The cost of pedals

ICBM

deano said:

As I say, there are no pedals I personally want that will cost me over £50.

That's not what you said.

deano said:

There is no pedal in existence that contains more that a few quids worth of components.

For what it's worth I think there are also a vast number of pedals, mostly overdrives and boosts, about which you're correct - which mostly use a generic Hammond-type box, generic 3PDT switch, a couple of dozen cheap parts and not a great amount of complexity (or sometimes even skill) in assembly, and which are sold for silly prices... but that isn't the same thing as saying no pedal contains more than a few pounds worth of parts, which is simply wrong.

Philtre

deano said:

All am saying is that I personally don't believe there are any pedals worth more than £50 and that the cost - the real cost, not that inflated by the production chain - of the components that actually do the work would cost more than a few pounds.

Someone better tell Dr. No he's been wasting his time with his overpriced pedals - https://shop.drno-effects.com/product/moon-canyon/ or he could at least drop his prices to £50. ;-)

deano

There's some people who really know how to miss points around here isn't there.

This thing does this, has bits in that cost about this, and they are charging this. Is it worth it? Yes, buy it. No, ,don't buy it.

It really is that simple. So simple that people are looking for more than exists. No single-effect pedal I've ever come across has ever been in my "yes" category if the price is more than fifty quid.

If the price is £600 and the bits inside cost £200 then fine it might be worth it if what it does, is what I want.

If the price is £600 but the bits inside cost £30 the what it does will have to be exceptional for me to want to buy it. Guess what? I've never come across something that exceptional.

Especially if the thing on the shelf next to it has bits inside that probably have a manufacturing cost - in my estimation - of about a fiver and the whole thing is £49.99 and it does the same thing.

If the thing costs £1000 and the bits inside need programmers not things to stamp them out fully completed, and those same programmers will update the thing afterwards for free and I don't get it to do one thing but hundreds of things, then it is worth it to the point where I will be buying one soon.

Snags

Surely the component cost is irrelevant?

The decision tree is basically:

(1) Does the pedal do something I like and would want to use repeatedly?
(2) If yes to (1), can I replicate the exact same/near enough with something cheaper?
(3) If no to (2) is it priced at a level that I personally am willing/able to pay in order to secure that use give my choice is pay up or do without?

(edit for clarification, and to avoid the dead ends and ascii art)

skunkwerx

All I know is. 

I bought 3 boss psa adaptors once, believing boss to be quality and among the higher end of mains plugs.

Total cost £75.

To power the only 3 pedals I had,  all linked and into the amp. 

Worked well and I believed I was getting an isolated power supply for all 3 pedals. 

Only when I ponied up and bought a Strymon zuma for a whopping £250 or whatever it was did I notice something. 

The noise the boss adapters added.

I've since experimented with the board by powering 8 pedals via the strymon, with one truebypass pedal in the chain disconnected, but in bypass so the signal goes through, turning the guitar volume down all the way off, turning the amps gain and volume up a bit. I can hear the standard normal noise floor of a gainy amp. 

I then plugged the boss power supply into the one pedal and voila, a buzzy noise came in. Not massively loud, but certainly there, noticeable. 

Admittedly you probably wouldnt even realise its there unless you turned your guitar volume off and dimed the gain to listen to what your amp then sounds like, and who does that?

My second experient was then to discount any loops or whatever. So I took one true bypass pedal, plugged my guitar into it, then into my amp.

The pedal was not powered, no battery no power at all.

I set the amp to my above settings, vol up a little, gain high, guitar vol off.

I then plugged the Boss psa in to the pedal. Instant buzz. Small and probably not noticeable if the guitar vol was up, but certainly there.


I guess what I'm getting at is that I care not how much a pedal or power supply costs, but rather does it add nothing to my as silent as can be set up.

I don't know how electronics work and I dont know how much they cost to make.

But I noticed I paid a lot of money for a strymon and its noiseless.
A cheap alternative would still power my pedals, but the strymon does it absolutely silently with x amount of additional features.

Thus, to me that expense was worth it.

I'm now considering dropping £260 on a bluesky because if it has the same quality, adds nothing undesireable to my chain then fine, I can swallow that cost.   

deano

Snags said:

Mine x-posted with deano's latest.

Which renders mine pointless, as I think the OP is basically saying "Expensive pedals aren't worth it to me, personally, so I don't buy them".

When seems perfectly reasonable, but also largely axiomatic.

Probably but this came out of the Andertons/Vertex thread, where I made the point that some people who were ripped off had been done so because they believed he was selling something really special and he wasn't, but they believed they had "golden ears" when it turned out they had the "emperors new clothes" instead.

I pointed out in the context of that thread that I didn't think expensive pedals we're worth it but I did so by stating my own way of determining that worth.

Some people commented on it so I drew it out into a separate thread so as not to cause cross-talk in the other thread. I did it out of courtesy to people in the other thread.

Then I explained my way of thinking. Some people didn't like it. Some people missed the point. Some people did seem to get it.

Someone asked if I ran my own business. Yes I do. Myself and a couple of other guys write specialist software for use in power stations. Which is why I mentioned how prices inflate using VAT upthread.

UnclePsychosis

OP is clearly trolling at this point. Either that or he must live a life utterly devoid of pleasure. 

"did you enjoy your visit to the Louvre, Deano?" 

"nah, it was rubbish. That Mona Lisa thing is just a few quids worth of paint, innit?" 

RaymondLin

@deano ;;;

Come work for me, you will not get paid for your time, you will not be paid for your skill or knowledge, you will not get paid for your travels.  I will pay you for the physical products that you produce as material cost at cost.  

i.e. electricity, seeing I will be footing that bill...your pay will be £0.

Deal? 

Paul7926

deano said:

All am saying is that I personally don't believe there are any pedals worth more than £50 and that the cost - the real cost, not that inflated by the production chain - of the components that actually do the work would cost more than a few pounds. Few is few. I'm not going to put a number on it, in spite of being asked to do so.

The first part is subjective.  You can say that there is no pedal worth more than £50 of your money to you but you can't claim that they are not worth more than £50 absolutely.  What something is worth is relative to the person.  

Cost can be measured and what you state is almost certainly untrue but it can't be proved because you are hiding behind your own definition of what the word 'few' might or might not mean to you.  So you have turned the non subjective 'cost' into something just as subjective as 'worth'.  

Nobody minds you not buying expensive pedals because they fail your personal criteria. I suspect the vast majority of people here have not bought things because they considered the price to be too high for the functionality that item might give them. 

I think the issue is with you claiming that the cost of components in a pedal is much smaller than it actually is and then ignoring all the evidence to the contrary.

Sporky

deano said:

There's some people who really know how to miss points around here isn't there.

Perhaps if you had made your point clearly and used terms according to their normal definitions people wouldn't have thought you meant what you'd said, which was:

"There is no pedal in existence that contains more that a few quids worth of components"

That's what you posted. Everything since has been you backpedalling, redefining, and claiming everyone with actual experience of the subject is wrong.

When you think that everyone else is driving down the wrong side of the road, they probably aren't.

Snags

deano said:

Snags said:

Mine x-posted with deano's latest.

Which renders mine pointless, as I think the OP is basically saying "Expensive pedals aren't worth it to me, personally, so I don't buy them".

When seems perfectly reasonable, but also largely axiomatic.

Probably but this came out of the Andertons/Vertex thread, where I made the point that some people who were ripped off had been done so because they believed he was selling something really special and he wasn't, but they believed they had "golden ears" when it turned out they had the "emperors new clothes" instead.

I pointed out in the context of that thread that I didn't think expensive pedals we're worth it but I did so by stating my own way of determining that worth.

Some people commented on it so I drew it out into a separate thread so as not to cause cross-talk in the other thread. I did it out of courtesy to people in the other thread.

Then I explained my way of thinking. Some people didn't like it. Some people missed the point. Some people did seem to get it.

Someone asked if I ran my own business. Yes I do. Myself and a couple of other guys write specialist software for use in power stations. Which is why I mentioned how prices inflate using VAT upthread.

I think the issue is that most of us (?) have read your initial comments as at least partly implying as a universal constant that the shelf price of expensive pedals is comprised of (ukpComponentsFew + ukpMarketingBullshitMuch) and have been trying to discuss/pick that apart, rather than talking about your personal criteria for judging whether or not a pedal is worth the asking price. Criteria which are, by definition, personal.

Or it's still going over my head, which is entirely possible the way today has gone

deano

Snags said:

Yes, using a slightly funkier (and more expensive) housing, or posher knobs etc. may enable you to position yourself in a slightly 'richer' market segment, although only if the actual function of the unit also performs at that level

And it that part in italics that generates the marketing hype.

If there are two overdrive pedals with the same components internally except for say the value of a couple of resistors. One has cheaper knobs, and retails at 39.99 one expensive and retails at 229.99

They both sound the same near enough. There might be some difference but hardly any. In any case can you really state that one is objectively better than the other?

Now write a social media ad campaign for the expensive one that is designed to shift lots and lots of units.

Being objective you might say we have more reliable components and better quality controls. Okay, great. That is a couple of bullet points.

Now, please take over...

ICBM

deano said:

If there are two overdrive pedals with the same components internally except for say the value of a couple of resistors. One has cheaper knobs, and retails at 39.99 one expensive and retails at 229.99

They both sound the same near enough. There might be some difference but hardly any. In any case can you really state that one is objectively better than the other?

You're changing the argument again.

I agree about boutique Tube Screamer derivatives - and worse, boutique Electra Distortion derivatives - and in fact you may have noticed that I don't like boutique pedals in general. (Largely because I strongly dislike 3PDT footswitches and flat casings, and prefer custom enclosures with treadle-type footswitches and recessed knobs, like a Boss - which are hard to find from small makers.)

But that's entirely different from saying that there is no pedal in existence that contains more than a few quids worth of components, which is what you said and is nonsense - *especially* if you're talking about sophisticated mass-produced pedals... which I gave you a good example of earlier.

m_c

As entertaining as this thread is, can somebody please stop moving the goalposts?

If it keeps up, we'll be trying to roll a rugby ball through a set of wickets on top of a basketball backboard before much longer.

RaymondLin

People change the argument because they are standing on thin ice, or in this case, no ice at all and they are sinking....They need to move their feet to something firmer and in doing so, hoping nobody notices.

Sassafras

Well, I'm convinced.
Now, if a pedal costs more than a tenner, I shan't be buying it and I urge all of you to do the same.

meltedbuzzbox

Please, make it stop

Matt_McG

Dude, you are shifting the goal posts continually.

From "no pedal contains components worth more than £x", to some variation of  "some pedals are overpriced relative to some other pedals" and "some pedals cost more than I am willing to pay", and then chucking around a load of straw man hypotheticals.

I think everyone can think of examples of pedals that are vastly over-priced. There's a load of things that are basically a fuzz face or a tube screamer and which contain exactly zero R&D and parts worth £15-20 quid (including enclosure), sold with a huge amount of marketing hype.

But, if you build pedals -- for money, or just as a hobby -- you quickly find that actually, it's quite labour intensive, and many of the parts are genuinely not cheap, and the people charging £100 quid a pedal are really NOT making a ton of money on them.

newi123

I guess you could argue paint only costs pennies, so you should never buy a painting for more than £50. 

You'd end up with crap original paintings, or copies of good paintings....... the good artists would no longer stay business. 

(Nb - purely an example, pedals are in no way forms of art!)

Anacharsis

ICBM said:

deano said:

As I say, there are no pedals I personally want that will cost me over £50.

That's not what you said.

deano said:

There is no pedal in existence that contains more that a few quids worth of components.

For what it's worth I think there are also a vast number of pedals, mostly overdrives and boosts, about which you're correct - which mostly use a generic Hammond-type box, generic 3PDT switch, a couple of dozen cheap parts and not a great amount of complexity (or sometimes even skill) in assembly, and which are sold for silly prices... but that isn't the same thing as saying no pedal contains more than a few pounds worth of parts, which is simply wrong.

Absolutely. One's chosen perspective matters a lot, and while it's easy to fall into a "nobody" "everybody" "all" none" trap, it doesn't reflect reality.

I agree that simple dirt pedals are cheaper to build. Of course, I have an Empress MultiDrive that has three distinct circuits that can blend in parallel. It's got 10 metal knobs, 5 three way toggle switches, and two footswitches. It's hardly alone in that.