Your favorite pieces of CHEAP gear

[Jake]

Not what would normally be pricey gear that you happened to get for cheap, but the stuff that's literally not worth very much.

• Peavey Classic 50 head - I love, love, love this fucker
• Dano French Toast fuzz- such a burly pedal in such an unassuming form

[Lumpy]

DOD 250 overdrive with a tube bass amp is as good as any spendy overdrive, IMO. About 30-35 bucks (used)

MXR Microamp (boost pedal) 50db clean boost for solos or slam your preamp, overdrive style.

Ibanez PM-7 (phase modulator) gets you into ring modulation and noisy weirdness for about 30 bucks (used)

[ROWDYBEER]

This1smyne mini buffer $39
Awesome buffer if you have mire than 10 or 15' of Instrument cable.

[Chovie D]

Not what would normally be pricey gear that you happened to get for cheap, but the stuff that's literally not worth very much.

• Peavey Classic 50 head - I love, love, love this fucker
• Dano French Toast fuzz- such a burly pedal in such an unassuming form

I LOVE the Dano French Toast. Awesome foxx tone machine clone. You can get these used for $15. some of the other cheapo Dano pedals that are excellent are the Chicken Salad (uni-Vibe, beats my  WAY mor expensive dunlop uni-vibe) and the tremolo and the slap echo.

IN a similar vein, the Ibanez soundtank series usually goes for $15 used each, and there are some great pedals in that line as well.
The tubescreamer, the tremolo, and the echo machine .

[Pissy]

I have a no-name Telecaster that I enjoy quite a bit.  I'd like to get some good electronics in it, so i' be more inclined to play it, but the neck is something to fall in love with.

[Danny G]

Phase 90

Still the best sounding phaser (for my taste) of any other I've tried or built.

[lordfinesse]

Danelectro Tuna Melt tremolo. Sounds fantastic, and can be found used for $15-$20.

Agile guitars. Popular opinion seems to be that they aren't perfect, but are great for the money. The one that I've played (that belongs to Pissy) was pretty good overall. If it was the only guitar available and I had to play a show with it, I'd be ok with it.

Also +1 for the Microamp.

[Discö Rice]

I have a super thick very old circular saw blade that sounds like a church bell when struck that I got for free. Love that thing. I also acquired a giant subwoofer with a Peavey BW 18 in it that was laying near the trash at my old practice for like two and a half weeks. It sounds incredible. I dunno, most of the crap I use is something I'd either have to save up for months for or it was free. Drums is expensive.

I do love my Quantum 9000N drumsticks, ($7.85/pair) but Regaltip sadly has discontinued them, because I'm one of three people that use them. They're the most perfectly engineered bludgeoning devices I've ever laid my hands on. I haven't found anything that is a truly suitable replacement. First of all, 17.5" sticks are rare. They have a strange taper that starts at the butt of the stick (at .750) and tapers all the way down the shaft of the stick to the monstrous tip, making the stick perfectly balanced in the hand. I actually find the weird taper on the Q9's incredibly useful. These sticks have a rebound that you don't really find in sticks of that size. The giant nylon ball on the tip is just shy of something you'd use to play a xylophone with, and coupled with the length, pushes sound out of big drums with ease. I'm kind of surprised they never really caught on with stoner/doom drummers, especially given that Dale Crover uses them (although I believe in recent years he's switched to the much smaller Quantum 3000).

[VOLVO)))]

Boss HM-2, totally rad, over-the-top Dismember/Swedish death metal distortion. Can be usually had for around 40 bucks.

Black Russian Muff, not my favorite, but they are abundant, and cheap. I keep two or three around the house, in my cable case, in the toolbox... you know, 20-40 bucks all day.

Peavey tube heads... We all know these, the Butcher, VTM120, VTM60, the Ultra60/120, Ultra+... Usually around 200 - 300 bones, great platforms for mods, and abundant in pawn shops all across the south.

Agile, SX, Xavier guitars - Substandard hardware, shitty nut, shitty electronics for about 200 bucks. Luckily, guitar fetish stocks ALL of that shit at dirt cheap prices. This is the reason I won't ever buy a name brand guitar, ever again. I can buy one of these, do a fret dress, file a nut, change the tuners/bridge/pickups, and have a firebreather than I'm not afraid to drop into it's case, or worry if it gets stolen...



In regards to those Dano pedals, how hard would it be to rehouse them into something less bullshit? I know they're poorly constructed, but with enough finesse, I betcha one of us would wire some real pots into those things, and put it into a new home with no problem.

[Pissy]

Pretty easy, just a circuit in there with some jacks that hard mounted to the pcb, Clip them off and solder some extensions to fit them into say a Pro-co box or whatever, ame with the switch, but... the switch is pretty badass.  No-click/pop at all.  None.

[rayinreverse]

i have this old sears solid state bass amp thing that I got for free. I love the tone of it for some reason.

[Hemisaurus]

Dano pedals aren't that badly constructed, but they do use a lot of surface mount components (not the pots or jacks), hard to mod, hard to fix, I'd leave 'em alone the housing is pretty solid. The PCB in my OD is about the size of a half a saltine.

[RacerX]

The Danelectro Cool Cat pedal series are housed in metal cases. They now call them by effect names instead of dishes from Village Inn. I just picked up the Vibe, which is the Cool Cat version of Chovie's Chicken Salad Univobe clone. I'm digging it, esp. on the lap steel.

[Ranbat]

 My Aggies (Agiles) first and foremost. I always wanted an SG and even owned one in the 80s with a Bigsby, but found them uncomfotable to play sitting down. The Valkyrie III ($250) is just different enough to make it comfy. My AL-2000 Goldtop ($199) was more comfortable to play at the higher frets because the cutout is a little more spacious than the Gibson LP. And my AS-820 ($350) feels better to me than any of the 335s I've played.
Favorite cheap amp? My Fender 100H head ($150). Solid State, 2 channel w/gain boost and mid scoop. Has onboard Reverb and DSP Vibrato, Echo, Phaser and Tremolo. For what I play now it's an awesome amp. Lightweight and eliminates the need for a pedal board as it's all controlled by a 4 button footswitch.
Pedals? The Ibanez Tone-Lok stuff. I've had a few and still have the Delay ($60). Versatility and ease of use make it my favorite delay.

[Danny G]

I'd love to have a VTM120, just to have.

[Volume]

I love my Gibson Melody Maker. It's an early 2000s model, faded yellow with one P90, that the last owner put a homemade pickguard on to make it look more like a jr. One of the cheapest gibsons, but I love it.

[tossom]

As a young guy I was sold a really tatty Marshall angled cab by an older friend for about £50. He had bought it and never got round to doing it up - let it go to me as he knew I'd take care of it, and that I have.  Its a 1968 Marshall bass cab, complete with Jim Marshall's signature in pencil inside the cab.  My folks helped do it up, looks great now and is loaded with greenbacks.  Still my main cab.  Weighs a ton!

Even cheaper than that though, I got a MK4 Wem copycat for nothing!  Old man ran a mobile disco in the 70s, a band played a gig at a hotel he regularly held discos at and left the copycat behind - it was never claimed in over a year so the hotel owner gave it to Dad.  Still works a treat.

[Lumpy]

Tube amps from 'off' brands like EARTH and PLUSH. I also have looked into buying all-tube amps from TRAYNOR, UNIVOX, MONTGOMERY WARD/SEARS/GLOBAL/SILVERTONE (same factory) and other lesser-known brands.

The Earth B2000 (100 watt tube bass amp) is a thick and burly guitar amp - cost me 220 bucks on Craigs List. The cheezy padded vinyl cover is so bad, it's good - it scares a lot of buyers off, keeping prices down.

[black_out]

Yeah man those old Earth amps are awesome. From what I understand a lot of them are almost direct clones of Fender amps.

[Metal and Beer]

I bought a solid state Randall "Sustainer 140" on ebay in 2004 for 150 bucks. I've bought and sold a few things since then but I always keep this thing around; it sounds surprisingly mean and thick. I A/B'ed it the other night with my trusty Acoustic 370 at a show (two diff'ent bands that night) and it held its own..

[justinhedrick]

everything i own is cheap! i love my rogue EQ pedal that i bought 8 years ago for $8. dead quiet and still working after hundreds (thousands?) of hours of playing. probably the most useful tool on my pedalboard.

[Hemisaurus]

everything i own is cheap! i love my 8 years ago for $8. dead quiet and still working after hundreds (thousands?) of hours of playing. probably the most useful tool on my pedalboard.

Huh

+1 for the sentiment though, nothing quite as satisfying as getting a bargain, but then this thread is more about cheap shit that started off cheap, not expensive shit you got for cheap. I guess I have both cheap shit, and expensive shit, I got for cheap. I think I just got too much shit

[justinhedrick]

everything i own is cheap! i love my 8 years ago for $8. dead quiet and still working after hundreds (thousands?) of hours of playing. probably the most useful tool on my pedalboard.

Huh

+1 for the sentiment though, nothing quite as satisfying as getting a bargain, but then this thread is more about cheap shit that started off cheap, not expensive shit you got for cheap. I guess I have both cheap shit, and expensive shit, I got for cheap. I think I just got too much shit

sorry about the confusion my mang! the EQ pedal was only $25 when it came out. but i got it on a close out . . . blah blah blah.

[hayseed]

I have a Behringer Tuner Pedal(the model escapes me) that i bought for $20 that has lasted me for 6 years+. It is basically a Boss ripoff. Kind of a stupid piece to mention but it was valuable enough that i bought the bass player in my last band the exact same one and i am sure he still has his.

Sorry guys..Behringer again....B4500H Bass head. I had it for at least 8 yrs of steady gigging and it never broke, sputtered, sounded bad, or was drowned out on stage! Paid $250 new! It is identical to the Ashdown Mag 300 but sounds WAY better.

And my trusty Fender acoustic. Basic model, no electronics, Has seen many a campfire and late nite writing session. Wouldn't trade it for ANY piece of gear.

[VOLVO)))]

I have a Behringer Tuner Pedal(the model escapes me) that i bought for $20 that has lasted me for 6 years+. It is basically a Boss ripoff. Kind of a stupid piece to mention but it was valuable enough that i bought the bass player in my last band the exact same one and i am sure he still has his.

Sorry guys..Behringer again....B4500H Bass head. I had it for at least 8 yrs of steady gigging and it never broke, sputtered, sounded bad, or was drowned out on stage! Paid $250 new! It is identical to the Ashdown Mag 300 but sounds WAY better.

And my trusty Fender acoustic. Basic model, no electronics, Has seen many a campfire and late nite writing session. Wouldn't trade it for ANY piece of gear.

Behringer makes some decent quality shit, sometimes. You always hear the horror stories, Bugera being the main example. Nothing but barbecues waiting to happen, those things. Kind of like Peavey, the name isn't well regarded all the time, but you bet your rectum that you can get some SOLID shit out of them. 70s/80's SS bass amps, their 80s tube amps... etc.