# Sleeper pedals



## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

What pedals do you like that don't get the hype.
It could be an off the shelf unit, or oddball that's lesser known.

A few that I like are:

*Carl Martin/ Red Repeat* - 
I recently got this in for $80 shipped!
It has essentially a mix knob, the usual time and repeat knobs, along with a tone knob.
I like that I have some control over the brightness of the repeats.
Top jacks too, I may squeeze this on the band board.

*Alexander pedals/ Equilibrium* - 
Another new (used) arrival, I hadn't heard much of this outfit prior to picking this up.
Rate, depth, wave and mix knobs make for a really tunable pedal.
A toggle switch to go between a trem, vintage trem and vibe.
Great sounding pedal that has me looking at more of their offerings.

*MXR/ Analog Chorus* -
I bought this used quite a while ago now and it's been on the band board ever since.
I got the Zakk Wylde version, but I believe that the cosmetics are the only difference.
Great pedal that does the job well and has plenty of tone control to suit your rig.

*On Floor Audio/ Tube Boost Plus OD* - 
Forum member build that took me by suprise.
Overdrive, into a mid gain dirt pedal with an independant boost.
Volume, tone (useable range) and gain knobs on the O/D side with a volume knob for the boost.
Pretty powerful boost side, nice to use for a juicer for single coils especially.
Set to unity, or slightly above, it some grunt, yet has a ton of headroom to really boost.
I thought that it was a reasonable deal for a dual pedal.

Which are your "under the radar" pedals?


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## Moosehead (Jan 6, 2011)

Dano transparent od v2 - Great low gain pedal used in front of a jcm 800 to goose it into a more saturated/sustained tone without changing the tone. best 30 bucks I've spent on my board. I dont set the gain very high on this one but the volume is a tad past amp volume. stacks great with my v4 muff to tighten it up a tad and with certain other fuzz'z as well. 

Ehx small clone - for 1 knob and a switch it has quite a few killer sounds in it

jimi hendrix wah - just a good wah I got for cheap. I ve wanted to try a clyde deluxe but... If it ain't broke..... 

dano french toast - dont have it any more but it was good for the $20 i paid for it.


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

one that doesnt get mentioned much is the washburn stack in a box.
maybe its just been forgotten in time.
had some amplifier breakdowns in around 1990 or so-
band was playing constantly and i was broke.
found one of these for $5 at a pawn shop and coupled it with a big old yamaha 2x12 ss combo.
sounded like i was using- you guessed it, a marshall stack.

at some point i didnt have it any more, dont recall why. never found another and nothing else sounded the same.
a great sounding pedal.


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## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

The Danelectro Chicken Salad vibe. It sounds really good, and is very inexpensive. A good way to get a univibe sound on your board on a budget.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Most dano pedals, no? Except people know about them thanks to the internet, and they just primarily get ignored anyways.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Moosehead said:


> dano french toast - dont have it any more but it was good for the $20 i paid for it.


Ohhhh yeah!!! I loved mine too!

I'll throw the EHX Neo Clone into the mix. Dirt cheap and an absolute beast of a chorus pedal!


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## TWRC (Apr 22, 2011)

For me, it's the Line 6 M5. I'm not a fan of multifx units, but this thing is like the swiss army knife of multifx's, and all for under $150 new. I keep saying to myself that I will replace mine one day with something more robust like an Eventide H9, but I just can't seem to justify the cost vs. value proposition. Plus, you do see a lot of M5's on the boards of session players - which totally says something.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

Bluebird tremolo.

Those who know, know. I can't believe I sold it. They're like $90 or something, but are very difficult to find. Now I gotta go look. It's been a while.


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## cboutilier (Jan 12, 2016)

Mine would be the Garagetone Axle Grease digital/analog delay pedal


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

I don't know if they are sleeper but some off the shelf pedals are quite great!

The Way Hugues stuuf are really great for the money!


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Ti-Ron said:


> I don't know if they are sleeper but some off the shelf pedals are quite great!
> 
> The Way Hugues stuuf are really great for the money!


After 4 or 5 other dirt pedals, the green rhino is back on my bandmates' board. I chuckled.


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## ga20t (Jul 22, 2010)

Source Audio Vertigo. Don't know how well known it is around here. Last tremolo I'll buy.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

For not a lot of money on the used market the Chellee OD's are excellent, all 3 of them.

https://chellee.com/


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## gtone (Nov 1, 2009)

Bought one of the earliest versions of the Arion SAD-1 Stereo Analog Delay in Vero Beach, FL about '83, mostly b/c they were lower-priced than equivalents from Boss, Maxon and MXR. Used it for about 6 yrs and then lost track of it. 20 yrs later, it turns up in a gym bag I used to take to rehearsal, so I pulled it out and put it thru its' paces. Forgot how cheap/cheesy it looked with the plastic housing/controls, but man did it sound good!

Honestly don't think the vintage Boss, Maxon and MXR analog delays have anything on those Arion units tone-wise - very warm, grainy and lush repeats. Sleeper indeed!


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

gtone said:


> Bought one of the earliest versions of the Arion SAD-1 Stereo Analog Delay in Vero Beach, FL about '83, mostly b/c they were lower-priced than equivalents from Boss, Maxon and MXR. Used it for about 6 yrs and then lost track of it. 20 yrs later, it turns up in a gym bag I used to take to rehearsal, so I pulled it out and put it thru its' paces. Forgot how cheap/cheesy it looked with the plastic housing/controls, but man did it sound good!
> 
> Honestly don't think the vintage Boss, Maxon and MXR analog delays have anything on those Arion units tone-wise - very warm, grainy and lush repeats. Sleeper indeed!


The Sad-1 has beaten everything I have put up against it, including very expensive boutique stuff. People go on about the plastic case but mine is fine and I've never seen one broken.


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## 4345567 (Jun 26, 2008)

__________


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

IK Stealth Pedal. 

It gets you in/out of a computer via USB (Mono/Dual Mono/ Stereo) and offers midi control and volume/wah. Connect a second variable control for an additional volume/wah/expression, and a two button switch will allow program changes and/or control messages. Very powerful for such a small bit of real estate.

I use mine with Amplitube4 and Scuffham Amps and never feel the need to spend another dime.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I've never heard of that, but can see it being useful for people!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Tone in Progress Third Hand. Puts pretty much any control on any pedal under foot control. I used to have an EHX Hot Foot in the 70's. And as great as that thing was, this thing is better.

Here's nice application somebody posted.


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## gtone (Nov 1, 2009)

^^^
That Third Hand controller looks very cool - could use one of those.


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

Budda said:


> I've never heard of that, but can see it being useful for people!


It is an audio interface in a pedal form factor. Some may like traditional pedals better, but having access to literally hundreds of pedals, amps, cabs, rack mount unit models at your command is very hard to beat.

And it has a very interesting physcological effect on visiting guitarists in the studio. Plugging into the familiar pedal form factor seems to ease a lot of anxiety for some players who normally don't use modellers.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Ron, it would just control the computer program yes? I use Garage band and navigate with the cursor. I don't have any extravagant rigs saved within the program though.

Mark, the third hand was awesome - and IIRC it's also no longer made. That bummed a lot of people out. It's especially useful for us delay oscillation types!


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Isn't that Third Hand like a pedalboard Whizzer?

Pretty neat.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

nkjanssen said:


> Anything made by Barber.


The primary dirt section on my band board is Barber, the GC and the CDD.
I couldn't be happier with that setup.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

sulphur said:


> Isn't that Third Hand like a pedalboard Whizzer?
> 
> Pretty neat.


It drastically improved on the Hot Foot. The HF applied a lot of torque to the flexible shaft, such that the pedal one was controlling had to either be big and heavy (like the EHX Memory Man it was really designed for), or else be properly secured. Otherwise the pedal would flip over.

The other weakness of the HF was that the end of the cable you attached to the pot shaft required a lot of clearance around the pot, making it largely unusable with a great many pedals. I used mine with my Univox compressor, which had one knob on each side of the chassis, so there was nothing for the tightening screw on the cable end to bump into.

Both of these physical issues were nicely addressed by TIP's redesign of the mechanism, and the topside mounting of the cable. The HF was basically a great big wah pedal, using the traditional rackand pinion control of a pot, and one end of the flexible shaft was attached to the pot shaft and sticking straight out the side. That led to more tension/torque on the shaft and the pedal flipping problem.

These days, more and more pedals have expression pedal inputs, but not every parameter can be easily controlled by expression pedal, or is designed to be. This pedal makes it ALL controllable.


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## loudtubeamps (Feb 2, 2012)

Boss CS-2...........DOD FX 65 chorus and the Zoom MS 100 BT...killer and ...........quiet.


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