Mini pedals galore! Merry Birthday to me :D

[GuitarIV]

So since my birthday is on the 21st of December and it's Christmas I treated myself to some new pedals:



I already had the PolyTune2 Mini, got myself the TC Electronics Corona Chorus and the KHDK Ghoul Jr.

Why the mini pedals? Because this is what my board looked like till now:



Sounds great, does what it's supposed to do, but man what a pain in the ass to lug it around to rehearsal every week along with my guitar and backpack, so since I was so impressed by the sound of the Wampler Mini Ego despite its tiny package I decided I might just as well replace the full sized pedals with smaller ones and have a lighter and more compact board:




Unfortunately I can't crank the amp today anymore but everything works. From the short impression I got though I really like the Ghoul Jr., I'm not so much impressed with the Corona.

The Ghoul Jr. is built by a company that was founded by Kirk Hammett of Metallica (hence the KH in the KHDK) and man is it versatile for a small little pedal. You have your normal Tone, Volume and Gain controls with additional two 3 way miniswitches that change the voicing, amount of gain, bass response etc.

Now I love my Boss SD-1, it's my favourite OD pedal for the asymmetrical clipping and hence aggressive voicing, but it's veeery noisy. The Ghoul Jr. is a lot quieter even when set to the most agressive voicings, it tightens the amp up very well and I had to set the gain on zero cause it saturates a lot by itself. For tightening up a crunching amp for metal it works very well. I can finally remove my Noisegate from the board. It's a lot quieter than the SD-1 too!

I will see what it sounds like through a clean channel by itself tomorrow and also how well it works with my 2203.


The Corona chorus on the other hand sounds bad compared to my Boss. I don't know what it is about the Boss one but I love the sound of it, both on clean and distorted tones. Very lush. The Corona is a bit too bright and... boring sounding? I dunno.

Now this is just my first impression. The thing has the TonePrint feature, you can connect it to your PC and tweak the sound of it in a programm TC Electronics provides. So that's what I'll do next. Hopefully I can coax some tones out that are more suited to my taste


Anyway guys, I'll keep you posted with more impressions, I have rehearsal this friday so I'll see how this setup holds up with the band and if the reduced weight and size make it a bit easier to lug around.

Have a Merry Christmas and cheers!

 

[DirtySteve]

Merry Birthday, brother! Nice collection ya got going there.

I built a mini Fuzz that turned out great except the LED doesn't line up with the predrilled hole in the case but that's not an issue, I can tell if it's on, lol. And I recently bought a mini looper on a friends recommendation that I haven't tried it yet.

 

[BanditPanda]

Happy Bday! That's the way to do it.
BP

 

[Marshall4Metal]

I have the Corona Chorus but it's not the Micro it's the full size Chorus . It has level, speed, depth, and TONE . It also has a 3way toggle for Chorus, Tri-Chorus and Tone Print. It sounds killer and i'm going to guess that it sounds much better than the micro. That said I don't use mine as a Chorus I use it as a subtle Flange I don't think the micro is capable of doing that. Example my Corona is set up to sound like slightly more subtle version of intro to Barracuda from Heart than a warbly Chorus sound.

 

[Drinkingdeath01]

Awesome compact PB. Keep us posted on the KHDK thru your 2203. I've been wanting to pick one of these up for a while but was waiting for a good review.

 

[SkyMonkey]

Congrats @GuitarIV.
The TC mini pedal I am thinking of getting is the Wire Tap riff recorder. 8 hours of mono recording.
At my age the memory need a bit of help!

 

[Gutch220]

They also make an array of super-cheap mini pedals on Wish.com.
When I was younger and just starting out, I wish I could've got mini pedals for like $25.

 

[GuitarIV]

I have the Corona Chorus but it's not the Micro it's the full size Chorus . It has level, speed, depth, and TONE . It also has a 3way toggle for Chorus, Tri-Chorus and Tone Print. It sounds killer and i'm going to guess that it sounds much better than the micro. That said I don't use mine as a Chorus I use it as a subtle Flange I don't think the micro is capable of doing that. Example my Corona is set up to sound like slightly more subtle version of intro to Barracuda from Heart than a warbly Chorus sound.

The Corona is actually growing on me. I played a bit more with the controls and it does sound decent enough, I just thought the Boss did an outstanding job when compared. I'll look into the TonePrint feature probably tomorrow as it's my day off and will see how tweakable it is. If it turns out good I might get the Flashback Mini too as I want a Delay on my board as well

Awesome compact PB. Keep us posted on the KHDK thru your 2203. I've been wanting to pick one of these up for a while but was waiting for a good review.

On my way to rehearsal so I can say more when I'm back, but I am really digging the Ghoul Jr.

I am not missing my SD-1 so far which is a good sign because every other OD pedal I tried didn't quite cut it. The KHDK keeps the lows tight and compact, brings out some grit and agression and saturates very well without sounding too thin or too thick. I haven't even tried out all the possibilities it offers, I just keep both toggle switches in the down position, the Level on halfway, Gain all the way down and the Tone control at 3 o'clock for more bite in the high mids and high end.

I'll report back once I have had some more play time with it. So far I don't regret a single cent I paid

 

[ricksdisconnected]

nice board. i always wanted to do a mini board. just cant justify the spending
when i have so many other pedals already.

 

[Jethro Rocker]

Cool! I got a few for my smaller board for smaller venues with limited stage space.
TC mini Polytune.
Keeley mini red dirt.
A mini baby Morley wah.

 

[Justin Levitt]

Any mini/micro amp simulator pedals that are decent? I've heard mooer have a good one but not too sure as I've never ventured into this realm.