Boutique pedals vs “regular” brands

shaunm

Of course this is down to opinion but I’m getting more and more convinced that a lot of the boutique pedals don’t give you anything that you don’t get from say a Boss pedal. 

I have recently taken delivery of a Boss reverb (63 Fender type) and it’s excellent. It sounds better than quite a few of the high end brands I’ve tried (although it’s not exactly versatile). 

It makes me think, am I fooled by the boutique world? Ive got a Supa trem, I like it but excluding its functionality tone wise I can get there with a Boss Trem. Delays, again the DD3 for a simple digital delay sounds fantastic and I use a Boss PH2r Phaser because it just sounds better than a lot of the others I’d tried. Even Flangers, it’s the little Mooer one I’ve settled on, it sounds great. 

Fuzz pedals are the only ones that I can’t get passed. I love my Broadcast, Falloutcloud and Fulltone 69.  

Maybe I just don’t have a good set of ears but I think there’s a lot of clever marketing that we buy into. 

Does this statement also work for Amps, pickups and Guitars too? I think it does.

Alterlifeson

Totally agree on modulation or time based effects. A clean repeat is a clean repeat. A phaser can only vary so much in sound before it becomes something else. Of course a boutique manufacter could make a chorus that is endlessly tweakable, but that isn't what most people are after with these types of pedals.

What you are getting with the boutique brands is higher quality drives/fuzzes/boosts. I think these are much more taste dependant which means more R&D has to go into them. Boutique to me also means high quality componants, so that plays a big part in the higher costs.

shaunm

Alterlifeson said:

Totally agree on modulation or time based effects. A clean repeat is a clean repeat. A phaser can only vary so much in sound before it becomes something else. Of course a boutique manufacter could make a chorus that is endlessly tweakable, but that isn't what most people are after with these types of pedals.

What you are getting with the boutique brands is higher quality drives/fuzzes/boosts. I think these are much more taste dependant which means more R&D has to go into them. Boutique to me also means high quality componants, so that plays a big part in the higher costs.

I agree with you regarding the modulation. I’m not certain with OD’s and boosts though. The TC spark, a simply fantastic clean boost. Fuzz, absolutely agree. 

There are some manufactures where I wholeheartedly believe in such as Thorpys stuff, it’s made well and sounds great. His trem doesn’t sound like all other trems and his fuzz pedals and drives are just brilliant. 

However there are some high end manufacturers that their components don’t last anywhere near as long as the components in Boss pedals. Higher quality when it comes to sound but perhaps not when it comes to durability.

JezWynd

I started with Boss pedals and then went on a long journey taking in some of the other major brands (Maxon, MXR, DOD) and quite a few boutique offerings (Empress, VFE, Bearfoot, Keeley etc.) before finally ending up where I started.

Five out of the six pedals I currently use are Boss. For basic modulation sounds, phase, flange and chorus, they're hard to beat. They excel in delay, from the DM-2, through DD-2 to the DD-500 and RE-20 they're all of a very high standard.

Compression I'm not so sure of, the CS-2 is a very nice compressor and the new digital stuff looks interesting but they face some serious competition in this field - my own choices are Maxon and Keeley.

With overdrive and distortion they do have some great pedals - the SD-2 and DA-2 are two of my faves and they  practically kickstarted the market with the OD-1 but I think Boss have a defined idea of what OD and distortion should sound like - a house sound if you will, and it's a bit marmite.

And then there's the casing - a rock solid bit of design genius that's never been bettered imo.

munckee

I haven't tried enough to know really I tried a few drive pedals and only one better than my second hand joyo vintage overdrive is the thorpy peacekeeper. Significant cost difference though. 

meltedbuzzbox

What defines bootique?

Jez6345789

I have to say not a great pedal user as I commented elsewhere recently but I have built a few kit ones over the years. Certainly, to me it seems that a lot of boutique pedals especially those that recreate something from yesteryear like fuzz variants the selling price is nowhere proportionate to the bill of materials or the labour to assemble them.  I feel the same with pickups I think you reach a point where you are paying for the hype and desirability. 

I think the other aspect of pedals is there are a good many pocket money pedals now that get you close enough for a lot of people. 

Its an emotive subject to the pedal aficionado's but you like what you like or what works for you. 

Alterlifeson

shaunm said:

Alterlifeson said:

Totally agree on modulation or time based effects. A clean repeat is a clean repeat. A phaser can only vary so much in sound before it becomes something else. Of course a boutique manufacter could make a chorus that is endlessly tweakable, but that isn't what most people are after with these types of pedals.

What you are getting with the boutique brands is higher quality drives/fuzzes/boosts. I think these are much more taste dependant which means more R&D has to go into them. Boutique to me also means high quality componants, so that plays a big part in the higher costs.

I agree with you regarding the modulation. I’m not certain with OD’s and boosts though. The TC spark, a simply fantastic clean boost. Fuzz, absolutely agree. 

There are some manufactures where I wholeheartedly believe in such as Thorpys stuff, it’s made well and sounds great. His trem doesn’t sound like all other trems and his fuzz pedals and drives are just brilliant. 

However there are some high end manufacturers that their components don’t last anywhere near as long as the components in Boss pedals. Higher quality when it comes to sound but perhaps not when it comes to durability.

Very true, the Boss stuff is a good point actually. They are known to be bomb proof industry wide.

Teetonetal

meltedbuzzbox said:

What defines bootique?

Someone else's circuit with minor tweaks component changes and call it your own?

meltedbuzzbox

Teetonetal said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

What defines bootique?

Someone else's circuit with minor tweaks component changes and call it your own?

So a boss sd-1 is bootique?

Im not trying to be sarcastic but even boss have the waza craft stuff, reissued hand made run shit and the 500 series. 
At the price point is it not bootique as well?

randerson

I've never had a Boss pedal die on me and the same can't be said for many other brands I've owned (both boutique and not so boutique). They are reliable, and sometimes I find this more favourable than a 5% improvement that is generally lost in 'real world' live settings anyway.  Having said that that I'm still a sucker for new pedals..

dindude

For me, I’ve never known a Boss pedal that can’t be improved upon, not all boutique are good, and some Boss pedals are great, and price isn’t an ultimate measure, but have your wits about you and there’s more out there to go and get than a Boss.

Teetonetal

meltedbuzzbox said:

Teetonetal said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

What defines bootique?

Someone else's circuit with minor tweaks component changes and call it your own?

So a boss sd-1 is bootique?

Im not trying to be sarcastic but even boss have the waza craft stuff, reissued hand made run shit and the 500 series. 
At the price point is it not bootique as well?

companies are out to make money. Waza is boss' attempt at getting in on the boutique action. 500 is an attempt to get in on the strymon market.

I'm not really sure there is a boutique anymore. Not in any sensible way.

JezWynd

Teetonetal said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

What defines bootique?

Someone else's circuit with minor tweaks component changes and call it your own?

Don't forget the arty graphics and eye watering price tag.

RaymondLin

Boutique....

besides the supposedly smaller outfit, I’m sure most when they get more business they start hiring more staff and scale up but personally all the boutique makers I’d think you should be able to speak direct to the builder, perhaps make custom changes to yours and able to buy direct.

vale

some boutique pedals are over-hyped clone-lite tat and some are really interesting departures from the usual, and will offer you sounds you can't create from standard things.

having acces to (and being able to understand) a schematic is the best way to separate the clunkers from the gems. getting into diy pedal making is the best route to that knowledge, but you can also visit sites like diystompboxes and freestomboxes and review comments. you may not understand all being said, but if something is junk that will be clearly stated.

there are some little boutique builders that genuinely are worth following and supporting.
the ones i like especially are those that offer an option to buy pcbs, so diyers can make their own if they want to tweak or house differently, or just can't afford to buy a complete pre-built pedal.
and because they make some/all of their schematics available, that effectively demands they do something interesting and unusual. because if they were just lightly rehashing some old circuit it would be evident and called out straight away. transparency is they key to separating good from bad.

three that i follow, recommend, and think are make genuinely original things (that hit spots boss don't) are:

parasit studio (fredrik aka freppo).
http://www.parasitstudio.se/


dead astronaut (rob).
https://deadastronaut.wixsite.com/effects


pladask elektrisk (knutolai).
https://pladaskelektrisk.com/products/


they are also makers who have all genuinely contributed value back into those communities from which they learned their art (which i really respect). so you will find all of them at either diystompboxes, guitarfxlayouts, freestomboxes, madbean, etc.

bingefeller

With pedals, in some cases you do indeed get what you pay for.  

Some so called "boutique" pedals are a rip off though.  

impmann

If you can get the same functionality out of a Boss Trem as your Supro Trem, then you need to return the Supro under warranty as it’s not working correctly. Afaik there isn’t a Boss unit that has the harmonic Trem setting.

Boss delay units don’t come close to the sound of say a Boonar or a Moog. 

I agree that some of the ‘booteek’ stuff is a bit emperors new clothes, and some of the excessive controls on some pedals put me off massively - one of the best sounding phasers of all time has one knob and a switch, it doesn’t need anything else for me, for example.

Obv, ymmv.

Sporky

RaymondLin said:

Boutique....

besides the supposedly smaller outfit, I’m sure most when they get more business they start hiring more staff and scale up 

I seem to recall a factory tour for one of the amp companies, and there were racks and racks of "boutique" pedals being made by the same place. Quite a few of the makers are putting out stuff with multi layer SMD circuit boards - no hand built aspect at all. 

dindude

Sporky said:

RaymondLin said:

Boutique....

besides the supposedly smaller outfit, I’m sure most when they get more business they start hiring more staff and scale up 

I seem to recall a factory tour for one of the amp companies, and there were racks and racks of "boutique" pedals being made by the same place. Quite a few of the makers are putting out stuff with multi layer SMD circuit boards - no hand built aspect at all. 

Agree, some of the build ethics has been lost along the way. I’ll call out Keeley as an example, he was right there at the start but I don’t think his current crop are much better in build and sound than £80 pedals on the market. Since he’s found someone who can programme digital chips, it’s all about output over quality IMO. And you see more and more of the boutique builders with jack sockets soldered to board instead of screwed to the casing with flying leads to the board etc. 

BUT, in all that the variety is amazing, and for those who care about minutiae it’s out there somewhere.

Example for me is I recently bought the Danish T Rex Mudhonry reissue, a RAT clone (apparently) and an absolute fortune (read probable rip-off) and can’t even assess the build quality as can’t get into it with a regular screwdriver (makes me suspicious), but it sounds totally glorious (and I’ve had plenty of RAT and clones) and is the high gain sound I’ve been searching for years for, so who cares. Could I live with something else? Of course, none of this is life threatening stuff, but I’m glad it exists and that’s my view of the pedal world as a whole.

vale

i don't have a problem with smd circuit boards at all. and i think a lot of the slippery and dishonest 'mojo woo' around boutique pedals comes from a basic misunderstanding of that 'thru-hole = good & smd = bad' confusion.

a circuit is a circuit is a circuit. as long as it works then there is no essential difference between thru hole pcb and smd/printed board. problems can arise with smd boards if mechanical and oft-jiggled bits (stomp switch, jack & power sockets) are attched to the circuit board in a crappy unsupported way. but if they are taken care of, then no difference.

as for quality control, consistency and reliability, ask someone to make a thousand discrete component mobile phones or laptops, and (in about 100 years, when they finish) compare percentage of fails to equivalents built by laser-guided computers.

there's a steampunk fetishisation of quaint outdated tech that makes people want to believe that 'handcrafted' is always best, also a man v computers sentimentality involved. but the evidence is that computers and tech are now (several orders of magnitude) more reliable than people, when tolerances are tight and repeated readings and calcutions involved. so why pretend it's not so with guitar pedals?

for me, 'boutique' isn't about the object but about the design and functionality. boutique designers that are offering something mainstream companies are not interested in.
so it's a combination of their musical/non-musical taste (sounds they are chasing), their r&d & their design. while the object itself is just a tool to get their idea from their head to mine.
& if they want to make it smd rather than thru hole, as long as it's done well, i'm cool with that.

the few places boutique thru hole has a place are when old transistors and diodes are involved that have such crappy 'ye olde tolerances' that no two are the same. in which case they need more attention lavished on them in order to make them function in a circuit as desired.
i once saw a gutshot of a fuzrite with ceramic caps that were 20% tolerance. obviously pedals have more than one cap, often a few dozen, so all that wobbliness adds up. hence great vintage fuzzfaces and dogs.
now we have 5% minimum. 5% tolerance parts mean boutique makers don't need to sweat to make those bits work properly & consistely. consistency is built into the raw materials.

thru-hole components real place is on the boutique makers r&d bench. it enables them to create and experiment with circuits quickly.
but once finalised, the more standardised and consistent the production process the better.

but at the end of the day it's what you are doing that dictates whether boutique & leftfield designs are useful to you.
if all you want to do is play in the style of evh or slash, and they used boss, then why use anything else to get that sound. boss is optimum in that context. kiss.
but for people who want other things, or who don't even know what they want until they hear it, boutique (at its best) is full of potential.