Good day pedal users, I’m planning a pedalboard for when I can afford them, to color my playing after years of using a shitty Zoom multi-FX pedal. I want to actually use “proper” separate pedals for easier dialing in of tones and being able to actually change the order of the effects. Now, I’m saying “budget” and I REALLY do mean budget. Where I live, anything involving guitars is insanely expensive. What you might think is a cheap easy to get pedal like a Boss effect, costs $200 or more down here. So I’ve been looking around for the true budget choices that still sound competent. I currently play an Ibanez through a Roland Cube 30 amp.
With that out of the way, let’s begin: I want to play doom metal and adjacent heavy styles of music. A super clean tone is not too important to me, neither are stacking of ambient pedals and delays. I like versatility, but I want to dial in my own tone that I can use for my favored music. I also want to keep the board small in pedal count, I was planning on 5 max, but I might need a couple more slots, if anything to fit in a tuner pedal.
-First, I need a good fuzz pedal. I have been looking around, and I really can’t find a fuzz I like more than the DOD Carcosa. Or anything that sounds quite like it at a cheaper price range, so that’s probably what I’m going to go for, and also will be the most expensive pedal on the board. The only alternative I’m willing to consider, is a big muff clone of some sort. Also I hate the Hyper Fuzz box of bees sound.
-Second, a distortion pedal. I’m pretty set on getting a RAT type pedal, but again since even the ProCo is expensive here, I’m going for an alternative. Currently at the top of the list is the Joyo Splinter, as it can sound pretty much exactly like a Fat Rat (at least in video reviews it does). Alternative consideration is a Boss DS-1 style pedal, but I’m pretty sure i want a Ratty sound.
-Third, is the first pedal I am not 100% sure of. I love the sound of Orange amps. I run my stuff through a simple Roland Cube amp, that can emulate several other things, but not an Orange. So in the interest of doing that but also not buying another amp, I want an amp-in-a-box pedal. The Joyo Oxford Sound is exactly that. The idea is to dial it in for a very characteristic Orange crunch sound, and then push it with the previous two. might turn it completely off for clean sections.
-Fourth in the path, is some sort of modulation pedal. In the interest of versatility, I’m going for a multi-mod. Can’t really decide if I want to stick with a chorus, phaser, flanger or tremolo, so I want all of them in one. Candidates for this are the Behringer FX600, Caline Multimod or similars.
-Fifth in the ideal signal chain now, is my simple ambience. A singular Delay/Reverb pedal would be ideal. Currently between the Caline Ragnarok and the Sonicake Levitate. Taking suggestions of other options here. Being able to toggle each individual effect is important, tap tempo is nice but not necessary.
But, there are other effects I consider. Like I mentioned before, a tuner pedal is kind of necessary, and can double as a mute button after my distortions.
-An overdrive pedal. I don’t feel like it is necessary, but everyone and their mother says they have or need one, so I have to consider it. Would potentially substitute or push into the Orange amp simulation. If I have to use one, I think I like the Klon style pedals, and there’s tons of cheap clones of that around.
-A boost pedal. But not necessarily a straight flat boost. As a doom guitar wannabe, of course one of my idols is Tony Iommi, and his tone used a treble booster into a Laney amp. My other guitar hero, with a searing and captivating lead tone, is Rory Gallagher, who ran a treble booster into a Vox amp. As I understand, it’s what made both of their tones so wide and clear, with aggressive mids and highs for leads. But it is also an effect that was used to solve a very specific problem: old tube amps darkened when they were pushed too hard and loud. Modern amps, solid state amps or amp simulations don’t necessarily suffer from that. Or I could just set up a bright sounding low gain overdrive to keep always on for a similar effect. This is the one I’m least sure about. Also it might require me to apply a noise gate at the end, increasing the total pedals on the chain not by 1 but by 2!
On a final note, I also might want to learn bass at some point. And bass players’ #1 effect is compression. So I might have to get one of those someday too. Wouldn’t use it on guitar, as it does the opposite of what I want.
Either way, after this whole wall of text, I thank anyone who read all of it. What advice can you give me? Both on pedal choice or usage? Do you think it is possible to sound something in the middle of doom metal and bright blues leads? On a budget? That’s what I want to know.
Sounds like you’ve done your research. I can second the Carcosa. It’s extremely versatile. Between DS-1 and RAT I’d go for RAT. I have both and the RAT has better tonal range.
I’d recommend staying away from Behringer if you can. In my experience their products are cheap to the point of annoyance. Lots of noise. Even on isolated power sources. There’s better brands that do clones around the same prices.
I know you’re on a tight budget but it might be worth it to save up for one of the cheaper Orange amps? The Micro Terror is a solid little amp but will cost around $300 USD with the matching cab. Just a thought.
Ooh no, I looked up how much an Orange amp would cost me. Let me give you another example while I look up how much would that cost me now: I wanted to get an LTD TE-200 guitar, which costs about $450 out there. If you get one of those in regular stores down here, it would cost me nearly $1600. That bad. An Orange Micro Terror with a 1x8 cab, the smallest and cheapest combination with tubes, would run me about $800. Maybe later down the line after I build the rest of the rig.
I keep hearing mixed things about Behringer. Somehow they have a worse reputation than many low price chinese clone pedals.