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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?

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.

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

Freddy V-C wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 1:23 pm 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?

dots wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 1:39 pm 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.

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.

Dave wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 7:13 pm

dots wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 1:39 pm 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.

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

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.

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:

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.