Who here prefers Clones over vintage originals?

[Stratm69]

I can only count with one hand the number of vintage originals that I've played, which doesn't seem like very many to some here. However, I've played a hell of a lotta Clones and just about everyone one of them I have either liked or kept. Some were better than others, others not so good. With keen listening to songs, albums, and live performances, I feel that if the builder gives great attention to quality and detail, the cloned result can be just as good, if not better than the real deal. Sometimes it takes some searching to find that right Clone, not just any will do, but when you do find it you instantly know it has "it" and that it could very well rival any original you put it up against. In this modern day and age, one of the many splendors of music is that you know exactly what you want AND that it's obtainable. Pedal Gurus nowadays will build you just about anything you desire at a much more fair price as opposed to the originals. Originals may be cool, rare, and sought after. But, does a much more higher price justify the cool/rare-factor when you can have the exact same thing at a fraction of that price and achieve the same end result? The cool thing about owning Clones is that depending on who they are built by, there is more than likely a solid Warranty and Helpline if something was to go wrong or you had questions and concerns. Spending $800-$1500 dollars on a vintage effect, just for it to crap out on you, doesn't seem like a great investment to me. Only then you find yourself in the hole even more because you have to get it repaired, thus being charged for parts and extensive labor. In my opinion, Clones are king in this day and age when it comes to effect pedals.

[sbr]

Depends on the pedal. Vintage Big Muffs in particular are quite junky in build quality.

[zosozep7]

I only prefer clones when the pedal is out of production or wayyyyyy too expensive. For instance, I want a Mayo. Their next to impossible to obtain unless you pay $400 or more for one. I guess I'm just too loyal to most pedal builders. I'm a blue collar man!

[chervokas]

It really depends. As much as we cherish and love old gear, old pedals -- and I started playing with pedals in the late 1970s myself -- were often very cheaply made, they could be very noisy, they often lacked modern conveniences like jacks for external power, and from a design perspective they were often flawed -- with impedances that problematically loaded the guitar in bypass.

Today's best made and designed pedals -- I'm thinking mostly of boutique stuff like the Fulltone, Butler, Sweetsound, etc stuff --are better built and more carefully designed than the older pedals; and modern takes on old circuits built by these sorts of companies -- univibe derivatives with true bypass, fuzz face derivatives with some means of managing the impact of heat and cold on the GE transistors -- are, to my way of thinking, much better and much more useful choices than vintage versions of these devices.

Other pedals -- especially those based on out of production BBD chips -- simply can't be replicated. If you want the sound of a great vintage analog delay pedal or chorus, you're not going to find anything that sounds as good as, say an original blue SIB Echodrive or a Boss CE-1. (I'm not saying these things are worth paying for to the tune of $1000 bucks and up. I think that's ludicrous....in fact, I think it's ludicrous to spend anywhere near as much as we do on new pedals! $300, $400 for a new production pedal? I'm not paying that. And had I known these pedals would have been worth money I wouldn't have treated them as the disposable toys they were to us in the 1970s and 1980s.)

I also have no problem modifying vintage pedals to make them useful or roadworthy. I have a Dallas Arbiter Wah Face that is my prefered wah (in part for sentimental reasons -- it was given to me by a friend who died), but in its original, hardwire bypass arrangement I couldn't keep it on my board for all the tone sucking it did, so I modified it for true bypass. I understand the urge to collect things. But musical instruments and musical devices are mostly something I want to use, not collect.

So, I tend to agree with the OPs premise -- unless the sound of the original device depended on parts that are no longer available, a modern derivative of the original circuit can often be a better sounding and more reliable choice at a much better price.

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Because a lot of the pedals [especially Fuzzes] that I'm interested in are crazy expensive or long out of production I often have no other choice but to buy a clone.

Haven't had a problem yet.

[stellablue]

Originally Posted by zosozep7

I only prefer clones when the pedal is out of production or wayyyyyy too expensive. For instance, I want a Mayo. Their next to impossible to obtain unless you pay $400 or more for one. I guess I'm just too loyal to most pedal builders. I'm a blue collar man!

Keep saving. Some guy wants 1000 for a Mayo on ebay. How crappy is it when clone is worth the same as a rare original?

[redbeardrob]

overall, clones. vintage gear is great for studio use, but live perfromance is what music is all about. and if you're afraid to take your vintage gear on the road....you probably shouldn't do it.

[Sun Creature]

It depends, I traded my Ronsound for a Meathead clone and my reasoning was I could not justify spending almost $300, sometimes more, on a one knob pedal.

Yet, for some discontinued boxes and ones rarely replicated, I know it is an investment that will go up in time IE: big box Deluxe Memory Man with MN 3005's

[TheReverendCommon]

depends on the pedal and price...

for example...

i would wait/spend the money on a tim/timmy because they are reasonably priced (almost a steal!), and the real deal...

i COULD get a clone made, but honestly... for maybe 20-30 bucks more i'd have the real deal... and having played a tim and timmy, i know they are worth the wait

pedals that are either hard to find or stupidly expensive (200 is too much for your basic overdrive/distortion for me... and i got my holy fire used!), i'd rather get a clone... especially when i can get them made at reasonable prices...

[Heady Jam Fan]

I think new fuzz's are often interesting because they seem less finicky, but I would not buy a clone of a pedal that is reasonably priced in current production.

[TheReverendCommon]

Originally Posted by redbeardrob

overall, clones. vintage gear is great for studio use, but live perfromance is what music is all about. and if you're afraid to take your vintage gear on the road....you probably shouldn't do it.

also explains the plethora of boss pedals on pro boards... if it breaks down on the road... it's easy to replace