Small Pedals, Big Sound
It’s an age old problem. You need to find another way to get one more pedal on your already crammed pedal board. Impossible? Not at all. To do that, I'm going to walk you through my favorite small pedals that have a very big sound.
I want to show you my favorite mini pedals, by which I mean pedals that are roughly 1” x 2”. You could easily fit this in your back pocket or in your clutch handbag. (I don’t know what kind of gigs you frequent; either one is cool.) Now, there are a lot of these pedals on the market. JHS makes a few. A lot of my friends make them. There's tons of them that I don't own, but these are definitely ones that I enjoy. Let's jump right into it.
Overdrive
First up is the Wampler Tumnus. Now this is a miniature version of the Klon Centaur. It's much smaller in size, and much smaller in price. I like it because Tumnus is C.S. Lewis’ character from the Chronicles of Narnia. He’s strange. He’s otherworldly. He cries a lot. And I feel like you can turn this pedal on and just kind of walk through the wardrobe of tone.
That’s got a nice ring to it. Feel free to use that in your marketing, Brian. That’s a freebie.
For sheer bang for your buck, you can’t beat this one. Anyone who has watched the JHS Show knows that I have a deep and abiding love for the Klon Centaur. If I’m suggesting a mini version, that’s because it’s a dang good clone.**
**Coincidentally, A Dang Good Clone sounds like a Western/sci-fi blockbuster I’d watch fifteen times.
Alternatively, you can go with the Nobels ODR-1 Mini Overdrive, which is a miniature version of the Nobels ODR-1 Natural Overdrive. The original pedal is very famous and much, much used in Nashville. I actually got to meet these guys at NAMM, and it was really cool to see that they'd put this miniature version out.
I recommend it to guitar players who like the Tube Screamer, but want something different. They like the Bluesbreaker, but want something different. This kind of fits in the middle. It shares a lot of similar circuitry, but I like that it’s still a really different take on the overdrive effect. A lot of things could sound the same depending on where it’s set, but this still has some extra spice to it. I especially like the tone control. They call it “spectrum.” It has a really nice sweetness to it, and it just feels good to turn a spectrum knob as opposed to a tone control knob. It's much more exciting. And when you're excited, you just play better. That’s a scientifically proven fact.
Boost
The boost is needed on any pedal board. If you go back to some of our previous episodes, I talk about that; I even have an episode called “Why You Need a Boost Pedal” that you should check out if you haven't already.
There are some excellent miniature boost pedals in that 1” x 2” format. The Cusack More Louder (which really fits well with the JHS “loud is more good” theme) is a classic. I love Cusack. I love his designs. I love all the stuff that he does, and this is really fun. It's really simple and super versatile. Plus, you can tell your bandmates you need to play More Louder, and it’s grammatically correct. That’s worth the price right there.
You’ve also got the Xotic EP Booster. It's small, but it feels like it weighs fifteen pounds. It's super heavy. I’ve said it before: heavy pedals are quality pedals, and this is no exception. It’s probably one of the most popular miniature pedals of the last 5-10 years.
I’ve gotta plug my own Prestige here, which is a boost buffer/enhancer, depending on where you have the knob.
But I want to break the rules a little and get out of this standard rectangular pedal shape. My absolute favorite has got to be the Dr. Scientist Boostbot. It has no foot switch, because why would you want to turn off a boost pedal? You wouldn’t. It has a knob that lights up, a “Made in Canada” sticker that’s pretty legit, and it has this digital display that shows you where you're at in your volume: yellow, green, or red. You just turn it on, and you leave it on. It's a buffer with the volume down, plus you can step up your gain any way you want. And it's just an always on, better Boostbot. Let’s be honest. You need something called a Boostbot.
And it's small? You have no excuse to not buy this.
Say it to yourself. I have no excuse. I have no excuse. And just go buy it.
Compression
Compression can be essential to your guitar rig, depending on the style of music that you play. I know some of you think you don't need a compressor, but if you add one to your board, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll be glad you did. And what better way to try a compressor than a pedal that’s smaller and more affordable? A lot of people make good compressors in that format, including Brian Wampler, Robert Keeley, and many others.
I’m going to break from tradition for a second here and plug my own pedal. We have the Whitey Tighty compressor, and it’s great. Now, the idea here is that when you're wearing whitey tighties, it compresses you. Not in a bad way. But, yeah, it does some things.
As a side note, I know a lot of you are thinking that I mistyped the name of my own pedal, but I did not. Some of you call these tighty whiteys, but I call it whitey tighty, ‘cause I'm from Alabama. Whatever you call it, it doesn't matter, because this thing works. In any case, I think you should just try a miniature compressor, whether it's mine or someone else's. I do like my graphic more because it's a little absurd (I mean, how often can you put a miniature pedal on your board that has a picture of a pair of underpants on it?).
Reverb
Now, reverb is something that TC Electronics has nailed consistently for a long, long time, and the Hall of Fame Mini (or you could call it the HOF Mini, like David Hasselhoff) is no exception. This pedal is cool because it’s insanely versatile. You can just do a lot of stuff with it. Basically, you load in their software, choose a ‘verb, and go for it. It's a really great way to have a second or a third reverb on your board, or if you're like me, maybe it's your fifth or sixth reverb.
Let me make one thing clear: this is a safe place, guys. You can have as many reverbs on your board as you want, and no one’s going to judge you.
Another fantastic modulated reverb pedal is the Mooer Modverb. It has three settings that basically interplay within the reverb sounds, plus it has a tempo here to the time, which is really nice for a ‘verb pedal. The settings are flanger, vibrato, and phaser. This is a great choice if you’re going for a more ambient sound. Honestly, I also just like how small it is. A lot of times we enjoy experimenting with these weirder sounds, but we don't want to dedicate a big portion of our board space to it. Enter the Mooer Modverb, a super cool sound that you can probably cram into your rig for cheap. #justdoit
Honorable Mentions
I have a lot of miniature pedals. Let’s be real, you could pretty safely say I have a lot of _____ (fill in the blank yourself) pedals, and it would be correct. I have a lot of Japanese pedals. I have a lot of pedals from the ’80s. I have a lot of pedals named after food products. The list goes on.
But I really do have a ton of miniature pedals in my collection, so I want to give some space here to shout out a few more honorable mentions.
The TC Electronic Polytune Mini is a great tuner pedal, if you need one of those.
The TC Electronic Ditto Looper is fantastic, and is probably my favorite looping pedal out there, miniature or not.
The Deadbeat Audio Playback is very similar to the Ditto Looper, in a much cheaper, simpler feature set, but it gets the job done if you're just wanting to practice with loops or put something on your board that you'll use every once in a while.
The MXR Sugar Drive is a great alternative to the Tumnus by Wampler. It's another Klon Centaur alternative, the same circuit, and it has a great mint blue, toothpaste tube sort of color. As you know, I really care about the colors.
The Mythos Pedals Golden Fleece is a huge favorite of mine in the fuzz category, and if you go back and watch a few episodes of the JHS SHow, you’ve got a 99% chance of seeing this featured in at least one demo. It’s my go-to for a reason.
The AnalogMan Beano Boost is a really nice germanium treble booster.
And to finish up, I’ll pitch three miniature pedals from JHS: the Tidewater tremolo, the Mini Foot Fuzz V2, and the Little Black Buffer, which is indispensable if you need a buffer in your signal chain to help push your cable links and clear things up.
It’s like the article title says: these are small pedals, but they do big stuff. These pedals are a fantastic option if you want to cram one (or two, or three, of five) more pedals onto your board without sacrificing a ton of space. Do what you gotta do.