Effects pedals cost too much??? What's the new norm?

[gnomethrone]

NAME THE NAMES, JWAR. WHO DID THIS TO YOU, BB?

[Paul_C]

You should consider yourself lucky in some ways - a $400 pedal would likely be closer to $600 by the time it gets here

The latest Chase Bliss is listed at $499, if it sells at £499 (around $700) it puts it way beyond what I'm wanting to pay for a single pedal, so I don't even look at demos

My top limit for a brand new pedal is around £200, which allows BitQuests and CT5s to just about sneak in, but others I'll wait for a clean s/h one or not at all.

So Chase Bliss, Strymon, Meris and a few others are off the list unless I encounter someone very generous or desperate to sell - the chances of getting a bargain on Reverb are pretty small as everybody follows the higher prices (can't blame them for that, I would if I was selling ) and my best deals since I've been buying again have been three I bought from here

To some degree I'm sure price depends on how big a business you're trying to be, and how much you spend on advertising etc. Once you get beyond making them at home overheads can probably mean doubling the price just to make the same money per pedal.

As a customer, I set my limits and accept that there are some things I'm unlikely to own unless I sell three to buy one, and I'd rather have three

[Invisible Man]

Is this thread just more (unnecessary) evidence that everything is made up? that there are no governing rules for pricing in a free market? that gear fetishism does not lead us to transistor-based nirvana?

Big, if true.

Anything above $200 is out of reach for me. So I buy used, and I don’t buy anything anymore. That third kid pushed me over the limit where no money + little time to play = why would I spend money on this stuff. My eurorack setup is the same—small and cheap.

Maybe people are overcharging, JWAR, but does the feature creep and sound appeal to you proportionate to the price?

[oscillofuzz]

I'm with Paul_C on this. Pedals that cost $499 in the US will probably be around €600 ($660ish). Which doesn't necessarily mean I'll never buy it, but it does colour me skeptical until I've done tons of research and watched countless demos. High end delays are a good example. I bought a Moog MF104M-SD in 2014 for a little over €750 when it was being sold in the US for $750ish, a direct (changing the symbol) $ to € really isn't bad for such a product that had the potential to and did become a staple sound for my band. The Pigtronix Echolution 2 Ultra on the other hand, I imported from the US last October with a generous eBay discount code and after import taxes & VAT and buying an EU wall wart for it I ended up spending €500ish including the remote and a bag of patch cables, while new ones at Thomann etc. without the remote go for €600ish IIRC. Before this I watched at least an hour and a half of demo vids to get a comprehensive overview of the product I was buying, and it will probably take countless more hours before I utilize it to it's full potential, but in the meantime I experience zero buyer's remorse because I know what I bought and why.

Now obviously like everyone else I watched the new Chase Bliss Thermae demo by Knobs, and am once more very skeptical. All Knobs demos sound pretty much identical to me at this point, his/their style is so distinctive that I feel he/they have painted themselves into a corner and lost all variation. I am a Chase Bliss fan though, and will definitely keep an eye out for more diverse demos of the Thermae before possibly buying one, because the 4s max delay time, coupled with aome of the other features and small format do intrigue and inspire me.

[retinal orbita]

Same here in Canada - our lousy dollar factored with import taxes etc mean you add a good 20-30% over the US price. And because things are more difficult to come by used stuff is never cheap.

Also factor in that shipping from the US, say on reverb can add $20-40 to the price it becomes a real deterrent.

[calfzilla]

Sometimes I see a new company pop up asking like $300+ for a derivative pedal and I'm just amazed that any distributor would carry them.

Then I see people clamor at the chance to pay more money for the same pedal that's $50 cheaper except some part values and diodes were swapped and it doesn't seem so crazy anymore. It's a weird business.

[Dungus]

Not as concerned with prices as I am with the alarming rate that version 2s, updated, shinier and better versions of things seem to appear. It's like fucking iphones out here.

[$harkToootth]

^^^

[$harkToootth]

Pretty much the general consensus in a succinct post, Vid.

[$harkToootth]

That said, I don't think any of that is what jwar was initially posting about. I think I'm seeing it too. The $500 fuzzez with transistors Buddha himself used for a prostate massage. That stuff.

[neonblack]

I think there's a certain mysticism surrounding effects that doesn't apply to other industries. It taps into the desire to create and the frustration that artists and musicians feel about getting their vision out into the world. It's that specific niche of a product that ties into creativity. It's that feeling that maybe this one last thing will let you bring your vision to life. I just need this pitch shifting delay and I'll finally be able to write my masterpiece. This transparent overdrive will let people feel what I feel. I just need the perfect reverb algorithm and the world can see my tortured soul laid bare. There's a huge emotional attachment.

I also think it's the same part of your brain that (for some of us) gains immense satisfaction from tearing open a Magic: the Gathering booster pack. What could be inside? Will it be the last piece my deck needs so I can show up and dominate at the comic book shop on Friday? Or maybe I can find a rare card I don't need and sell it for a high price to someone that does. Or maybe I need that artifact card to execute my perfect strategy and fuck you, I'm going to pay 150 bucks for it.

I made the mistake of setting my phone down right in the middle of this and lost all momentum. Maybe you guys will still understand what I'm trying to say

[$harkToootth]

I get it Neon. That's why all I NEED is this Private Stock PRS and say no more, I am done with gear
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... hPEALw_wcB

[neonblack]

Creative bliss can be yours for just 11 grand and your dignity

[$harkToootth]

There's probably a guy out there with one of those who looks at the pedal board thread and goes "What a bunch of assholes"
Just like there's probably a crusty hoping trains and browsing this thread on his mobile, thinking "What a bunch of assholes"
And a guy in Rail Yard security beating up the crusty and thinking "What an asshole"
And his boss asks if he wants to work some overtime. He says "Yes thanks. I'm saving up to buy my this awesome fuzz pedal. It's $500 so I could use the money"
And he goes home...goes on ILF sees the PRS I just posted and thinks "What an asshole"

Director's Cut Ending:

NSFW: show

And then his wife calls him up from the basement saying, "Stop looking at ILF again you asshole! Come upstairs and get your due."
From being in a position of authority all day, the Rail Yard Guard has a preference for pegging. His wife cries again "You get on up here so I wreck your asshole you asshole!"

[Jwar]

Is this thread just more (unnecessary) evidence that everything is made up? that there are no governing rules for pricing in a free market? that gear fetishism does not lead us to transistor-based nirvana?

Big, if true.

Anything above $200 is out of reach for me. So I buy used, and I don’t buy anything anymore. That third kid pushed me over the limit where no money + little time to play = why would I spend money on this stuff. My eurorack setup is the same—small and cheap.

Maybe people are overcharging, JWAR, but does the feature creep and sound appeal to you proportionate to the price?

So, IMO, a lot of features don't equal the value. I see a ton of fucking features in pedals that honestly, I would never ever use. So, for me personally, some of the super feature packed shit is daunting and I don't want it.

For instance. The Boss 500 series. They are a great price for what they are. The features in those sucker would allow you to tweak endlessly with almost limitless possibilities. What I found was that I was only using them for like 1 or 2 algos each, so I kicked them to the curb. Same rule applies to the Eventide H9. The ONLY reason I still have that pedals is that Eventide will not upgrade the shit, so I'm stuck with a Core if I decide to sell. I paid the Max out price...so, I refuse to lose 200 plus dollars for no reason other than Eventide is cock suckers.

The Chase Bliss stuff is awesome. I do feel like it out of reach for me anymore. I cannot justify the prices. That's the pedal that got me thinking and it's nothing personal against them, I just don't get the pricing. The pedal sounds like a hundred others I've heard, and the interfacing is not something I enjoy using. I can say the same about a ton of pedals too. The computer pedals mostly are obnoxiously hard to use for me. I also hate midi but it's mostly because I don't understand the shit.

The others side is the fucking pedals that are remade vintage and cost an arm and a leg. My purchase over the summer of the Stone Fly Stone Skull. I paid like 300 bucks for that fucking thing and it's a 3 knob fuzz. Why? Why did I do that? It doesn't have enough volume on tap, but it sounds great. So it sits on a shelf and collects dust. There's a TON of pedals like that too.


I think some people are ok with this thread while others think I'm trying to bag on builders. I'm not trying to do that at all. I have developed a personal relationship with a lot of builders and I value that. I respect them, I just hate the new trends. Like mentioned here, v1 came out last year, here's the new updated v2 for the same price! Yea, that sucks and it's obnoxious as well. I do feel like that's a shitty trend. I get it on one level, but on another I don't.