Cheap Modulation effects, anygood?

[raf]

Hey GUys,

need some advice on cheap effects. Was looking at getting some modulation effects phaser, octaver and a delay.

Are any of the Arion/Rocktek pedals any good, in terms of sound and noise (esp when bypassed)?
Or is it best to save up to get some boss (oc2 dd3) and mxr stuff (phase 90).?



Any advice would be great.
Cheers
Raf

[vdm]

hey,
i've heard good things about the arion chorus around (i think) but i've never actually gotten to try one. you might like to do a search for it here and see if there is some opinions you could read.
trent

[jayp5150]

Hey, check the wah shell post for the Carvin link.  They have a delay pedal on sale right now, but I think it's while supplies last.  Not sure about the chorus, though.

I myself am eyeing that EQ for $30....

[Hal]

the arion phaser leaks LFO on bypass when using high gain.  Other than that its ok - I need to put it in a TB loop, and I think I'll like it...

[Mark Hammer]

A lot of the cheap effects are surprisingly good, just as a lot of the expensive ones are surprisingly unoriginal.  Where the differences occur are often in terms of component choice, chassis quality, and attention to detail.  In many instances there simply aren't that many ways to do what the pedal attempts to do, so cheap/costly differences may have nothing to do with the cleverness of the design.  E.g., I can assure you that the number of TS or Dist+ clones out there defies imagination, and bottom of the line $14.99 pedals can deliver those tones just as well as $99 ones can.

While it is  not a trivially easy matter to compensate for chassis quality, a lot of the other things CAN be compensated for.  Indeed, many folks routinely pop out the op-amps in a commercial pedal, stick in sockets, and start swapping op-amps until they find something that appeals to them.  You can easily stick in a couple of low-noise resistors on the front end to keep noise down in some instances, or add a cap here and there to fine-tune the effect to your tastes, a toggle here and there to add options, and so on.  In that regard, think of cheap pedals as DIY projects where you spent $20 to contract out the initial benchwork and devoted your time and energy to the finishing touches.

[B Tremblay]

Some time ago, when the "bang for the buck" merit of Arion pedals was being discussed here, I ordered the SPH-1 Stereo Phaser from either zzounds.com or MusiciansFriend.com for $20 US.

Mine exhibits an ugly, resonant distortion at the more intense settings and has a noticeable volume difference between effected and bypass.  I tried the stereo output briefly and the wider sound was interesting, but still not very good.

addendum: just for the record, I opened it up to check out the guts.  Here are the ICs:
(4) 4558 SIP-8
(1) 2904 DIP-8
(1) TC4027BP DIP-16

A single 10k trimpot is on the board.  When adjusted, it seemed to affect the width of the sweep.  There was only a small range that produced a sweep; outside that area resulted in no sweep at all.

There are decent sounds of lesser intensity available, which may be of interest to some.  I tend to judge all phasers by my Bad Stone, so I'm often disappointed.

[Ge_Whiz]

The Rocktek chorus pedal that I tried in the summer (two, in fact), was the cheapest, weakest, feeblest so-called chorus that I've ever had the misfortune to listen to.

[Mark Hammer]

Uh-huh.  STOCK.

I have a Rocktek phaser that also sounds so-so, but there is a trimpot on the board that sets bias, and it can be tweaked for better sounds.

Look over all the chorus schems and all the phaser schems you can find, and you'll see there simply aren't THAT many ways to make one.  In the same way that all those "also-ran" crappy tube amps from the 60's were essentially the same circuits as Fender and Gibson but stuck them with a bad speaker in a lousy cabinet, or married them to a poor choice of power transformer, a lot of the cheap pedals out there ARE the same basic designs as the preferred ones, with only a few things altered.  For example, is the sweep on my Rocktek fabulous?  No.  Might it be possible to extract more sweep from it by swapping the okay-but-not-optimal 2SK-30 FETs for something with a little more range like 2N5952's?  Maybe.  Cost of new P90?  A whole lot more than a Rocktek phaser and a fistful of 2N5952's.

[jmusser]

I have three Arion pedals, Chorus, Octave, and Phaser. The phaser (SPH-1) has a good sound. Has Resonance, Resonance and Depth controls. It is real clean, and doesn't have the Univibe swirl to it, which can be very annoying. I like that sound, don't get me wrong, but in small doses. I would put their Octave pedal (MOC-1) up against anyones at any price. It gives you 1 and 2 octaves down, and has good clarity. I also have their compressor. It does a good job, but is not cream of the crop. Believe it or not, I rarely use these on guitar. I use them on my electric Goldtone banjo. I don't think you would be dissapointed with any of them sound wise.

[backintheussa]

my arion phaser is also leaks when off, other than that it is not a bad pedal. there are definitely better phasers with more options, but its not bad.

[nooneknows]

I have a Danelectro Chicken Salad bought used for 15 euro, plastic box but it sonds very good, really univibe-ish, at least at some setting. It's not even that tone sucking when bypassed, try one if you can.

[jmusser]

I think the Chicken Salad has a nice Vibe swirl to it too. If you get this pedal, be sure to get the 9V adapter with it. I have no idea why they even put a battery compartment in this pedal. It last just about long enough to close the bottom up!

[Quackzed]

tweak those d-time caps, my rocktek sounded pretty lame at first now it does all kinds of wierd trem stuttering vibe boingy seasick ultra fast robalard noises in addition to a good "classic" chorus sound...
definately worth the 10$ bucks i paid, just for the "mad scientist" factor of poking around inside an analog chorus. i added some switches... slow/fast, chorus/vibe , tremolo(onoffonoff),and a sci fi switch to two points that mess with the sweep; turn it into a ramp/sawtooth i think.. sounds like 50's space sounds... cool