So here I am again with pedal GAS. Every time I get it and start browsing I always find myself leaning toward the same 2 brands: late 90s/early 2000s DOD pedals or the Ibanez Tone-Lok series since you can get both used for dirt cheap and they make up 4/5ths of my pedalboard and haven't disappointed me yet. Whenever I end up going with anything else, I end up returning it. I've bought a TC Alter Ego which was incredible but didn't quite do what I wanted it to and same with the MXR Carbon Copy. So I guess my question would be if any of you have this issue too where you have brands you stick almost exclusively to or if you don't, how you go about looking for them.
Hello. I try to avoid using more than one of a given maker's pedal simultaneously. Better still, I will not even have two pedals of the same make on one pedalboard. My reasoning based on my experience is that 1. each maker tends to have their 'house voice', their characteristic sound, so that 2. by using multiple of their pedals, my sound will be corralled into being too much like theirs.
Basically it's an argument for sonic diversity. I use this approach with vacuum tubes, large format audio processors, or anything. It's not a hard rule, but an approach that usually works well for me.
However, the opposite can be useful: if I stuff an integrated tube amp with preamp and power tubes of the same make and year (or two), that can be a cool sound. (My vintage tube collection is large enough to let me do that with embarrassing specificity. It is indulgent, but musically valid.)
There are makers whose work and vision I favor, but my admiration rarely translates into more than one sale per maker, unless it's for collecting more than playing. Excluding any I mean to sell, and including utility pedals, I own pedals by
3Leaf Audio, A/DA, BOSS, Badger Effects, Barber Electronics, Big Tone Music Brewery, Custom Audio Japan, DiCosimo Audio/JC Miallet, Diamond Pedals, Empress Effects, Fulltone, Fuzzrocious, Guyatone, HPF Technology, Iron Ether, Loop-Master, Lovepedal, Lumpy's Tone Shop, Morley, OKKO FX, Paul Cochrane, runoffgroove, RimRock Effects, Ross, Sonic Research, and VFE Pedals
Of those, the only multiples I have are by Diamond, Fulltone, Fuzzrocious, Loop-Master, and Lovepedal (main plus spare Les Lius).
