Pricy, boutique stuff

[JJLipton]

What do you think of expensive boutique pedals? I've always wanted an mjm london fuzz, fulltone fulldrive/ocd. The keeley ds-1 intrigues me as well. Think it's worth the price?

[JJLipton]

another prime example.. cool yes...but 300 usd cool?

[riotshield]

use your ears, if the sound costs that much, then go for it.
for me unless it is a very special effect, I cant justify the cost, for me its a matter of combination of all the elements till the final sound.

[wwrrss]

find schematic, ask mike. profit!

[Progrockabuse]

I've been skeptical in the past about botique stuff, but in the past couple of months I've tried and owned a couple and I'm really impressed with the ones I've tried. I'd still be weary of dropping a large amount of coin. I'd love a fulltone déjà vibe, but at £200+ it'd have to really be the mother of all uni vibes. My OCD was 2nd hand, but you'd think it was brand new.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

I've tried a few 'boutique' pedals and thought they were good pedals, but to be honest I bought them because I had more money than sense at the time.

I can see the sense in buying an expensive pedal which is a clone of a discontinued one which sells for substantially more, especially as it has the advantage of being brand new and comes with a guarantee. I've also had excellent customer service from boutique builders - got my (2nd hand) Moollon Clean Boost repaired free of charge, no questions asked; Mojo Hand were set to repair or replace my Sugar Baby trem, but I asked if I could swap it for another pedal from their range and they gave me a good deal on a 'slight second' Luna Vibe which would've been much more expensive at the full price. Then they sent me out some spare knobs because it arrived with one missing.

That kind of follow-up service makes boutique pedals winners, never mind the fact that it's maybe better to support small businesses than huge faceless corporate entities.

Progrockabuse - you might want to consider the Luna Vibe. At least you can be sure that if it craps out on you you'll get a better follow-up service than Fuller would give you in a million years.

[aen]

use your ears, if the sound costs that much, then go for it.

BOutique prices fucking suck. But this is where I, and a lot of my contemporaries are coming from. Most of these boutique pedals are made by hand, parts ordered in "small" batches (net ehx quantity) so parts cost is up. Then you have to consider labor, workshop rent, consumable materials, and whatever the art of the thing is worth.
Just to give you all the "bottom line" on the math: Dwarfcraft grossed almost $100k last year. Wow, right? Well, that boils down to $27k "take home" for a family of five. So yeah, it works, I'm not complaining, but there is a tremendous cost of doing this business. Dudes like Mike can do pedals for a little less, because he builds out of his home, has no employees, and no seperate workshop AFAIK. Which honestly, some days I really envy.
From day one, I've wanted to keep my prices down as low as possible, and believe me, they are. Louise is often bugging me to raise prices, but so far I haven't, except for dramatic parts cost increases (Rot Yr Brain) I think Zvex was brilliant in getting some pedals made in a cheaper fashion. You probably get the same tone, but at a much easier price point.
Anyway, yeah, prices are a pain, but most of us are being pretty fair. There's a lot of boutique pedals that have sounds unavailable anywhere else, and as mentioned earlier, there's the customer service aspect.

[riotshield]

dwarfcraft has very unique stuff so i think they are fairly priced. i wouldnt pay 300$ for a drive pedal or fuzz pedal just cause it has a cool name on it

[mickie08]

As said, it all depends on the pedal.

I would never in my life pay 300 for some tweaked up Tubescreamer pedal.

I paid almost 400 for my old T-Rex delay that James has/had now. I loved that pedal and will probably purchase another one here by the summer as I am out gigging again and need to start getting an electric rig back together.

DCraft and such that are really "out of the box" type stuff should be priced up there becuase it is different, the service is great, and the pedals do things that no one else does. SO sure, 2-300 for one of them is not something that would phase me.

[timhulio]

I did a costing a while back on the Harmonic Percolators I build.

Enclosure: 2.35
Powdercoating/painting: 5.87
Neutrik jack mono:0.39
Neutrik jack stereo: 0.58
DC jack:0.49
Battery clip: 0.29
DPDT alpha footswitch: 1.04
Boards, components, tools: c 4.00
Total: £15.01

This is for a batch size of 50-100 units. I know for a fact that I can halve the cost of finishing for the next batch. Very few pedal companies pay this much per unit for materials. So, use your ears, and if the magic mojo pixies twinkling in your eardrums can justify the £15 build cost --> £200 price tag discrepancy, go for it!

And not to be a grouch, but boutique customer service is shit. These guys vanish every week. Death By Audio? Sorry on tour, fix it when I get back. Barge Concepts? Penny Pedals? Sustain Punch? Vanished. Good luck with customer service there.

[SGJarrod]

buy boutique pedals used or have some one build a clone..... the prices are quite rediculous.....

[aen]

I guess I've never actually had any CS interactions with a boutique company.
BUt now that you mention it, I have heard horror stories about DBA.

[mickie08]

I guess I've never actually had any CS interactions with a boutique company.
BUt now that you mention it, I have heard horror stories about DBA.

You have to find the ones that have been in business awhile. For every upstart like MBM that is still going strong ans offers great service, there are a couple that offer shit service and half a dozen that are out of business.

SOme are great though. When I had my SIB Varidrive it had an issue. The dude that builds them happens to live locally and he gave me his home address and had me drop it off to him. Then the next week he was in my area and he brought it back to me fixed/serisouly cleaned up, hand signed, and he had fixed my only complaint about it (all the pots were notched and sometimes the sweet spot (especially volume and gain) were right in the middle of 2 notches.

Did this for no charge even though I bought the pedal used. That is service.

[SGJarrod]

the best service I have ever had from a bouteeker co was Catalinbread...very stand up Company!!!! Love Catalinbread so much I got a Catalinbread sticker in the rear window of my truck....

Yeah, I know I'm a tard

[Gabriel]

The keeley ds-1 intrigues me as well. Think it's worth the price?

Its much much much better than a stock DS-1 but its not great, after all it is still a DS-1, its fun but not that useable. - mind you I did the mods myself, maybe the actual keeley ones have some magic voodoo that makes them better.

I wish I could afford boutique prices as there are some seriously imaginative pedals out there that would no doubt provide me with some great sound.

[taylornutt]

I love when I am able support guys like Aen, Mke, and Haze by buying their stuff. I have 2 MBM pedals that I love and the quality is excellent. I really am pining for a Dwarfcraft Internet and Eau Claire thunder. Some of Aen's stuff is as creative and original as anything EHX is coming out with right now. It's very inspiring to see you guys doing what you love and trying to make a living doing it. I honestly don't mind the extra cost since I know you are competing with all the big boys and the other boutique pedal makers, so you have to make each pedal worth your time. I also know the quality will be excellent as well.

[Lucamo]

AS far as I know.

Paying 150-300 for a Dwarfcraft is totally worth it. Aen and friends seem passionate about noise making and creating unique products.
Paying 100- 300 bucks for a Malekko seems just as worth it, they have been around for awhile, and build some of the best modulating pedals ever. The quality of the Omicron series is UNREAL. They are small as shit, sturdy and sound like heaven.
DeviFX has good prices for what appear to be simple fuzz pedals, I know their not but I don't get the same vibe as world ending Dwarfcraft pedals.

Those three boutique brands are worthy of my time and money.

Also need Haze and Mike pedals.

[Fran]

I dont think any of them are worth the price. Second hand yes, new no.
We are generally talking gain devices here? In my opinion no pedal can match a decent valve amplifier in this department unless you want some crazy shit.
Even Solid State, i can get A LOT out of my Line 6 Spider and it cost less than some of my single pedals. No contest.

[ultratwin]

I've always felt that what works for you is what you need.


I'm convinced that there are no absolutes in the pedal world, just a lot of variables. Spent a good $400 years ago to get a BJF Emerald Green over here (and still love the thing to death), yet have no problem feeding my cheapo Stompleague Mostfet Boost into one of the free Dano pedals I got a few years back for a tad different color of OD, since oft times a little amp tweaking will get what I want anyway, at high volumes.

You guys said it right, CS means a lot if you're gonna charge big bucks. For us at Moollon we've always taken any of our pedals in need of repair and fix it no questions asked (sometimes replacing the entire PCB if from an earlier series) and send back at our expense, and that alone has garnered more webtalk than expected, though such a policy has become an obvious necessity for us to maintain some kind of presence as outsiders from a "mass-producing" East Asian country. Seriously, we've had guys (they're always white Americans in their 40s/50s) who heckle and sneer at us at NAMM for the "Korean wages" issue, having no idea that this ain't Vietnam or Qingdao, it's a place where the cost of living is nearly on par with a place like London and we do everything in-house. Quite honestly, with 4 guys in a 3000sq/ft shop moving less than 10 pedals a week, one might be able to understand the potential losses taken to sustain an operation, yet our domestic sales have been quite amazing just the same, mostly with our guitar line keeping the company afloat. END RUMBLE RANT.

Now for my annual soapbox routine.

The stuff behind Mr Park's pedals are that they're about old guitars/amps/pickups, and everything that went into an old recording to get "that sound", something that my ears or hands honestly have very little to do with, yet for those who know what they want, we've had huge success though in smaller volumes...And warrants a booooteek label that I feel makes sense, independent of price. The Class A Boost is definitely one of those pedals for us, a point-to-point 3-band Rangemaster or sorts (silicone) that gets the Treble boosty tones but can also do a mean testiclar blast that makes the amp roar with a lot more flexibility from the bass and mids, if one actually leaves the amp hot and turns his/her volume pot down every now and then. It's really angry sounding without making it's own distortion, and is the only pedal in the catalog that we've actually had people call it "not a beginner's pedal", yet would apply the same to the Moollon ReVibe due to it's bizarre (always on, just like the original Uni-Vibe) bypass.

In other words, the Class A Boost is fairly useless for the average Jose wanting drive from a low-gain setup, but is probably unique enough to be respected on it's own and likely not to be copied by someone(regardless of exposed circuitry) without some sweat and cursing.

► Show Spoiler

We still need to do some proper demos and could up our promo game a bit, but still feel the company is going in the right direction with design/tone/CS, as we've continuously bumped into pretty much 2 types of people, when it comes to frank and open talk about Moollon.

1. Those who say "Why the hell are they so expensive? Greedy Korean bastards..."

2. Those who own 2 or 3 Moollon pedals.

[Haze]

Its the stuffff like the malekko chicken reverb that gets me. The chopin some go for is stupid for a belton based reverb that you can kit yourself. Also the mad professor sky blue delay was found to be a madbean pcb rebote delay, I diy circuit. Stupid y'all.

Imma do an bro deal boost and probaly lose money just based on time and consumables but if I jacked prices up it would hardly qualify for its name.