Found some cheap and pretty good (I think so, anyway!) pedals...

[Elliot]

The Transparent is almost the same circuit.   The difference is in  - the Timmy has more bells and whistles (like 20db clean boost if the drive pot is at zero and switchable innards - and different pots, which means that the same settings settings will not be equivalent.  Danelectro have about to pull the Transparent OD for a different circuit (which includes a 20db clean boost if the drive pot is at zero and switchable innards!) because of the similarity to the Timmy.

Listening to Gearmandude's shoot out the Timmy has more transparency and less compression, which is probably due to better internal components:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma6HjVb3doM&feature=related

As to the Drive - well, it is the Fulltone OCD circuit and sounds pretty similar if not exactly the same at the same setting: as the Gearmandude shoot out shows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XNXu3jvrSo&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXxIp9CYnp8&feature=related

The Transparent OverDrive is stonking pedal for the price - its replace the HBE Powerscreamer on my board.

[Brow]

I had 1 of the metal cased Daphon Phasers a while, which cost me about £17.50 I think!

While the phase itself sounded ok, there was always alot of other noise happening that made the effect unusable for the most part because it masked the actual effect!

[dave_mc]

ok, this is embarrassing... the fuzz pedal starting acting up today. :lol: couldn't have happened the day before I wrote the review or anything... :roll: the LED is flickering a bit even when the pedal is off, I've messaged the seller to see what he says. I'll let you know. :) It still seems to be working, but I don't want to use it in case I do more harm etc.

going through the posts (thanks to everyone who read my original post who I didn't single out, I don't want to do another mega-post!):

The Daphons are rebranded and sold under many different names, but some of the DIY guys at Freestompboxes.org think they are ok and just ripe for modding. In fact Analogman has a delay pedal specially made in the Daphon factory in China because he was impressed by their standards.

yeah, i meant to mention the analogman thing in the original post, thanks for mentioning it :)

It's too late to read your post, but I shall post to say it is a very long post anyways. You really can talk the talk when it comes to reviewing gear Dave.

And you said you were lazy, pff.

haha, maybe i'm just lazy with the stuff i don't like. :D

Nice book, I mean review. :)

True bypass has a lot of hype. You would not want a bunch of pedals with true bypass only in your rig; would sound like ass.

:lol: thanks!

i agree about the true bypass thing. I can tell the difference with one true bypass pedal in the chain (with 20ft of guitar lead versus 10ft), I imagine there'd be a pretty noticeable difference with even a couple.

^Brow: Yeah, I'd considered the daphon phaser, but went for the Biyang one instead. Sounds like I made the right choice. You get added noise if you're using a lot of distortion, but it doesn't mask the effect or anything, it's not noticeable when you're playing.

regarding the danelectros- I'd heard they're meant to be good. Haven't tried them, though. As people have been saying, from what I'm hearing, the transparent overdrive is pretty close to the timmy (they've released a new version 2 which is supposedly different because of this), the drive is supposedly similar to the OCD, and the fuzz is allegedly not a million miles off a frantone peach fuzz. Thomann has pretty good prices on them, too (around the £20-£25 mark), if any of you are interested. They don't have the transparent OD, though, which'd be the one I'd most likely get were I to get any of them, and here in the UK it's more like £40. There's some good info over at the gear page about the controversy, too.

I haven't tried the behringers either, don't they have plastic cases? I've heard that they're pretty noisy too, but I could be wrong.

Artec, I'd looked into those too, I emailed them and they said they had some digital stuff in the signal path. Obviously being digital doesn't make something bad, but I'd be wary of buying without trying, as a lot of digital stuff does sound very, well, digital... :)

[LazyNinja]

While on the subject of cheap pedals I just found these http://www.hotroxuk.com/aria-pedals-11399-0.html. Looks bouteeeeky and solidly built! Can't find any info on them though...

edit: http://www.ariaguitars.com/int/03_products/pro_equ_ep.html found this page but doesnt realy give much details :(

[dave_mc]

yeah, i noticed those before too, found nothing in the links either, though, same as you. :lol:

wish there was more info, as they actually do look pretty cool (just looking at the boxes). Can't tell much from that, though. :(

[dave_mc]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but considering I had pointed out that my Biyang fuzz was faulty, I thought it was only fair and proper to point out that Advantage Music replaced it very quickly with no fuss, and the replacement seems to be working fine (touch wood! :lol: ). So, they stand over their products, which is always nice.

:)

[Brow]

^Brow: Yeah, I'd considered the daphon phaser, but went for the Biyang one instead. Sounds like I made the right choice. You get added noise if you're using a lot of distortion, but it doesn't mask the effect or anything, it's not noticeable when you're playing.

The Daphon 1 was awful for noise. On a clean tone and while not playing/guitar volume turned down, the white noise in the background along with the swirling etc of the phase was very noticeable. With OD or distortion it was pretty unuseable  :?

[dave_mc]

yeah, that doesn't sound too great. There is a bit of noise with the biyang one on the most extreme setting (of the two 2-way switches), but you can't notice it when playing. :)

[Ben_W]

Nice post. I will consider them, for the main reason you said, to try something out, without spending a huge amount. I'm tempted to get the delay, but can't seem to find a seller, although i will definately look out for them, because at those prices, you can't really go wrong, and they seem like they're worth a try! :)

[LazyNinja]

Since the last postings on this thread, I've bought a Cool Cat Drive and had a good play on their fuzz as well.

When I bought the Drive, I also tried the Transparent OD. To me, despite the name, the Drive behaved more transparently and more cleanly than the TOD. I couldn't get it to sound right through the HT5 they had in the shop (Im familiar with the amp). With the drive and tone down, it (edit: I mean the Drive) provides a very nice fat sounding boost. Not nice enough to replace my TMB though nor did I expect it to.

Fuzz is ok. It can get very mean and fuzzy but not really what I was looking for. I guess I just don't get on with fuzzes. Seems to compress the sound in a way that I don't like. Same with Big Muffs I've had in the past. I think what I'm looking for is a germanium fuzz.

[dave_mc]

^ interesting, thanks for posting that. I've still only heard soundclips (which I realise is a terrible way to judge anything), but i liked the sound of the transparent OD the most, I wasn't too fussed on the clips i've heard of the other dano cool cat pedals. Of course, I may have a completely different opinion if i tried them... :)

Nice post. I will consider them, for the main reason you said, to try something out, without spending a huge amount. I'm tempted to get the delay, but can't seem to find a seller, although i will definately look out for them, because at those prices, you can't really go wrong, and they seem like they're worth a try! :)

you mean the daphon delay? if so, i haven't seen one at the price i got mine for either, i guess i just got lucky. :D just a matter of keeping an eye on ebay, i guess, and hopefully one will come along eventually. also, it pays to search by the model number as they aren't always listed under the daphon name.

actually, i think i know where there's a seller on ebay, but they only had them at about £35, and I'm not certain they're worth that (though obviously the fact i got mine for £17.50 is colouring my judgement on that a bit :lol: ). :)