Cheap Mini Pedal must-haves? Your MiniFX-board choices?

[Dave]

Seems like a shit ton of those Chinese mini pedals have come out whilst I was not-guitaring for a decade. Any absolute must-have bargains that are worth a punt?

OR, put another way: if you were to build a pedalboard with JUST mini pedals, what would you choose?

[Freddy V-C]

I bought a Donner Beltway looper for £25 earlier this year and it's the most fun I've had with a pedal in ages. The half speed and reverse settings are basically carrying half of what I do in a Thank live set at this point.

[dots]

if you can find them secondhand and reasonably priced, HOTONE (it was meant to be "hot tone", too clever by half) made some fantastic minis of the basics: crunch, chorus, flange, verb, etc. they don't conform to the half pedal size standard and are their own spec in dimensions. i have a couple...

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Mooer also make some excellent classics that do conform to the half-size spec. this one is a Phase 90 rip off that sounds heavenly. well-priced from what i recall as well.

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i got a good deal on this overdrive clone from Reverb. not as versatile as an OCD but still plenty of options from "boost" to "burn your lips".

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speaking of boost, this is TC Electronic's mini version of their own. super quiet, like virtually no noise, and it doesn't color the tone to my ears.

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another that, if you can find it, punches above its weight. it's a totally unauthorized octaver clone from Mooer. not quiet a 12-string emulator, but lots of fun. i think they were sued for basically just stealing the chip itself.

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i have a few others, just no pics of them. i'll see about digging them up.

[Dave]

I bought a Donner Beltway looper for £25 earlier this year and it's the most fun I've had with a pedal in ages. The half speed and reverse settings are basically carrying half of what I do in a Thank live set at this point.

Whoa that sounds awesome. Been thinking of getting a looper for practicing, will this one be good enough for looping longish chord sequences to play over?

[Dave]

if you can find them

I really like the design of those HO TOANZ. Thanks Dots, gonna look all of these up. That phase 90 clone is deffo flicking my love-spuds already, thanks.

[Freddy V-C]

Yeah the record time is pretty long, I’ve been using it more for noise stuff than “musical” stuff (lol) but I think it would suit your needs.

[dots]

if you can find them

I really like the design of those HO TOANZ. Thanks Dots, gonna look all of these up. That phase 90 clone is deffo flicking my love-spuds already, thanks.

i was really surprised how accurate the 90 is.

[Hurb]

Mooer black secret is an awesome Rat. Tbf all the mooer stuff is great for the monies.

[sunshiner]

Mosky pedals are generally dirt cheap and good. And they are modifiable as unlike other micro pedals they are built using regular electronic components not SMD.

[Doog]

Shout-out to the Donner Stylish Fuzz 2 for being a Muff with 2-band EQ, so you can claw some mids back by making it less scoopy.

I’ve also had a Mooer Blues Mood (lol- BOSS BD2 clone with Keeley mod) on my little desk setup for years, and it’s still going strong and sounding great.

PLUS the NUX tuner that has sick Kubrickian sci-fi vibes:

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[Nick]

The Ultimate Drive in this series is a really good overdrive/distortion box. I paid $7, it's $9 now but still a bargain. I've heard it identified as an OCD clone but haven't had the opportunity to A/B them.

http://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807619413485.html

After being so impressed with the Ultimate Drive, I bought almost all the other pedals in the series. The delay and modulation pedals are serviceable - nothing special but they do what they say on the tin and don't sound bad at all - however I haven't been satisfied with the other dirt pedals I've tried. I thought "US Dream" would be a USA Big Muff for some reason. I was wrong, it's a DS1 (to my ears anyway). The Vintage Overdrive which I assume is a Tube Screamer sounded weak and muddy to me - not that it can't get some decent sounds but the "bad to decent" ratio is way off.

The ones I still haven't bought are Phaser, Crunch Distortion, and Classic Chorus. Technically Tremolo too but I owned one years ago that was branded as "Saphue". It was decent.