Pedal Plagiarism

[la szum]

I can't do the barebones cheap amazon/ali express/temu route when it comes to pedals.

If I shortchange other people in the world just to spare a few bucks, then that shit is going
to one day circle back around to me. Life is a series of compromises, but I try to hold myself
to some kind of consumer standard and not try to squeeze the most for my little self while
giving the least.

 

[James Freeman]

Breaking news: Horizon Drive is nothing but a simple tubescreamer... literally, it's a 1:1 tubescreamer with a minor tweak.
As is Mesa Grid Slammer, and countless more.

Also, I really don't like that particular geartuber, but that's besides the point.

 

[spawnofthesith]

 

[dronerstone]

Breaking news: Horizon Drive is nothing but a simple tubescreamer... literally, it's a 1:1 tubescreamer with a minor tweak.
As is Mesa Grid Slammer, and countless more.

Also, I really don't like that particular geartuber, but that's besides the point.

So is the Dumbloid.

 

[Whizzinby]

I don’t care much about the $20 Aliexpress clones serving some part of the market. I do find the complete lack of imagination by some “reputable” pedal makers hilarious. They fancy themselves as creative types serving a creative audience… by selling someone elses 40 year old circuit? When slapping a different coat of paint on an enclosure is your contribution to the pedal market, you’re core business isn’t music, it’s marketing. “It’s our take on the Tubescreamer”. Ya know, a pedal so flawed its been heard on the entire history of recorded guitar. Whats their fresh take? Slap a picture of a skull on it, call it the Mud Destroyer, and market it to people that don’t wear sleeves.

 

[spawnofthesith]

When it comes to overdrives, has anything -actually- new come out in the last 20+ years? People claim the timmy is "totally orignal" but even that I am skeptical of

 

[GuitarBilly74]

I understand the ethical question, but nearly every major manufacturer has a Tube Screamer, a Klone and nearly all fuzzes are either Big Muff or Fuzz Face variants. The Boss CE and DD circuits are also closely copied by many reputable manufacturers with minimal changes.

So what is it? Everyone has to be completely original? I can be down with that, but then a lot of "major" pedal lines will shrink considerably, if that's the standard.

Or, it seems, that each manufacturer tries to draw the line where is convenient to them. That's fine, but then be prepared for consumers to draw their own lines too.

I have to say that I ended up buying a lot of "real " pedals because I got a copy first to see if it worked for me. For example: I bought the Carl Martin Plexitone because I tried a Caline English Man first (which is an 1:1 copy of it) and ended up liking it so much, I decided to buy the real thing soon after , because I wanted the peace of mind for reliability. Would I have bought the Plexitone sight unseen? Probably not, but the Caline was cheap enough to give it a try and that end up resulting in a sale for Carl Martin as well and I love that pedal and recommend it all the time.

I've been using the Kliq pedal tuners on several boards here with 0 issues. I am sure it's not original. btw, who claims originality on a tuner? Because, except for something like a Peterson strobe tuner, I doubt the circuits are very different from one to the other, I mean, they all have to tune....

Another good example was the DOD 250 preamp. I didn't know I liked it until I got a Mosky copy with a balance I had on an Amazon card. Then I bought the original later. Turns out the Mosky sounded better too. Oops.

 

[Whizzinby]

So what is it? Everyone has to be completely original? I can be down with that, but then a lot of "major" pedal lines will shrink considerably, if that's the standard.

RIP JHS

 

[saarangnarayan]

People claim the timmy is "totally orignal" but even that I am skeptical of

The Fractal wiki says that it’s a TS-derivative. But I once posted a comment to that extent on the Wampler facebook group and someone told me it wasn’t as straight-forward as that. I’d love for someone to chime in on this because the only two pedals I will never ever take off of my board are my “magic” TS-9 (magic is down to parts tolerance I guess but that TS sounds better than any boutique or cheap clone) and a black and gold Timmy that I have from the very last batch of the V2s.

 

[creative360]

A good low gain fuzz. A ts or klone or simple boost. A good comp. Maybe a minimal delay. The right amp. And a guitar. Sure you can pepper it with a vibrato or rotary or even cocked wah to cut. But ultimately that’s it .. the pedal fetish amounts to zero difference and it’s all about who’s running the rig. (I say this as a sometime fetishest myself.) I love the weird shyte too, Pog, Midimurf, but then you really have to live in that space.

What I appreciate about analogman is that he never claimed to (totally) reinvent anything. He’s a standup dude, and he doesn’t evangelize or proselytize on the web. He just lets folks know what he’s up to. Plus his graphics are minimal, not stupid. Is the tone of his gear gonna save you if you don’t have it going on? No way. But it’s still fun to own.

For all this talk about loyalty, back in the day an entire generation of working guitarists ditched complex boards for M13’s and didn’t look back. Same for top tier modelers: nobody is bemoaning having all those great pedal emulations at their disposal.

Finally, maybe someone can correct me, but I think it was the Chinese cloners who jumpstarted the trend toward mini pedals, which if nothing else, turns out to be pretty fun.

 

[Desertdweller]

Breaking news: Horizon Drive is nothing but a simple tubescreamer... literally, it's a 1:1 tubescreamer with a minor tweak.
As is Mesa Grid Slammer, and countless more.

Also, I really don't like that particular geartuber, but that's besides the point.

They're different enough. The Grid Slammer beats the HD for me - the HD sounds like a grainy tubescreamer, but I like the attack knob a ton on it. The Grid Slammer sounds woofy-er that my other tubescreamers, which is great when I have a brighter sounding amp.

 

[laxu]

What I appreciate about analogman is that he never claimed to (totally) reinvent anything. He’s a standup dude, and he doesn’t evangelize or proselytize on the web. He just lets folks know what he’s up to. Plus his graphics are minimal, not stupid. Is the tone of his gear gonna save you if you don’t have it going on? No way. But it’s still fun to own.

Yeah I have big respect for them for doing what makes sense: Make enough pedals that they can have a good living wage for the number of people they employ, instead of employing more people for what might be a momentary peak in popularity. They don't need to be pushing out new variants, color schemes or new models constantly, because those waitlists tell them exactly how much demand they have.

It costs afaik nothing to get on the wait list, and the pedals themselves are not unreasonably expensive for a boutique pedal.

A lot of people seem to do something like getting on the waitlist, buying a KoT clone (or MXR Duke of Tone) while waiting and replacing it with the real deal when they get it.

 

[dronerstone]

Thanks to this thread, I now have serious GAS for a Demon FX "Gladiator".

Seems to be available only via AliExpress over here, haven't bought anything from there so far... Not sure what to do.

 

[Iron1]

We were just joking about this at band practice Saturday - as our new guitar player used his 30-year old Ibanez tube screamer and we swapped it with my SD-1 with almost no noticeable difference.

It cracks me up that there are so, soooo many OD pedals out there which are all essentially rips of the TS or SD with 99.99% of people not the guitar player using them unable to tell the difference between a $40 TS/SD-1 and a $700 Boutique Marketing Gimmick/Fancy Paint Job in pedal form.

The profit margin on these silly knock-offs must be insane, since there's so little R&D vs designing something from scratch and so many players are falling all over themselves to swap OD pedals with the latest trendy bauble.

 

[BahamaDada]

Thanks to this thread, I now have serious GAS for a Demon FX "Gladiator".

Seems to be available only via AliExpress over here, haven't bought anything from there so far... Not sure what to do.

That DemonFX homepage is wild. "Designed by Italy".

 

[dronerstone]

Just caved in and ordered the "Gladiator".

55€, free shipping, I expect about 12€ import tax, which would still keep it under 70€ total.

What have I done???

 

[BahamaDada]

Just caved in and ordered the "Gladiator".

55€, free shipping, I expect about 12€ import tax, which would still keep it under 70€ total.

What have I done???

AliExpress? I normally despise any of these chinese platforms, but this looks very interesting. Report back, how the shipping (and import tax stuff) was.

 

[holoholo]

Breaking news: Horizon Drive is nothing but a simple tubescreamer... literally, it's a 1:1 tubescreamer with a minor tweak.
As is Mesa Grid Slammer, and countless more.

Also, I really don't like that particular geartuber, but that's besides the point.

Yep. TS with variable low cut, modified tone/bright control, and more output volume. The gate is nice too.

 

[dronerstone]

AliExpress? I normally despise any of these chinese platforms, but this looks very interesting. Report back, how the shipping (and import tax stuff) was.

Definitely will. First time for me to order from there...

The GAS got unbearable when I saw they added PayPal to their payment methods.

 

[gearJunkie]

Just received the DemonFX Gladiator from Amazon. Build quickly far exceeds the $65 price point.

Having a blast gaining up the Two-Rock CRS. The right side of the pedal is way too bass heavy when pushing gain past noon, but the left side adds an excellent high gain "channel" to the CRS. I like it.