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Been thinking of replacing my CE2. Its the only modulation peddle on my board, and I should be able to limit myself to just one. My board is already overflowing, I dont wanna sacrifise any dirt. Im just not a big modulation user, theres more than enough psychedelica in my superdelay.

Anyway, I'm open to suggestions for either a phaser, flanger, or univibe type pedal. The latter might be able to cover a wider range of fx, which might make sense for someone who's undecisive and has to make do with just one single modulation pedal. Key words would be: affordable, straight forward, not too huge. I'm in a couple bands/projects, and plan to be in a couple more. All pretty different from each other, lots of different styles/genres. They all fall into the 'rock' category though, if that helps at all:s

For the sake of availability and 'bang for the buck', Im not really interested in anything too boutique'y. I'm partial to the classics, I've got a weak spot for vintage flavoured stuff. A couple of possible contenders, of the top of my head: Voodoolab microvibe, ehx electric mistress or small stone,...Anything else I may want to check out?

Line 6 m5: smallish, cheap, sounds good, all sorts of modulation.

If I would have to limit myself to just one modulation pedal I'd probably take the Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl (chorus, vibrato, weirdness),
MG Mono Vibe (vibe, vibrato) or VFE Enterprise (phaser, vibe, vibrato).
If you really want to stick to the classics I'd say Boss CE-1 (chorus, vibrato), Gigahearts FX Deluxe Electric Mistress (chorus, flanger), MXR Phase 90 (phaser) or EHX Small Stone older bigger version (phaser).
You could also try some of those tiny pedals from Malekko maybe, they're supposed to be quite good.

Cheers. A couple suggestions I'll have to google, and a couple that arent really options for me.

Chase bliss: All sorts of awesome, but the wrong price tag for the pedal that'll get used the least out of everything on my pedalboard.

CE-1: One of the few peds I'd be willing to ditch the 'small footprint' thing for. I'd be happy to sacrifise one or two dirt peds for a ce-1, bu unfortunately theyre sorta pricey

M5: The 'classic' thing isnt a deal breaker, but in this case...Instead of getting one or two types of modulation that sound great, it kinda seems like An M5 would give me a shit load of okay sounding effects, including stuff I've already got covered.

Gigaheart: Dont know if its an easily available or cheap option, but thanks for the tip, I might have to bookmark that guy's page. As cool as it seems to have an electric mistress rehoused into something more pedalboard-friendly, theres probably too many other options that are perfect out of the box.

Mooer: I briefly owned three of their dirt peds (rat, crunch box and ocd clones), and they indeed sounded surprinsgly good.
The mod factory does it all, but like i suspected, its a little too good to be true. I read a couple too many not-so-great user reviews. Poor build quality/reliability it seems. I think the flanger and phaser dont easily pop up on the used market, so if I had to buy new, I'd rather spend $15 extra on a used ehx or mxr.

So whats the concensus on the phase 90 vs the small stone? Isnt the mxr supposed to be a little more subtle, clean, civilised, less deep and wacky?

Tristan wrote:If I would have to limit myself to just one modulation pedal I'd probably take the Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl (chorus, vibrato, weirdness),
MG Mono Vibe (vibe, vibrato) or VFE Enterprise (phaser, vibe, vibrato).
If you really want to stick to the classics I'd say Boss CE-1 (chorus, vibrato), Gigahearts FX Deluxe Electric Mistress (chorus, flanger), MXR Phase 90 (phaser) or EHX Small Stone older bigger version (phaser).
You could also try some of those tiny pedals from Malekko maybe, they're supposed to be quite good.

Btw, which Small Stone version do you mean exactly? I know there's at least two other different looking version that came before the famous red&black one. Which would be the one to hunt for?

Understood, some of it was also just my own preference really.

I mentioned the Gigahearts Deluxe Electric Mistress specifically because it sounds better than the EHX Deluxe Electric Mistress reissue in my opinion and comes in a much smaller box for I think roughly the same price.
If you want versatility and like chorus style effects than it could be a good idea to look at some flangers, other cool ones are the BYOC Flanger, the ADA Flanger or MXR Flanger maybe.
A vibe or phaser that can do nice vibrato sounds could be a good option too, I mentioned the MG Mono Vibe and VFE Enterprise because both of those pedals stand out for me not only for their main sounds but also for their vibrato.

The Phase 90 is indeed more subtle and less deep and wacky than a good Small Stone, that's why I mentioned Malekko as they have a tiny phaser in their range that is closer to the Small Stone opposed to the Mooer Ninety Orange which is supposed to be based on the Phase 90.
For Phase 90 I actually prefer the standard MXR Phase 90 with R28 clipped (R28 mod) over the Mooer Ninety Orange and I also strongly prefer the Gigahearts Deluxe Electric Mistress over the Mooer Electric Lady to be honest (I own / owned all of these pedals for a while).
It depends how freaky you want it, if you're after the Small Stone and you want it to be freaky it's best to get after either the original red&black one or the reissue red&black one, if you want it a little less extreme you could look into the older ones:
http://www.pedalarea.com/small_stone.htm

Zoom CDR 70. Chorus, trem, delay, verb, more, and you can multiple effects together in one patch (up to seven). Affordable. Do it.

Thanks again. As of now, Im on the lookout for a used VFE Enterprice. The clips were enough to win me over, pretty impressive and versatile device it seems. Or if I come across a Small Stone first, which seems likely, than that's where Ill end my search. Should still be considerably cheaper than the VFE. I guess it'd make sense to look for a regular big box (red/blck) with status led and TB switching. Im a sucker for vintage mojo and all, but Im not a huge fan of noise, tone suckage, and unreliability.

Legit Vibe: Photocell/lamp w/transistors.

MJM Sixties Vibe, for example.

Tristan wrote: If you want versatility and like chorus style effects than it could be a good idea to look at some flangers, other cool ones are the BYOC Flanger, the ADA Flanger or MXR Flanger maybe.

I have been closely monitoring this thread and Tristan pretty much speaks the truth here.

Am I the only one who would run like every type of modulation if he could?

Chankgeez wrote:

Tristan wrote: If you want versatility and like chorus style effects than it could be a good idea to look at some flangers, other cool ones are the BYOC Flanger, the ADA Flanger or MXR Flanger maybe.

I have been closely monitoring this thread and Tristan pretty much speaks the truth here.

Flangers are great and can be versatile if you find one tweakable enough. Isn't there somebody selling a bunch of flangers in the b/s/t ?

zRobertez wrote:Am I the only one who would run like every type of modulation if he could?

I love stacking stuff right up to the edge of chaos. Sometimes even multiples of the same type in different spots of the chain.

Visual Sound Liquid Chorus might suits you.

Pigtronix Quantum Time Modulator looks interesting as a multi-purpose modulation pedal. Always been a bit speedy for me to pick one up to see if it's something special.

Not an obscure pedal by any means but the EHX Polychorus remains a pretty cool and versatile option for modulation.