First up are Mooer Pedal Toppers which are colorful little switch covers that click on securely to any pedal with the standard round metal switch. They really help by making the switch larger to target, easier to identify, and just look cool. Like bling for your pedals.
Also, we have the new Biyang Livemaster series. They are modules for pedals. No more cables, power supplies, pedalboards. Click and programmable. Inexpensive and well built. Genius!
For players who spend a lot of time building their pedalboard carefully, one of the most annoying elements in the process the excess cables runs due to cobbled together cords lying around, they might have lying around. These extra bits can be inches or even a feet long but they tend to snag on feet, cause inconvenienct scratches in noise as they move about, and generally just ugly up the board.
Guitar Nerds on YouTube chose the Diago Solderless Cable Kit as a Top 5 great gift for any guitar or bass player. measure how much cable you need, snip cable, attach heads and boom, you got a custom build board with just the cable length you need.
Here is a simple and elegant little talk by Kennis Russell about why as musicians gear snobbery infects us and causes us to think that better gear means better musicians.
I've been going down this route for pedals a long time now, now I believe it for guitars as well. My Squier Telecaster is actually better than my American Deluxe that costs 10x as much, and it pains me to say this, because I wanted the American one to be so much better.
I'm going to order a $200 dollar guitar off Aliexpress now (really).
The elves are working overtime here at Cheaperpedals trying to deliver amazing pedals at a decent price. We ship everyday (except Sunday), with plenty of shipping options at checkout. We are US based, no BS, super fast turnaround times.
The Mooer Mod Factory is a modulation swiss army knife at low low costs. GuitarNerds (great YouTube channel btw) made it a Top 5 pedal for beginners building a pedalboard!
Big fan of mini pedals here at CP. It's 2016 so pedals need to take up less space. While there is time for big pedals when there are a lot of knobs, a lot of pedals just have 3-4 knobs and can be squeezed now into a compact and lighter size. You can stick a pedalboard in your backpack now.
Here's an article by Total Guitar Magazine that lists 31 of the best Mini Pedals and surprise surprise roughly 1/2 of them are in carried by us!
This is a pedal insider rant. I can't tell you how many customers write saying their pedals are not working or acting weird. But it turns out that it's an issue with their 9V battery not working well with their pedal. I would say 50% of customer complaints are due to batteries!
Please for the love of God people. Let's stop using 9V batteries in pedals. Manufacturers stop making them an option, and customers stop using them.
9V Batteries Are Not Needed. It's the 21st century. Not 1916. There are a plethora of cheap reliable and better pedal power options. You have inexpensive wall adapter, isolated dedicated power, even portable rechargeable ones that can power your whole board remotely.
9V Batteries Are Unreliable and Dangerous. Ever leave a battery in some device for a few months then come back and voila the acid has leaked out and started to corrode possibly damaging your expensive gizmo?
Different Pedals Will Behave Differently With The Same Battery. Did you know different pedals behave differently with the same battery? Overdrive pedals generally are ok with voltage drops due to an older battery. But delays are not. Delays are very sensitive and huge power vampires that will start making ghastly noises or no noises at all if they are not getting enough juice.
Some Pedals Drain Power When Off. So don't be surprised if your "new" battery suddenly isn't new.
Rechargeable Batteries Lose Charge Over Time. Rechargebles become less and less reliable with age. Bad for musicians who need reliable power on stage.
9V Batteries Are Expensive. Does it make any sense to buy a $3-4 battery every few hours of playing? Save your money and time.
9V Batteries are Bad for the Environment: Batteries contain acid and heavy metals that go in landfills and into our water and soil. You owe it to the earth to stop using them.
NAMM 2016 was...loud. To those of you who haven't been, imagine a Guitar Center on Saturday at 4pm x 1 million.
Anyhow here's the CP report:
Lots of the usual suspects. Guitar wankery galore, heavy metal burnouts and their busty girlfriends.
Moog had the coolest booth where you could chill with cactus
And of course a lot of companies were rehashing all sorts of pricey overdrives, boosts, and delays in mini form as is the rage now.
But also there were a lot of weird handheld device integration with pedals, allowing you to tweak settings from your iPhone or what not. This seems weird and counter intuitive. I thought the whole point was simplicity with pedals? Anyhow the pedal business seems to be pulling in two directions: 1) toward the analog "vintage" stone ages or 2) interconnected device utopia. I'm not a fan of either.
Met with the Electro Faustus guys. Super cool guys with a good work ethic and they're coming out with a really unique pedal called the Guitardammerung that's some sort of matching phase, distortion thing that sounded really different. Stay tuned for it!
Met a young gentleman from New Zealand named Lee who's pedals were the sexiest things I've ever seen! They had knobs that glowed and changed colors and a slider instead of typical knobs. (Sorry for the bad photos) Not cheap, but sounded great, looked like sex, and Lee was working hard on his little business. Kudos!
And finally yes, we're going to start carrying Hotone pedals. A lot of customers have been asking about them and we checked them out and they seemed to be doing good stuff so we'll start carrying them. Going to be working on putting them up on the site. Their best selling pedal is a volume/wah pedal in one!
Amazing new pedal that we love called the Mooer Tender Octave that is a mini clone of the EHX Micro Pog. Truly polyphonic tone generator for + and - octave. EHX sells for $200+, and we're selling for $88. Can't tell the difference!
Sounds amazing with chords, like a baritone guitar, and can do Jack White type octave whammy sounds.
We're based in the USA so shipping to the UK can take a while and add unnecessary cost. However you should should check out our friends at UK based Spartan Music if you're after some great value guitar pedals and gear. Click the image or here to open in a new tab.
