Hi all,
Any advice on budget fx pedals?
I mainly produce acid-tekno, tribe and hardcore.
The pedals would mainly be used on my tb-3 And kick of the AR.
Stuff like eventide end strymon sounds so good but its way too expensive for me at the moment.
The effects i am looking for are mainly distortion, delay and reverb.
Electro harmonix seems decent for the price, anyone here that has expierience using this brand?
All advice is welcome
Reverbs and delays: http://neunaber.net/collections/pedals
Have a look on this page as well: http://neunaber.net/pages/software
yummy!
Not sure where they are in price compared to Eventide/Strymon, but what I´ve seen on forums and such they seems to be appreciated for their sound quality.
if you don’t mind a bit of soldering yourself…here you may go
https://www.amplifiedparts.com/products/kits
Or maybe the MOD Duo that I´ve just stumbled upon…
[url=“http://portalmod.com/concept”]
http://portalmod.com/concept
I have a separate pedal chain for every synth I use which I will elaborate on as this discussion progresses. However, I would be remiss if did not urge you to pick up a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal as soon as possible. Used units can be found for as low as 20USD and new ones should’ cost more than 50USD.
Pairing distortion & fuzz units with synths is a tricky process of trial and error at times. Fortunately DS-1s work well with many devices and are easily acquired.
In the event one has about $200 the Fairfield Circuitry Four Eyes Fuzz might be the only unit you will ever need.
http://fairfieldcircuitry.com/collections/effect-pedals/products/four-eyes
EHX makes a number of great pedals. However, the vast majority of them are “voiced” for guitar/bass and do not work well with analog or digital synths.
Since you are looking for delays I suggest you seriously consider The EHX Stereo Memory Man with Hazari pedal. Used ones cost around $170 and function well with any instrument.
If you are content with only 550ms of delay a small and simple solution is the EHX Memory Toy which is very inexpensive: https://reverb.com/item/684813-electro-harmonix-memory-toy-analog-delay-pedal
Does anyone else dislike the sound of the Strymon? I’ve never played with one but all I’ve heard from it on videos & soundcloud is this very clean, socially acceptable sound. Some of the modes with pitch shifting sound impressive but overall it lacks character to my ears. I think the Space sounds tons better and I even prefer the sound of my crusty, trusty Quadraverb.
At the cheap & cheery end of the spectrum, I really like the sound of the Korg mini KP. Its output is really quiet and some of the effects are so cheesy it’s disgusting, but there are a few nice delays and filters and a couple weird distortions and modulation effects that are pretty interesting. It’s particularly good fun in a feedback loop - I’ve been meaning to build a passive mixer just for this purpose. Plus it’s nice and tiny.
the drive and delay minifoogers look good for the $… get a cheap spring reverb?
The EHX Nano Holy Grail is great cheap spring reverb. It also has hall and room.
i found this with the eventide pitchfactor… sounds AMAZING on guitar and utterly SHITHOUSE on most synthesizers, maybe just the nature of that type of effect (pitching/harmonising algos) but i avoided the space and timefactor because of this. Im using the strymon timeline and bluesky atm… the plate reverb is really sweet, spring and room are OK, shimmer is a bit gimmicky. The Vactrol mix circuit in the Strymon keeps the original signal intact without sucking the guts out of your monosynth. Currently building a plate reverb here the “experiverb” 靌
Not really distortion, but really nice sounding, takes CV in too.
It’s more like a mix between a fuzz and bit crushing.
Harmonic Decoder
http://sunsineaudio.bigcartel.com/
I should try this out before I suggest it (since I have one packed away which I used for guitar), but the original line 6 POD (the red bean) goes for real cheap these days. Reverb, delay, distortion, fuzz, trem, rotary, etc. You can get the floor board to control it from the ground or turn the knobs next to your machine. You can customize presets too.
Zoom CDR70!
Cheap and with lots of function.
Quality is pretty good in my opinion.
for TB303 acid sounds i recommend the ibanez tubescreamer oder the SD-1 by ibanez.
There are also the great Wampler Hot Wired V2, it has a dual drive option, on one channel you can blend in the original signal which helps to find a good mix between distrotion and clean signal.
for reverb i can recommed the digitech supernatural or the eventide space
for delay the eventide time factor, the line 6 delay factory
maybe sometimes you can use also a cheap pedal to get a really F*ç%ed up sound
I’m a guitar player and I’ve tried most of my pedals with my synths. As people mentioned, most of the guitar pedals don’t sound good with synths.
What I found is, the ones that sounds good with guitar sound bad with synths, but the ones that sound crappy with guitar sounds good with synths.
For example, Digitech distortion pedals (Bad Monkey, Grunge) didn’t sound as nice with the guitar as the Boss pedals but sounded great with the synths/drum machine. Grunge pedal is great for harcore/EBM/indurstrial sounds.
I am a fan of the Boss Blues Driver pedal on the 303. Tasty. 99.00 new and you can find them second hand for around 65.00.
damn that looks sick.
For my tb-3 i just purchased a proco rat and it sounds so good.
Also doesnt sound too bad on the rytm either.
Indeed, the Eventide and Strymon emulations on this little guy sound great. Not perfect replicas, but seriously good reverbs for the price.
Plus you can stack 6 of them, which is just nuts.
Indeed, the Eventide and Strymon emulations on this little guy sound great. Not perfect replicas, but seriously good reverbs for the price.
Plus you can stack 6 of them, which is just nuts.[/quote]
I’ve been pondering this unit for awhile. Have yall got hands on experience with it? im suspicious that it’s too good to be true…unfortunately i don’t live near anywhere where i can try it out.
I love the hands on of pedals. I have a proco rat (which for my tastes gets a little out of hand a little too quickly, though it is monstrous for sure), a big muff pi (anyone use di boxes? I have to crank a synth signal), harmonically lovely, and a strymon deco, which is buttery smooth. Way too expensive though. Wouldn’t buy it again but i can’t let it go.
Indeed, the Eventide and Strymon emulations on this little guy sound great. Not perfect replicas, but seriously good reverbs for the price.
Plus you can stack 6 of them, which is just nuts.[/quote]
I’ve been pondering this unit for awhile. Have yall got hands on experience with it? im suspicious that it’s too good to be true…unfortunately i don’t live near anywhere where i can try it out.
[/quote]
Yes I borrowed one for a few days to see if I liked it, along with a Zoom MS-60B (bass multiFX).
I liked them both.
The 70CDR was great for the stereo input capability and addition of a couple EQ algos to filter your signal going into the reverb…
For my uses it can take place of the FX tracks I use on Monomachine’s 6th track, as the 70CDR gives far better, and more varied reverbs, too. As mentioned the Eventide and Strymon emulations make for some really great dense shimmery reverbs. There’s a video on youtube comparing its shimmer reverb to a Strymon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Dgsz-1t30
So I’ve decided to get one (or probably the MS-100BT… more on that later) on the next round of heavy Monomachine exploitation (I’m currently in A4 exploit mode), at which point I’ll appreciate getting back some synth tracks by offloading the FX to a 70CDR. Or, I can use the regained MM track as a dedicated filter/delay/dist track for external signals. It’s really going to open up what I can do with the MM.
As for the 60B, this one has some great EQs, limiters, an exciter, and other fun bass synth stuff. Great for mono synths. It’s a bass pedal, so the reverbs aren’t the star players but there were a few serviceable algos. I was using it to beef up the mono output on my Nord Drum 1 and get some weird modulations as it goes into my A4.
Then there’s MS-100BT, which allows you to buy some algos for it and transfer via bluetooth and the Zoom iOS StompShare app. I believe that with the 100BT you have access to all the algos across the various MS series pedals. So you can use the bass limiter from the 60B plus the space reverb, from the 70CDR, and have a stereo input/output. The algos are $2. Many are free such as some space and strymon models. Pretty flexible for $150.