Which pedals were instant keepers for you, no drama, no doubts?

[skiltrip]

Which pedals did you buy, that you still have, that you instantly knew that yes, this was for you and it's going on the board. No drama. No doubts. No second guessing, etc?

For me...

Belle Epoch Deluxe - this is the way delay sounds in my head. From Van Halen to the Dead Kennedys, Echoplex is the way I like it.
Greer Lightspeed - Low gain perfection. I wouldn't dream of replacing this with anything else.
Catalinbread Talisman - Plate dialed in as it should be. Smooth, smooth, smooth, very reactive, gets the heck out of the way when you tell it to.
SurfyBear Metal - Surf's Up. What else is there to say. Does much more than surf, but surf it surely can.
Xotic SP is another one for me...unfortunately, I sold my first one, but it was more of a case of needing the money at the time, and when I could get another, I did.

 

[cap10kirk]

EHX Synth9 and Mel9. And the Boss DC-2w.

 

[Average Joe]

RATs. I've had one on my board since 1990-91 or so. I used too much gain back then, but it'll do in most any application.

 

[JohnnyRico]

Timmy V2
Fulltone 69 Fuzz
Xotic SP

 

[Matt_gu3]

ProAnalog Devices Manticore - when I grabbed this it was just to see what the whole Klon thing was about. Didn’t even realize it was gonna be a real keeper.
Neunaber Immerse - what a great reverb pedal!!
Boss TR-2 - it’s tremolo, I like tremolo, it does it well.

 

[AcceptableNorm]

Boss SY-1
Line 6 M5
Behringer SF300 Fuzz

 

[BobbyFudge]

Big Box DMM
<- ss/bs F*ck OD

 

[MagusFaerox]

Boss RV-6 - as "default" as it is, I like "barely there" reverb, and it just does what it should. Spent a few minutes with it and decided to stop looking at reverb pedals.

Fulltone FD-1 - I've had a love-hate relationship with tube screamers pretty much the whole time I've played guitar. They do what they do, and I generally like it. But they're always too compressed for me. The Comp-Cut mode run into something else that does the clipping (like an amp) works great. The only "downside" is that it's kind of hard to turn it off because it's so loud compared to everything else I've owned.

Boss DM-2w - listened to a lot of delays. The repeats are the right balance between "there" and "out of the way". Again...just not shopping for other delays. When I decided I wanted another delay to stack/swap, I briefly considered shopping around and then just bought another one.

ST-300 Mini - It's American-made and works. I also think it looks cool. I don't care that other tuners exist.

 

[fjblair]

All of them I own. None of them "grew" on me.

 

[Daytona57]

I have a fairly, good idea of how new pedals will interact with the others.

The only outlier, was the Barbershop V2, there were only a couple of short videos available at that time. I was amazed at the capabilities, of the BSV2 and it has been a fixture on my board.

 

[Hawkmoon269]

All of my pedals have drama.

 

[04andrew22]

Timmy - just has always sounded "right" to my ears. Love it as a tone shaper, clean boost, dirty boost, or light-med OD tones
Specular tempus - can't live without spatium & infinite. all-time favorite ambient reverb and there's so much more packed inside, too.
HX Stomp - way too useful of a utility tool. used it for just amps on my big board, now it's doing everything except reverb.

They're the only 3 that have survived my significant downsize from a pt-3 to a metro 16

 

[chankgeez]

Whatever Fess' guitarist was usin' on this tune:

 

[blaster]

Strymon El Capistan, Boss DM-2W, J Rockett Animal, and DCW ZAZ Drive.

 

[Emigre]

Jam Pedals Tubedreamer 72 - instantly on the board, never left and never will.

 

[Jazzandmore]

That would be a long list. But here are two you never see talked about here

Aleks K Productions Sunbeam Magic Drive: Great OD pedal with a cool extra knob called “dense” to fatten things up

Iron Ether Polytope: Dont know how to describe, multi voice detuner, filter, can do an organ sort of vibe thing. Great pedal.

 

[Dirty Tony]

ruling out the evergreen goldies from the past:
pigtronix quantum
revv g3

 

[ToobNoob]

Neunaber Immerse mkII Reverb

Digitech Obscura Delay

Fulltone OCD (I was pretty sure from videos/reviews/clips that it'd be a keeper before I ever tried it. It lived up to the hype in my setup, as expected.

Boss RC-5 Looper (I knew this was a keeper just watching the Videos-But once I got it, it was confirmed. Still barely scratched the surface of its capabilities).

Pigtronix Resotron Envelope Filter Loved it at 1st play, but then started questioning myself, as its got so many controls n switches (which is good), but I only need a few sounds from it. After trying a couple others, shes definitely a keeper. Does all the few things I need (quite well, actually) and several that I don't.

T$

 

[Catatafish]

Catalinbread Sabra Cadabra....instant Sabbath.
MXR CSP026 '74 Vintage Phase 90 with Analogman mods

Everything else is subject to replacement.

 

[NorCal_Val]

I do a good amount of research before I purchase a pedal. To my ears, OD/Boost pedals are the ones that either work with an amp, or they don’t. No middle ground.

Majik Box “Rocket Fuel” OD
Majik Box “Jake E Lee” OD
Keeley/Lynch “Mr.Scary”
Shin-Ei “Big 1”
Solodallas “Schaffer Replica”
Rockett “Holdsworth” OD
tc Electronics SCF(I knew this was the right chorus for me, the first moment I used it)