best bang for buck

[asatbender]

i only play out at church so i dont use a lot of expensive equipment & i am always looking for low priced(under $100) items that have a good tone. just wondering what there is out there under this price with botique quality & tone. here is a few i recomend

od- guyatone od-2 marshall bluesbreaker 2 boss blues driver

delay- dod fx90 & dan electro dan echo

compressor- marshall ed-1 & dyna comp although these are pretty cheap any way

[Mark Davis]

Unplug all those effects and concentrate more on making the guitar sound different by different pick attack playing with fingers etc. Doesnt cost anything just some practice time.

Most of the best players dont use any effects.

[Matt Plescher]

Originally Posted by Mark Davis

Most of the best players dont use any effects.

Each to his own. Effects are fun. Most of the really good players I know use them tastefully without hiding technique. I would say they enhance technique when used well. I think technique and effects are not mutually exclusive. Even the guitar, pickups, and amp you use amount to an "effect".

for cheap I like
ProCo Rat just barely on (John Scofield)

Cheers
Matt

[Jef]

I am trying to find low priced effects as well because I mostly use them just for fun. You can get a lot of goodies second hand.
I'm very pleased with my Marshall Ed-1 and Boss BD-2 as well. Besides, I'd recommend the Nobels ODR-1 overdrive, Danelectro Tuna Melt tremolo, Electro Harmonix Holy Grail reverb.

jef

[Brad]

a Barber Direct Drive. $99.00 for one of the nicest O/D's around. A Keeley or Doob-Tone modded Blues Driver will get some happening tones going also. A bit more than $100, but you may be able to find one for less. You might check the garge sale here for some pedal bargins. I haunt the local pawn shops and usually find some cool sleepers. Hippietim bought a Johnson digital delay for $39.00 and he say's it's pretty cool. You might check out his posts for some other ideas. Johnson also makes inexpensive overdrive, trem & chorus pedals. There is a plethora of cheap ( take it both ways! ) pedals out there at this time. I picked up a Danolectro Wah pedal on closeout from GC for $20.00 a few months ago. I have not yet used it, but for the $$, I could not pass it up. I like playing with and without effects as the mood and / or the song dictates.....( Hey, I used to go to school with Dick Tate ) Mark and the others all have good points regarding effects. If used correctly ( and not as a crutch ) they can add an incredible element to music. If used for the sake of noise or covering poor playing, they will suck the life right out of a song. Don't forget the Volume Pedal as an effect. While it's an essential part of my kit for level setting, I love to use it for volume swells, Whale calls, Pedal steel effects, cello, & violin tones, Ebow and airplane, train...whatever effects. Good luck and have fun!

[davidp158]

Nothing wrong with using pedals and effects. Its part of what makes electric guitar sound the way it does. If you're trying to get a singing lead tone at a moderate volume, and overdrive/distortion pedal can be the best way to go without turning your amp up too loud.

I will second the recommendation for the Barber Direct Drive. Its around $110 shipped, well built, offers a wide range of tones, and Dave Barber has posted some tone mods for the Direct Drive on his web site. I belive that pedal also recieved very favorable reviews in Guitar Player.

dave patterson

[jordanl]

I'm using mostly boutique stuff these days, but there are some very cool pedals available at reasonable prices.

Zooms recent analog series has some very nice pedals, their Power drive PD-01, has a clean boost thats almost as nice as a Klon, and is capable of grittier tones as well. The Fuzz covers a nice range of fuzz tones. I haven't tried the distortion or metal pedals but they get strong reviews.

Guyatones micro pedals are generally good, I like the overdrive and delay, and the llow volume can do some cool effects like bowed, and reverse sounds.

The Dano minis get some nice sounds but they feel fragile to me. Still, the French toast fuzz does a nice job for low dollars on an effect most won't use often anyways. the Chicken salad is the cheapest univibe out there.

I like pedals and think they are a part of the electric guitar. Used with taste they can really enhance a song.

[Tim Swartz]

According to Mark...

Most of the best players dont use any effects.

I'd certainly disagree w/ this. I would bet that all of the best players have used effects, and most use them use them regularly. I'm also curious as to why someone with apparently no interest in pedals would be here? Perhaps a closet stompboxer??? :D

I went through a phase when I was a bit of a snob, thinking it was just cool to plug straight in a wail away using the guitar volume control as more of a distortion/saturation control...this is indeed very cool (I still think a LP into an old Marshall is it!), but it is also very limited. How do you get that Univibe, chorus, flange, slapback or phase sound?

Most bang under $100? Vintage model Rat; set it low for sweet OD/boost, or dial it up for completely over the top raunch, or all points in between.

[Bluedawg]

Originally Posted by Mark Davis

Most of the best players dont use any effects.

Like who??????

Give me a modified Tube Screamer anyday over the crappy overdrive channel found in most amps.
I gotta start selling some of these modified TS and quit keeping them all for myself.

I just sold a Bluesbreaker 2,I hated it.

[Adam Waldron]

Methinks Mark's point was a little lost....

I can throw in a few stomp box free players (all faves of mine):
Albert Collins
Jimmy Vaughan
Roy Buchanan (though he has some delay for a while)
Ronnie Earl.

All these cats have/had TONE to the bone.

Let the song dictate the effect?

Slapback echo for Rockabilly, Reverb to Surf, compressor helps when chickin' pickin' etc....

Its easier to become a good player without hiding behind effects early on.

I see a lot of players out there dead scared of playing sans effects, they cover all manner of slop and garner speed through gain....

Arghhh....

Cheers,

Adam - effects free since '93

[Matt Plescher]

If it's the sound you're after, and you are not the greatest player then you have it made. It's the final sound that counts. If you get tired of the that effects heavy sound and want more pure guitar to shine through then you have to buckle down and learn technique.

I agree with Mark in that the cheapest effects come from technique. I actually don't use effects much either.

Cheers
Matt

[Ringo]

Arion chorus pedals, even the new ones sound great, one of the fattest sounding chorus pedals around.

Most all of the older Ibanez 9 and 10 series pedals, all of them are well made ,though the 9 series pedals are starting to go up in price lately.

Zoom PowerDrive and Ultrafuzz are great pedals.

Some of the Dano mini pedals sound very good, if you don't "stomp" on them too hard they should last a while.

Ibanez EM5 Echo Machine, going up in price but still well under $100, great for analog delay sound - even though it's digital.

MXR Phase 90, Microamp, Dynacomp, RI's sound good, even the originals are still available for under $100 if you search for them.

As far as not using effects, that's cool IF that is what you want, but don't be down on those of use who CHOOSE to USE them!
If you think about it most of the stuff you hear on the radio has effects, lot's of the "classic" recordings by our guitar heros feature effects and nearly every studio guitar player has a rack and a pedalboard.
I for one can't imagine Jimi Hendrix without effects, though he definately had the chops to play without them.

A guitar into an amp can be a great tone but it is very limited, to me using effects is just like colors to add to the pallette, or spices to enhance the flavor!

[studio1087]

I have most of the origanal 9 series Ibanez pedals. I love them; childhood pals. I was 18 when they were a new series. I noticed about 6 months ago that the "5" or Soundtank series sell on E-bay for about $14.00-$24.00 per pedal. I bought the Chorus as a back-up to my CS-9 (my favorite) and I think it sounds great. Now I'm buying the Soundtank series one by one on E-Bay as kind of a collection thing. I think they sound really great for the money. I have a delay, chorus, compressor, the tube screamer knock-off, phaser and flanger in the soundtank series. Not bad. I'll bet I bought them all for $100.00 total. I will never part with my 9 series versions of each of these. If you saw the last Maxon review in Guitar Player Magazine (last issue), you noticed that Maxon has reissued the entire Ibanez 9 series in the Maxon name. $300.00 each!!! Snag a CS-9 or a real Tube Screamer on E-bay soon!!

By the way, I can get a flange tone on my Martin using my hands. I don't hide behind gizmos, I just like to have fun every once in a while. My favorite pedals are the CS-9 Chorus and a Dyna-Comp. I'm amazed at what you can do with your bare hands if you work at it. I play fingerstyle a lot. Ani Defranco, Patti Larkin, Willy Porter are all heros of mine. They play accoustic; all super guitar players. Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin all use tons of effects and they are all super talented. I defy anyone to listen to King Krimson and tell me that the guys are hacks because they dig effects. Having fun with effects doesn't make you a hack. Playing like a sloppy hack makes you a hack. Don't paint style with a broad brush.

[studio1087]

Re: top post.......A Marshall Bluesbreaker in church!

Man, I'm going to the wrong church, we just get a lot of cheap organ and humming in my church.

I want to trade churches! :D

Kidding...

John

[Tim Bowen]

...I play straight in, with a pedalboard, whatever's right for the situation... Yes, you can have awful tone via pedals, but most guys I've heard do so, haven't a clue as to how to organize a signal chain, or match pedals to amps, no offense... As for great players with great tone, massive lists could be made for several categories , no stomps, buncha stomps, cheap stomps, booteek stomps, name it and examples are readily available... For one, Buddy Miller likes stomps and sounds pretty cool to me... Jeff Beck doesn't use a lot of stomps, and he's pretty good...

As for cheapies but goodies , ditto on the MXR MicroAmp, Arion Chorus, Dan-Echo, and I'll add the Soundtank series Ibanez Echo Machine. The biggest thing to watch with the cheapies is your bypassed tone... The more buffers of questionable quality that are in your chain, the more tonesuck you'll have at your disposal...

[Tim Bowen]

Oops, I didn't add the Ibanez delay, it was already mentioned, so ditto, kiddo. 8-)

[DADGAD]

...the Arion Tubulator is for Tele. I use it in church and it is a good overdrive for less than $30. More lows & highs than a tubescreamer, too.

When you play in front of 2,000 people, there's nothing you can "hide."

[tomcollins]

Start with a good axe and a good TUBE amp, keep your effects to a minimum and tailor them to the music you're playing. I would also advise you to keep in mind that "less is more". You want to colour your tone; not completely paint it over. As far as inexpensive effects go, I advise you to first decide exactly WHAT you want, and then go to ebay or, perhaps, a couple pawn shops... there are some really great deals out there in used effects. Second hand effects can go for pennies on the dollar of their original cost. But again, research, research, research and try to get EXACTLY what you want. Otherwise you may wind up with an overpriced paperweight. 8)

[The Snowman]

Alot of players that look as if thier straight in the amp actually route thru rack gear...a guy here in Philly actually makes your pedals into a rack unit....it looks as if your straight but it's all hidden....like it's all done with mirrors.....don

[Mark Davis]

Your amp is your effects. If your amp doesnt sound good get one that does.

I do agree some effects used just a little can improve your sound but learning how to get different tones with your hands is more important.

A good player can sit down with just an amp and guitar and sound awesome. Mark Knopfler Roy Buchanan Chet Atkins etc.

[asatbender]

i dont use effects at church. only maybe a delay. but at home i might try to sound exactly like a certain song. for example the compressed 12 string on heart of the matter by don henly or maybe a phased tone on amanda by waylon jennings. i can come pretty close using a digitech rp200.

i by no means hide behind effects. until i got the digitech i didt no what a phaser or filter sounded like

& i dont get to use a marshall bluesbreaker 2 at church. we are small 80 or so people & sing oldhymns almost strictly lol!!!!!

[Bill]

For overdrive, I think the most flexibility for the least money is the Jeckyll & Hyde. You get bypass, Jeckyll, Hyde, and Jeckyll + Hyde, for a total of 4 channels.

The weird thing is, it doesn't have true bypass, it's sounds like a boost or something. They tout it as being better than bypass. I don't know about that.

I've bought a couple off Harmony Central for $60-$80 used.

[Tom P.]

The Nobels ODR-1. A really great sounding OD for $40. :)

[weelie]

I've got a Dano Daddy-O (OD) that I won online. A fun thang! Looking to get Dan-Echo or EH Holy Grail sometime down the line. Not that I _really_ need them...

[tombo]

Nice overdrive, great with a strat or tele, can be bought just about anywhere. No, it's not the "be all, end all", but it's sounds good and is priced reasonably. I take it over the re-issue Tubescreamers any day, YMMV.