Tiny pedals (1590A pedals)

[BigBeatNut]

Somewhat inspired by the one-knob pedals thread I'd like to know more about what tiny pedals there are available, and how useful bassists are finding them (seeing as most pedals are targeted at guitar players).

I have just one of these right now, an SFXsound B³ and I love it quite apart from it's size. Lovely warm-up pedal.



I'd love to have a complete pedal-board at this size (comp, octaver, valve emulation, EQ, tuner, maybe envelope filter) but not all the parts are there yet. Things are looking interesting though.

Things I've discovered but not tried:

Malekko have comp and e. filter amongst others.

Mythfx have amongst other things the "Infinium" which is a Filter/ring mod/delay (but not all simultaneously.)

Daniel Zink seems to build custom pedals in the 1590a format (scroll to bottom).

Lovepedal have their mini line.

SFXsound has a range that includes distortion, overdrive, eq and fuzz in the 1590a format that are mostly untried by me so far.

What have you found ? Which ones do you like ?

Andy

[BigBeatNut]

Forgot to mention the BMC (bass mid control) from E.W.S.. I'm tempted by one of those.

[HolmeBass]

This guy from xotic effects. Great clean-with-character-boost I use at the very end of my chain for about 2 db boost. It makes everything "go to 11" when I need just a little bit more.

EP Booster

[seedokebass]

A tuner and octave pedal in that casing would be on my board ASAP!

BigBeat, in what way do you use the SFXsound B3? Passive basses/secondary tone?

[cnltb]

Are you aware of any GOOD sounding distortion/OD pedals with one knob?


Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.



I'm still flirting with the wayfarer OD...but being able to compare it with a few others would certainly not hurt.

[Feral Feline]

Let me know if I've missed any; I know there are some new Micro Pedals out there and I'd like to update my list.

Cheers,
FF


MICRO-FX

REDesign (Canadian!)
BC Buzz (silicon modern sound)
FBL (bypass & feedbacklooper)
GE Boost (germanium)
GE Fuzz (dual NPN germanium)
Micro Boost
Micro Buffer (no switch, always on, helps w/ 3-4 pedals/long cables)
Micro Buzz (based on Jordan Bosstone)
Micro Mite (based on Mosrite Fuzzrite)
RED Head (A/B switcher)

Sonic Crayon (Canuckagin)
DIY Jawari build (fuzz)


Malekko Omicron
Tremolo
Analog Chorus
analog Phaser
Vibrato
-- Chicklet reverb
Fuzz germanium
E.Filter envelope filter
A.D attack decay
Comp
Bit

Catalinbread (custom shop, probably other models out there) Portland OR
-- Octopus Magus (Octave)
Valcoder (repeat percussion tremolo)
Serrano Picoso (30db boost/buffer; Coral Picoso (same, but hand painted)
Fuzz Tone Engine
Hyper Pak (adds a "dirty channel" to single ch amp, sensitive to guit vol knob)
V8 Fuzz Tone Generator
Phaeton Phase Shifter

Love Pedal
Echo Baby
Pickle Vibe
Amp50
Line Driver Mini Buffer
Babyface Tremolo

SFX
Micro Thumpinator (bandwidth optimiser)
-- Micro Fuzz (bassversion)
Ultra Tone
-- Micro EQ
Micro Red Dragon
Micro Black Dragon x2 (1 for bass, 1 for guitar)
Micro Boost
-- Micro Mite (mosrite fuzzrite based)
B3 Big Beautiful Bass - shape-shifter of tone
Micro H - headphone amp
Micro Cab - cab simulator
Split - signal splitter
Mix - signal merger
SP2 - 2 channel preamp

XOTic
-- EP Booster (Echo Plex pre)

EWS
BMC Bass Mid Control (concentric sweep/boost)
LBD Little Brute Drive (one-knob OD/Dist)

CUSACK
More Louder (pink breast cancer, teal new)
Never Off Mini Pedals (no footswitch, to be used in loopers)
Louder (1 knob - Boost)
Scream (3 knob - Drive, Tone, Level)
Scruzz (3 knob - Drive, Fuzz, Level)
Twirl (3 knob

This1sMyne
MFE -- Mini Fixed Expression Pedal

MYTHFX
Minotaur Distortion
Midas Clean Boost
Triton Modulation w/ Reverb

GruVin Arts & Engineering
Mako Switch - FX loop switcher
Pico Switch - A/B switch

Sun Machine Effects
Reptile Fuzz - darker Fuzz face circuit

GeekMacDaddy
Geek Ranger

Effector 13 Artifact series (truly micro?)
Crystal Clear Boost
Passive Vol control
Short Decay Fuzz
Clipping Boost

Guyatone Micro Series
Cool Booster
Flanger
Hot Drive
Micro Chorus
Micro Digital Delay
Micro Octaver
Micro Tuner
OverDrive+
Sonic Shaper
Compr/Sustainer
Slow Volume
The Fuzz
Vintage Tremolo
WAH Rocker, + bottom wah rocker
Bottom Blaster
Bottom Eq ualiser

Devi Ever several fuzz/distortions/boosts (Tough to tell from pics online which are 1590a, Lemmy Know!)
Torn's Peaker
90 ?
OK ?
Karaoke Party ?
Electric Brown ?
Noise Floor ?
Hound's Tooth ?
Ruby ?

Cheese Block FX
- OD/DIst
- Small Wonder boost

Mellow Tone
- Hi Five OD

NicoFX
MiniRAT
Squeezer
Echo Echo Echo
LunaTrem
Vibrato
One Way OverDrive

El Musico Loco
Wee Beaver fuzz
Dinky Dong booster

DANIEL ZINK .com
1590 series (12 pedals)
Sparkleboost
Micro Delay - PT2399-based Delay
Easy Drive - dist/OD
Mini Phaser
Micro Rinzai Drive
Micro Rust(y) Driver
Bit O' Honey
Micro DOD 250 OD Preamp
Micro "E" Klone OD
1590'd Orange Squeezer Compressor
.50 Drive
Crackle Boost
100 Drive (Crackle Boost with .50 Drive character)
Micro YATS/CJOD Lite
BC108 Silicon Fuzz
Pushme Pullyou Octave Drive
Dirty Boots - germanium Booster/OD
NPN germanium RangeBlaster w/fat switch
Micro LoFoMoFo
BYOC Confidence Booster
Buffer - germ buffer w/board from www.muzique.com
True Bypass Looper

TC ELECTRONIC
PolyTune Mini

Mooer Audio
Black Secret - Distortion
Hustle Drive - Distortion
Green Mile - OD
Ensemble King - Chorus

[cnltb]

Which of the Dist/OD7Fuzz boxes on this list would you recommend(provided you've used them, of course)?

[BigBeatNut]

Originally Posted by seedokebass

BigBeat, in what way do you use the SFXsound B3? Passive basses/secondary tone?

With active basses.

These days I don't use my '79 P much at all live, I use active 5's, Lakland and Status. The one thing I miss about the P is the really deep cut of the passive tone control ... the B³ was purchased to give me back that cut, and it does that brilliantly. More recently I've discovered I like the sound of the scoop on it's own, or mixed with a much less extreme treble roll-off.

Andy

[BigBeatNut]

Originally Posted by Feral Feline

Let me know if I've missed any; I know there are some new Micro Pedals out there and I'd like to update my list.

Impressive list, FF. That'll keep me googling for some time

Andy

[BigBeatNut]

Originally Posted by HolmeBass

This guy from xotic effects. Great clean-with-character-boost I use at the very end of my chain for about 2 db boost. It makes everything "go to 11" when I need just a little bit more.

EP Booster

Not sure I understand the purpose of boosters for bass ... is this to drive your valve amp further into distortion ? Or does the 'character' come from the pedal itself, in terms of manipulating the EQ or giving mild valve character ?

EDIT: From reading the web page, looks like it's a bit of both, but I'm interested to know how you perceive it.

Andy

[BigBeatNut]

Duplicate post, sorry.

[Feral Feline]

Originally Posted by cnltb

Which of the Dist/OD7Fuzz boxes on this list would you recommend(provided you've used them, of course)?

It's a list. I make lists. I haven't tried all of them, barely even some of them, as I'm not rich. If I win the lottery, then I'll buy them all, but even then... taste is subjective.

Originally Posted by BigBeatNut

Impressive list, FF. That'll keep me googling for some time

Andy

Thanks. I'd love to put together a Pedal Train Nano (about 5 1590A pedals?) board with the essentials, maybe a Pedal Train Mini (about 12-15 1590A pedals), but even then...

1) Filter phaser/wah:
malekko omicron phaser;
Love Pedal Pickle Vibe
Chi Wah Wah – not 1590A, but in the spirit of Micro

2) Compressor
??*??

3) OD & Distortion:
RedDesign BC Buzz,
RedDesign Micro Buzz
RedDesign Micro Mite
Sonic Crayon Jawari,
SFX MicroFuzzbass,
XOTic EP Booster

4) EQ (+ speaker sims)
SFX Micro EQ or Ultratone

5) Pitch: harmonisers, vibrato, benders, octavers
Omicron Vibrato
Catalinbread Octopus Magus

6) Modulation: flangers, chorus
Omicron Chorus

7) Level controllers: noise gates, limiters, volume pedals, tremolo & panning
Catalinbread Valcoder
Lovepedal Babyface Trem

8) Echo: Delay, reverb
LovePedal Echo Baby
Omicron Chicklet

9) Miscellaneous
RedDesign FBL,
RedHead AB switcher

Every one needs a TUNER! Here's my 1590A tuner idea: Put an N-Tune tuner around a stomp switch in a 1590A with some extra LEDs wired in so you can see the tuning situation from six feet away, built-in is a clean always-on buffer/line driver, stomp switch is to mute/tune of course.

Ahh what the hell, need a CUSACK PEDAL BOARD TAMER (6 or 9 loop version) for the Cusack always-on pedals...

There is no "off" switch in my mind *sigh*

[BigBeatNut]

More discoveries:

nicofx do a couple of 1590a-size distortions

elmusicoloco do a boost and a fuzz (with big muff tone circuit) in the right format.

... and if you want to find out how the DIYers get electronics into boxes that size, check out diystompboxes

Sadly, no idea if any of these are good for bass.

[cultrvultr]

Two more companies to add to your list:

Albit from Japan. Tiny bass mid control pedals

Modtone has a new mini series.

[BigBeatNut]

Originally Posted by cultrvultr

Albit from Japan. Tiny bass mid control pedals

Thanks, they seem to be doing a few more now, including distortions and a fet pre-amp.



They are indeed tiny, and they are claimed to be suitable for both guitar and bass (thank you, google translate).

[BigBeatNut]

Originally Posted by cultrvultr

Modtone has a new mini series.

Thanks, here's an idea of the size/shape.



I couldn't see any indication about whether they were suitable for bass.

[BigBeatNut]

Originally Posted by BigBeatNut

I'd like to know more about what tiny pedals there are available, and how useful bassists are finding them (seeing as most pedals are targeted at guitar players).

What have you found ? Which ones do you like ?

Looks like I'm mostly on my own for figuring out which of these work well for bass then. :/

Well, there's an obvious choice for compressor (Malekko) until a 3-knob comp comes along in this format.

For Filters, looks like the choice is Malekko (offering control over range and frequency) and the MythFX infinium (offering Q and frequency(?) along with level and blend).

For Tuner, I guess the Pitch Black is the smallest thing out there.

For overdrive/distortion, lots of choice, but I may go SFX since he's local.

I'd still like to hear from anyone else using pedals in this format.

Andy

[HolmeBass]

Originally Posted by BigBeatNut

Not sure I understand the purpose of boosters for bass ... is this to drive your valve amp further into distortion ? Or does the 'character' come from the pedal itself, in terms of manipulating the EQ or giving mild valve character ?

EDIT: From reading the web page, looks like it's a bit of both, but I'm interested to know how you perceive it.

Andy

I use it just as a boost, last thing in my chain. When the band gets excited and everything gets loud, say towards the peak of a guitar solo, with the piano player banging octaves in the low end, I'll click this on just to stay present. Not even our sound man notices, it's probably only adding 2 - 3 db to my level. I set it so full CCW is 0 db boost, and for "flat" response. It has two dip switches inside. The default is for full CCW to be +3 db and for flat response. The "non-flat" response is a faithful copy of exactly how the Echo Plex's front end sounded.

I don't use it much for the character per se, but it's nice that is not only boosts overall output, but a bit of low mids and some highs- or maybe it's just adding a bit of harmonic content. The character is subtle, but it is not entirely clean.

It would be great for tube amp users to hit the front end with more gain, but that's not how I use it (I don't play a tube amp).

A number of guitarists use it as an "always on" signal enhancer.

[G.Bisson]

I've tried Malekko TREM and PHASE omnicron pedals. Wouldn't recommend either for bass. They had very limited headroom and would distort easily.

[Smurf-o-Deth]

Seems to be the general story--I've yet to hear much, if any, positive word of mouth on the omicron line for bass applications.