Brand Preference?

There are some brands I do like more than others. And some that I dislike. Sometimes for not too logical reasons. But when I look for a certain type of pedal, I am open to suggestions and rather buy the pedal I like, not the brand.

 

I've gone on 'runs' with brands. 3Leaf, Iron Ether, and Source Audio were the biggest ones I think. If I dig a couple pedals from a certain company, it just makes me more willing & trusting to drop money if they release something else I want. I don't really have brand loyalty, though. If it works and sounds good, it is good.

 

Especially for new/weird/custom stuff you'll likely never be able to test out or sometimes even find a good bass demo. Gotta jump blind sometimes. Brand can help there.

 

I'm not really interested in pedals from the big box style manufacturers. I do like vintage Boss and Ibanez pedals but mostly for guitar not bass.

 

funny poll

 

I generally get what I "think" I need. I have general knowledge of brands history in my head and I'm sure that factors where I start, but it doesn't predict where I will finish. I don't like jumping into the flavor of the month, but a lot of times there's a reason so many people are intrigued, and the more people that get the same thing means more reviews for me to study on. I most definitely hold makers that use great detail and R&D to the upmost respect though, and that seems to be a good trend these days.

 

Looking at my pedals I'm kinda the same way, the biggest "box" company I have is source audio, and I use that lightly, they could just have there sh*t together and appear bigger than they really are. Its hard pressed to find any I own in the Sweetwater catalog if that's what you mean.

 

I think the brand loyalty idea is also a different animal for bass effects vs guitar effects. Boutique builders and companies that do mods had to push the envelope to tailor certain effects to bass players when there weren't any. As that happened, it forced the hand (or opened the eyes) of bigger companies to create something bass friendly if not bass-specific.

My pedal hoard is a bit on the small/boutique side, largely because I think some of those companies dive deeper into creating things that don't just work, but excel with bass. That's especially true with my dirt and filters for me. It's actually cool to see how much the bass pedal market has evolved in the last decade. There was certainly a market and opportunity there, and that space is being occupied by a lot of smaller companies or even lone-builders doing pedals as a supplemental form of income.

Also, look at a company like Darkglass. They've been around for about 10 years, but prominent for less than that. They've become ubiquitous within certain styles, whether you dig that sound or not. I think they're the only bass-specific effects company to make it to that size/scale on effects pedals alone. They've added amps and cabs and DSP after the fact...

Aguilar does all bass equipment and effects, but they became an industry standard for amps before they added effects as a supplement to their lineup.

 

I have zero brand loyalty when it comes to effects. I do admire certain makers, but ultimately I just go with whatever sounds best to me.

 

TC, EWS, Mooer, and MXR on my bass board. Guitar board is Boss, Fulltone, TC, and ElectroHarmonix.

The Mooer is the last knock off cheapy I have. It is a clone of the Boss Slow Gear volume swell. I don’t use it that much, but it sounds good and looks good.

 

I'm not a big pedal user, but I have a simple board for my doubling rig. It is nuttin but an a/b line selector, a 7-band eq for the double bass and a tuner. They're all Boss, because they don't do anything special, and they fit neatly into a Boss 3-pedal case.

 

I buy cheap. So used, ideally, and Behringer is at the top of my list, as are Donner, Ammoon, Mooer and similar Chinese clones and "inspired" models. I have TC etc where it's needed (HOF mini).

Why? They sound the same, work the same, are often smaller physically, and cost me much less.

I suspect I'm replacing nearly all of them with a single Fractal Audio unit though.

I'm never content. It sucks.

 

I am a believer of "you only have to pay for it once" so I would prefer to delay until I can have what I want instead of buying something to "get by" and being somewhat disappointed and replacing it later.
Next thing on my radar is Microcosm by Hologram.

 

Current board is 10 pedals (counting tuner), 7 different brands: TC, DOD, EHX, Darkglass, Joyo, Donner, and MXR. All bought new (well, one was a gift) and each one for $100 or less. (The Darkglass was a Black Friday sale.)

Current wish list: SA C4, Latent Lemon Brassmaster, Darkglass Alpha Omicron, MXR delay. Will have to break $100 rule...

 

I have loyalties and biases for and against some effex makers but by and large have collected what I liked or could get my hands on and afford at the time.
I generally look for something special different or unique in a pedal and shy away from the usual, main or generic choices that I can get from a decent multi effect unit.

 

I have more Mooer pedals than anything else, because they're cheap and nano, good for effects where I don't use them as much and therfore I don't want to take up much space or spend as much.

 

Source Audio pedals are knocking just about everything off my board.

After watching videos I ordered the Aftershock Bass Distortion, the Spectrum Intelligent Filter, and the c4.

Turns out the c4 does everything the spectrum does and then some. The Spectrum alone can do what my BOSS OC-3 did, plus the mxr envelope filter I had.. and like a plethora of various envelope filters and wah effects that weren't on my board at the time. It also has some fuzz and distortion engines. I'm thinking about letting the guitarist in my band play with it since I have the c4, but at the same time, it allows me to layer effects within scenes.. rather than having to cycle scenes/presets to get the same effect from the c4.

The c4, does all that too, and adds synthy goodness.

The aftershock replaced my Big Muff Pi that I wasn't a big fan of honestly.. killed my GAS for distortion all together. It takes some tweaking but it can do just about anything anybody could ever want it to do for tube drive/fuzz/distortion.

Frankly I'm probably going to get the EQ2 pedal and the Nemesis Delay, a hot hand.. maybe down the road the Ventris reverb and the board will also double as my effects chain with my Strat.

Further instilling my confidence in the Source Audio guys.. I encountered a bug in their software that they addressed pretty quickly as far as I'm concerned once we ruled out it being something on my end.

 

Moore...keep it small. MXR...keep it simple, sound great and make them all play well together. Source Audio...cram as much as possible into every small pedal and make them awesome, best of their type.

 

My gigging board has 4 pedals by 4 different brands. I don’t think any one brand makes the best of every type of effect. One brand will make a really good delay, one will make a great overdrive, one will make a great octave. For example I like my tc electronic nova repeater delay but I don’t care for any of TC electronics overdrives or octaves. The boss OC-2 is legendary but Several other boss pedals I didn’t care for. Lot of companies specialize also. For example I like my darkglass microtubes X but they don’t make an octave or delay. And octave, overdrive and delay are my three favorite effects.