ShortScale.org

I've not bought any new gear in an absolute age. I was sat thinking at work earlier it might be a cool little project to buy one pedal a month in 2017 with the aim of having a well stocked pedalboard by the end of the year.

If I set myself the boundaries of spending between £50 and £100 pounds a month and spend wisely I reckon by the end of the year I will have got a decent set with most tonal bases covered (OD, fuzz, trem, compressor, something like a POG etc).

Thoughts?

I don't think your price range is unrealistic tbh. There are the mass-produced options like Boss and EHX, and I reckon you could get a decent deal on the Mooer and Behringer clones of popular circuits.

Alternatively, there are a few small-scale builders who produce pedals of near-boutique quality for a reasonable price - Mike and Timhulio are worth asking; I'd also recommend North Effects if you like classic fuzzes and such, and if you are happy to skimp of shiny enclosure graphics.

A basic comp, fuzz or OD box can be had for as little as £50, easy. Something like a POG, a reverb or delay might be pushing it unless you buy used though.

Got any specific things in mind? e.g. for low gain and high volume, without the TS mid hump, a Boss OD-3 is great. Muffs and some fuzz face variants are cheap but popular. For modulation, a NuX Modcore is REALLY cheap while being able to do a passable flange, phase, chorus, trem, vibe and rotating speaker effect. Probably not on par with individual boxes, but it's a lot of different sounds very very little money.

Whatever route you take, it would be a fascinating GAS journey to share with the rest of us though (hint, hint)!

whats the amp?

I got a friend who got me a Carcosa fuzz as a late christmas present (which I nearly cried about tbh) and it's coming in the mail this Saturday. it looks like a fairly versatile fuzz pedal, I'll let you know more once I have it. only $100, $80 if you get an open box

All the pedals on my board easily fall into this price bracket and it's a great board with plenty of inspiring tonez.

Sounds like a cool idea I'll watch for how it goes.

My strategy is to lurk sites like reverb and other pedal dealers and wait until a holiday when they put many things on sale (15 to 20%). Buy used when possible and have an idea of what you want (i.e. compressor, fuzz, boost, transparent drive, mid gain drive, distortion, modulation, reverb, delay etc) so you can grab whatever you find at lower than expected prices first.

dezb1 wrote:All the pedals on my board easily fall into this price bracket and it's a great board with plenty of inspiring tonez.

Sounds like a cool idea I'll watch for how it goes.

Yeah, and enough of them came in at £40-60 that you could hold money over from them to afford the bigger, £140-150 ones.

Bacchus wrote:

dezb1 wrote:All the pedals on my board easily fall into this price bracket and it's a great board with plenty of inspiring tonez.

Sounds like a cool idea I'll watch for how it goes.

Yeah, and enough of them came in at £40-60 that you could hold money over from them to afford the bigger, £140-150 ones.

£140 - £150? Never payed that much for any of them... the Supernatural was the dearest @ £90

Thanks guys, I think I'll give it a go. Need to have a think about my procurement plan and have a quick look at what's on the classifieds. It'd be cool to source as many as I can through shortscale.

The amp is a Marshall JVM combo.

Word to the wise: be cautious about the myriad drive and fuzz pedal recommendations you might receive here. Instead, I'd recommend trying to match people's experiences online with your specific amp (and there's lots of Marshalls, so make sure it's for JVMs!). You'll find there's a pile that work excellently, and a pile you probably shouldn't touch at all. This strategy has worked very well for me with my Vox AC15.

A cursory Google seems to show the Fulltone OCD as well as some Tubescreamers are rated well with JVMs, but makes things much fatter and warmer. So I guess the next question is, how heavy and what genre do you play? Do you use your amp channel switching for drive or do you rely on pedals?

No need to answer that now, but definitely something to think about. It might be that you just need or want a few boost pedals and a fuzz, as the amps drive is probably pretty solid already.

daftsupernova wrote:I got a friend who got me a Carcosa fuzz as a late christmas present (which I nearly cried about tbh) and it's coming in the mail this Saturday. it looks like a fairly versatile fuzz pedal, I'll let you know more once I have it. only $100, $80 if you get an open box

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. I quite want a Carcosa, mainly for a bit more velcro and spatter, which is missing from my IC Muff, and the literary connection is cool.