10,000 combinations and you can grab user's models off the tone cloud. IN addition, it has the normal amp controls for old school use, and 4 hardware presets. You get access to ALL the models and pedals when you connect the amp with your phone or iPad via bluetooth.

Remember above when I said you were locked into the one sound from the physical pedal you bought? Well, for example, with the Spark, if I want reverb, I have a choice of 9 different reverb pedals. 6 delay pedals. 13 mod/EQ, 14 drive pedals including guitar Muff & fuzz face, 5 comp/wah. 1 noise gate, and 39 guitar amp models. And ALL of them have the knobs that the physical pedals have to fine tune the sound you want. OH yeah... and you can easily save any of the configurations you create or modify in your own unlimited presets. You can also download other user's presets from the tone cloud and save them in yours.

This amp supports both guitar and bass. In fact, several of the factory preset models are specifically for bass. It has a 40w built in amp and runs through 2 onboard speakers. It's designed to be used for practice and for studio work. It could easily be connected to larger power amps and speakers for on stage use. You can check this amp out at the local Guitar Center store. They're selling for about $300 or so....less if used. I bought my Spark when they were first out and there was a 4 to 6 month back-order. I gave $224 for it at the time but it has increased since then. I'm trying not to sound like a commercial for Spark but this is a cool little amp and has become my go-to amp for studio and just plunking around.

Here's the Spark in action. Leads and acoustics are spark.

https://soundcloud.com/guitarhacker/no-inspiration-blues

https://app.box.com/s/gcwlinuq4tu7h8dcnanbtbmz931h3qjt Living in a Dream Just playing around with recording direct using the Spark amp. I got a pickup for my Taylor acoustic and wanted to try it using the spark with a clean setting. The electric is my Modern Tele I think mostly on the strat (middle) PU.
There's 2 strummed acoustics panned opposite..... and a lead acoustic using the Acoustic Clean model....Electric is using the American High Gain and Something that was British modeling a Marshall..

Thanks Guitarhacker for the info, but at this time, I don't need an amp. I have 2 of them. One is a Fishman LoudX for acoustic work and the other is a Fender Deluxe Tube Amp.

Just looking for opinions on pedals at this time as to what people would recommend to get.

If I got 5 of them, which ones would you recommend. In the electric realm, I have 2 Strats and 1 Tele plus an Ibanez bass.

I wasn't promoting this as an amp per-se.... You were asking about pedals and this thing is chock full of pedals. I've edited my post above..... and listed the numbers..... but you can go to the Spark website and get the details on the models that are represented. For the money.... the best option is to go with something that will model the hardware you want. Even though I have all those pedals available, since I was never much into using pedals, I tend to use a bit of drive, and reverb as my main FX.... Although just yesterday I tracked guitar using a chorus fattener.....maybe there's hope for me yet or perhaps I'm simply going to the dark side.

Spark just added the Fishboy... the model of the Fishman.... and it's a sweet amp.

Chorus, Flanger, wah wah, delay, and either a fuzz or overdrive.

Pedals are subjective. What sounds good to others may not work for you. That said, I stopped using pedals after I graduated high school 50 years ago.

Big box retailers have pedals you can try. Amazon has their 30 day return policy. If you buy really cheap from Ali Baba or Wish, you'll save a bunch of money if you like what you get — no returns if you don't.

I'm a Recording King dealer and have access to some inexpensive, well built pedals but my return policy is for defects only.

There's just no "one size fits all" answer for you because none of us are you.

Generally, my philosophy is "buy once, cry once."

You buy a Boss, MXR or DOD and you know what you're getting. And can be pretty well assured that it will still be intact and functioning 20 years from now.

The Behringer pedals are good bang for the buck, however. Nowhere near as robust, of course, but they sound really close to the originals and seem to be fairly reliable if you don't beat the snot out of them.

Some of these off brands? Who knows? Its a crapshoot.

As far as the "ethics of NOT BUYING AMERICAN" that is nothing but a smokescreen....

before we start the 'buying American' discussion, let's remember this is a world wide forum, and the supporting company is based in Canada .. buying American may mean nothing to many users
.. and if American means US, then a lot of us wouldn't even be here to read this.

Not everything you buy is costing American jobs.
Quality of what you get for any given product, no matter where it's made, is a horse of a different color.

/ or what is that old saying, Horse Feathers .. ?

I can’t think of a single pedal maker that is not boutique, that engineers and builds their pedals in US or NA.

Boss was engineered in Japan years ago and who knows where they are made these days.

Zoom also engineered in Japan and definitely made in China.

Yamaha engineered in Japan and made in China or Taiwan.

I can only think of JHS that are engineered in the states and might be built here.

My fave brand for bullet proof value is Zoom.

Mike, I saw that and said wow.... you're really old..... then I did the math...LOL!!.. Class of 72 myself.... math was never my strongest subject.

Ive been checking out the new positive grid spark mini …
Lots of sounds…but i’m not sure i want to use a phone to control it.
The problem i’m having after checking out loads of pedal demos on you tube is i often go “thats nice” to quote the brit comedy ‘Mrs Browns Boys”....
(if nobody has ever watched it…its a hoot)...
But no pedals have really made me go freaky super wow on them.
Still too much ‘ppphhhtt”//fuzz in lots of pedals. I want less fuzz and more mother tone.
I once had a marshall ‘guvnor’ ..it was ok.

Maybe i’m asking too much of pedals.
Its a ton of work , but i still like my old zoom pedal in conjunction with the amp models built into reaper as well as the free freeamp vst plug in.
With this combo sometimes i luck out…other times not.
I was hoping some new cheapo pedals might lessen the time i spend futzing around with my current hit/miss set up.

i listen to stuff like cheap trik live at budokan and pat benatars lead guitarist on best shot ...those are the sorta tones that crank me...ie clean overdriven mother tone not 'fizzy'.

Best
om

Many of those tones are just a cranked up tube amp. Little or nothing in the way of pedals. If & when a distortion/ overdrive pedal is used, the trick is to dial up the level a bit and back off the gain. That way the pedal acts more like a boost and a filter. It tightens up the low end and hits the preamp harder. The distortion is almost all from the amp.

If you don't mind going "in the box," Amplitube is fantastic. You can try out what I just told you in the free version and see for yourself.

Byron.
thanks but ive used some pretty decent amps over the years ..tube/solid state with n without pedals in big medium and small studios , but only been ever to get close but no cigar to lead breaks on my fav past classic rock songs. and yes the backing off idea is great.
i am looking closely at amp vs sims.

ps best sound i ever got was a hot session lead guitarist
who played on one of my rock songs and sounded fantastic with just a pignose amp and some pedals. the guy was an amazeing talent.

cheers.
om

I was chatting with someone recently, though can't vouch for the accuracy of this statement, but he said...

"""Oh, sure, they all have Marshall, Fender and Orange on stage, but it's all for show ... nobody does it that way any more. It's all done with amp and cab simulators through the main PA."""

It's also the way I work, but then as I'm sometimes doing straight piano and sometimes other keys, the effects of the amp+cab are inconvenient. Sometimes I want clean piano, sometimes over-driven electric, sometimes vibes, etc..

My mixer has amp+cab modelling on some inputs.

I have to say that, as a small jazz combo, mostly the piano, guitar and bass use their own amps and the horn section are au naturel.