Pedals that exceeded your expectations

[Logrinn]

For me it’s the Tech21 XXL.
It’s the most quiet pedal while still having plenty of gain dialled up - and it cleans up better than any pedal I’ve tried when turning down the volume on my guitars. It gives me controllable feedback at fairly low volume.
It’s my always-on-pedal.

[Flippersotherguitar]

Mine would have to be the aclam dr robert pedal. Its designed to sound like the vox ul730 amps that The Beatles used during the recording of revolver, which it does very well. I've tried it plugged into everything from a vox ac 10, a boss katana, a fender princeton and even a little gorilla practice amp, and the sound it imparts is very close to that particular beatles tone. Like a chiming jangly sorta thing, or a more fuzzy searing type of thing depending on how its set. It is also great as a tool for giving some color to my guitars or basses when I record them di. I've had it since they came out with them and while I expected to dig it, I didn't realize how much use and fun I would get out of it.

[Flippersotherguitar]

Mine would have to be the aclam dr robert pedal. Its designed to sound like the vox ul730 amps that The Beatles used during the recording of revolver, which it does very well. I've tried it plugged into everything from a vox ac 10, a boss katana, a fender princeton and even a little gorilla practice amp, and the sound it imparts is very close to that particular beatles tone. Like a chiming jangly sorta thing, or a more fuzzy searing type of thing depending on how its set. It is also great as a tool for giving some color to my guitars or basses when I record them di. I've had it since they came out with them and while I expected to dig it, I didn't realize how much use and fun I would get out of it.

[blacktiger]

Joyo American Sound

I bought it for an amp replacement to record direct, and it works great for that, but where it really shines is turning my Class 5 from a very Marshall-y little amp to a very convincing blackface/brownface/tweed Fender. It really turns it into a completely different amp, and what more could you want for less than $40?

[pj]

My JHS Bender has become one of my favorite fuzzes. It is incredibly versatile and straddles the distortion/fuzz line perfectly. It also stacks really well with other pedals.

[bubba899]

I think the pedal that best sums this up for me recently is the MXR Custom Badass Modified OD. Bought it on a whim and it's now a vital part of my live setup. Did what I never thought possible and has kicked my SD-1 to the sidelines for the time being. I've since tried the rest of the offerings in that range and they're all excellent, particularly love the Super Badass Distortion. The name is a bit cringe and it make me wonder if these might be more ubiquitous if not for that. Very cheap for the quality too.

Also, Strymon Flint. A pedal I had high expectations for, and has all the hype in the world, but properly delivers on that and even got me into the whole harmonic trem thing.

[Arthon]

MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay - I've tried a few delay pedals - Fender Mirror Image Delay, electro-harmonix Canyon, Fender Tre-Verb, and Keely Caverns. I keep coming back to the Carbon Copy (permantly affixed to my travel pedalboard). The Tre-Verb (also on travel pedalboard) and Caverns (on primary home pedalboard) are exceptional and I use them, too. The Canyon now sits on my bass pedalboard and the Mirror Image Delay is stored away - I never could get it to sound the way I needed it to.

Tried a bunch of delay and keep coming back to it. Perfectly voiced analog delay

[fuzzjunkie]

I didn’t mention this earlier, because it’s an expensive pedal, but here goes: The Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe.

This big 7 knob box has been on my board since 1996. Plenty of others have come and gone. Some big vintage pedals replaced by smaller clones, others for a change in direction, but this one stays.

Roger Mayer has historical cred for tuning pedals for several well known guitar players back in the ‘60s that he later turned into a boutique pedal building career. His fuzz pedals are solid. I never owned any because I wasn’t chasing Hendrix tones, but solid fuzz pedals.

The Voodoo Vibe got me curious though. I was looking for a tremolo and didn’t have a Univibe either. This claimed to do both. And it does! I tried one in a vintage guitar shop I found on tour, and liked it a lot, but didn’t have the cash for it. Once back in Austin I couldn’t find one anywhere.

Six months later during SXSW a band called the Posies were playing and one of the guys had a nice pedalboard so I asked if he knew the name of the shop in Seattle because I could not remember it. He laughed and said “I know the one, I buy most of my gear there!” He actually had a business card for them in his wallet!

I called them the next day and got the last one they had shipped. It might have been the last one in the US because I had tried Mayer himself and he was back logged after a write up in Guitar Player.

I was a little worried that I had dropped a bunch of money on a pedal that was going to loose it’s shiny new thing status quickly, but it sounded great in my rig!

It has multiple waveforms, which wasn’t common in lightbulb modulation pedals, and can do a lot more than cop Univibe tones and a simple tremolo. The phase, chorus and vibrato tones that come out of this box are all the modulation that I need. It’s a big box though that takes up a lot or real estate. Especially when you add an expression pedal for controlling the speed. I mean, why wouldn’t you?

Mayer has a couple of trimmed down versions because they aren’t cheap, but splurge and get the deluxe model. That’s the one.

[skeletonpower]

The Amazon basics tube screamer clone. I got it from a friend as a joke and it's not bad.

[JSett]

The Amazon basics tube screamer clone. I got it from a friend as a joke and it's not bad.

That's because every Tubescreamer basically sounds the same

[tequila_in_teacups]

Grabbed a Mosky DOD250 clone recently. Didn't want to spend much to try one as I generally don't like OD pedals. But it sounds great. Not sure whether the taper of the pots is weird or whether it's the nature of the DOD250 circuit, but there's a lot of gain in the last quarter turn. Mainly I like what it does when kept clean or just on the edge of breakup. Had to give it a new paintjob to look good enough for the pedalboard, though.

[skeletonpower]

The Amazon basics tube screamer clone. I got it from a friend as a joke and it's not bad.

That's because every Tubescreamer basically sounds the same

Haha that's true.

[s_mcsleazy]

The Amazon basics tube screamer clone. I got it from a friend as a joke and it's not bad.

That's because every Tubescreamer basically sounds the same

*blooze lawyer voice* no man, they all sound different and some of them have more M@J@ than others. you want the ones with the most M@JO check out my reverb shop, i have a 1990 model that makes me sound like stevie ray vaughn for an absolute bargain $2000 + postage and packing.

[MrShake]

The Amazon basics tube screamer clone. I got it from a friend as a joke and it's not bad.

The Amazon Basics delay would be on my list.

$30 on sale, tiny footprint, tap tempo mode. Not a Strymon, but damn, that's a lot of pedal for the money.

And I have had other guitarists ask, "What delay were you using there?". I get a perverse thrill out of telling them it's an Amazon.

[countertext]

I built a StewMac Ghost Drive kit a couple months back. I honestly just wanted to build something, and it was on sale, and Erick Coleman posted a little video where it sounded amazing - I’m sure it wasn’t the ‘59 Junior and vintage Marshall combo he was playing. The Ghost Drive is a Klon Centaur clone, I think it might be a complete replication of the first circuit, maybe.

Anyway, got one, built it, fun little project, it works, but I don’t really play amplified much because of my living situation (I’m a mage-level adult, ever busy, always adulting) so I didn’t do much beyond determine if I was successful in building it. In the last week or two I’ve been trying to play some of my neglected pedals, and the Ghost Drive got plugged in. It sounds fuckin’ great!

I wasn’t paying attention, noodling and strumming on my Esquire, and was like “why do those notes sound better than normal?” I thought for a second that I had gotten better at guitar, but you know that’s not happening. I did some troubleshooting to figure out what the problem was, and it was the StewMac pedal kit.

I was in denial for about a day, but when I went back to it, the sound was still there. It’s a cool pedal. I’ve never played a real Klon, probably won’t ever get to, so I can’t comment on how similar the kit is to the real thing. But it’s cheap, and you can build it yourself, and it sounds awesome.

The LED is too bright, though. I put sharpie on it to calm it down.