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Comments
I've got a pedal that's going into proper tape reel machine picked surface mount production which basically takes a whole days labour per pedal out of the equation ..... in all honesty it won't be as high quality as the home built versions I have made because neatness doesn't mean reliable and well built ..... a well built design on a piece of veroboard with fly wired pots and switches is almost indestructible in normal use... the factory made piece has all components on the PCB which is neat as hell but NOT better
Comparing any pedals made here or in the US is just insane. I have to import parts from the US, China and Germany when I can't source them locally... An bare enclosure here will cost more than the entire built pedal in China. FWIW I had to buy some MN3007 and MN3207 (analogue chorus/flanger ICs) from Germany recently because all the ones on eBay (usually from China) are fakes, Dr Tweek is no more (the only local supplier of them). It cost me £38 for 5 of them. I have to source PT2399's (digital delay ICs) from the same place because I used to get them from China and it became increasingly apparent that they were buying up the out of spec ICs and selling them as new. The noise levels on the Chinese ICs started to get silly. Indeed the only things I get done in China now are PCB fabrication and Alpha pots because they're the only things that seem to still be of good quality.
So yeah, there are a couple of parts I can source from China that are cheaper there. Everything else is seriously substandard. Interestingly it didn't used to be, I used to regularly order from Tayda for parts because they used to supply decent stuff. Over the years that's just stopped because everything became noticeably substandard. There'll come a point when the pots are and I'll have to switch to Farnell on those too at around 3 times the price.
Chinese pedals will kill the pedal market eventually. That's how their economy works. Saturate the foreign market with cheap knock-offs and destroy the competition who can't dream of competing on price. It's happened in so many field when it comes to technology.
If you think that's a good thing, watch a few videos by BigClive on youtube. Who's an electrical engineer who's sent things to dismantle to evaluate. Some of the practices employed are shocking... Quite literally. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, those CE marks and things like that on Chinese goods, generally mean fuck all. They just print them on. That's the sort of shit you're dealing with.
That's not killing the pedal market, that's killing the pedal market for non-Asian builders who don't do it efficiently. I've had several Joyos with no issue at all. But I've also had garden shed builders who shall not be named deliver not only knock-offs of other people's circuits but poorly built ones as well.
Mass-production factories in Birmingham, Manchester and other British cities producing vast quantities of not always very well made goods destroyed the local hand-work industries in places like India and China in the 19th Century, and made us rich at their expense.
Now it's their turn.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Joyo FTW.
As for the knock-offs thing, one of the most satisfying things is designing your own effects. The problem is 99% of people want me to build them knock-offs of the latest boutique fad (one of the reasons I dislike the klone so much and stopped making them). We've learned that our original designs no one wants because there is no hype. To generate hype requires marketing which in turn requires a shit-tonne of effort that is not factored into the selling price of pedals.
So we give them back to the DIY community, which is why we still make pedals. Because there is still innovation there (as seen by that distortion above), there are still people seeing what cool stuff they can make and then sharing them with others. It's why I extoll the virtues of making your own effects often and encourage anyone with an interest to dive into it. There's so much stuff outside the mainstream that is just awesome. Indeed we've modded a trem to do exactly what the fella wanted in another thread. It's got buried under people recommending things he doesn't want (which is essentially a trem with a lot of range and a wave control so you can soften the LFO), but I digress. When/if (it's complicated...) Grind gets back on track, we've got a fair few new effects queued up to drop into there. That delay above is one, as well as the tremolo. If you're interested in things that aren't knock-offs, get into DIY, plenty of new stuff there still.
More worrying is their faking of I.C's and power transistors. A buyer for an aviation company I know came unstuck when he switched Chinese suppliers of some Atmel EEPROMS .... the new batch were all fake and even didn't work at all or failed very quickly. Luckily these are only used to store the customer seat positions and not anything vital !
I can't be the only one who's changed 8 transistors in an amp only for the new ones to blow once the load is 75% of the full rated ... because the fakes can't take the current of the originals, they are lesser transistors in a faked can ... got caught twice with fake Toshibas.
There's still a market for pedal builders here but you have to come up with something more than just another kind of OD or just another kind of delay \ chorus. I think it is fair to say most pedal builders are very conservative in their designs so no one stands out
When the likes of Zoom came out in the 90's we all went multi-fx until everyone realised that separate pedals tend to sound better. With the new stuff from Axe-Fx, Helix and others being so good I do wonder if the pedal market will shrink significantly.
Eventually the really high quality stuff will creep down the price range as well.
I think people will struggle to sell stuff at current boutique prices.
Like most things i feel its up to the individual how much they wish to spend on an item and i feel often the more you spend the better the quality (Not always obviously) for example i can spend £100 for an ok off the shelf suit from the high street or i can go pay x4 the price at a tailors and get a suit perfect for me.
Kinda always depends on your budget and if you are prepared to spend a little more for the extra quality.
I don't know how many pedals these guys are putting out each week, but as soon as production goes up you have to increase overheads or what I think is happening is allot of guys are outsourcing assembly and so the price goes up again
I've seen some pics of dismantled ones where the actual transistor inside the casing is a tiny modern one of about the same spec - apart from the current rating. So they will measure OK, but fail under load.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
But there will ALWAYS be people prepared to pay more for a desirable item because there always has been. It is a human trait. The clever part is knowing ahead of the future, which items will they be?
The cost of components is almost irrelevant. As is the function. What is being sold is that elusive thing, desirability. Marketing/media hype/bullshit, call it whatever you like, but it is what creates that desirability.
And of course, timing matters. As the old lags in London caffs used to say "The smell of a bacon sarnie is worth a quid in the morning rush-hour and a penny in the evening." Giving punters what they want and when they want it is the key. They will happily pay the price.
The only complainers are those who can't afford it.