Donner pedals and other mini-pedals...

mystixboi1

mystixboi1

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Donner pedals and other mini-pedals...

So it looks like the pedal market is saturated with small Japanese clone pedals. What are your thoughts on them? Do you have any? if so, which ones?

I'm not a huge pedal guy, but I have a few of these pedals and I dig them.
Right now, I have the following Donner pedals:

Yellow Fall delay
Boost Killer
Noise Gate
Alchemy

And I have a Morpher coming in.

It looks like Donner pedals are the cheaper alternative of Moorer and Rowin pedals. Here's a full list of Donner pedals, the Mooer/Rowin version and what pedals they are cloning.

Donner Pedal Original Clone of

Blues Drive Rowin LEF-602B Ibanez TS9
Boost Killer Mooer Pure Boost Xotic RC Booster
Giant Metal Mooer Blade EHX Metal Muff
Jet Convolution Mooer Eleclady EHX Electric Mistress
Metric Bender Rowin LEF-661
Morpher Mooer Solo Suhr Riot
Pearl Tremor Mooer Ninety Orange MXR Phase 90
Stylish Fuzz Mooer Triangle Buff EHX "Triangle" Big Muff Pi
Surge Rotater Rowin LEF-662
Tutti Love Mooer Ensemble King Boss CE-2
Yellow Fall Rowin LEF-614 Uses a PT2399-based chip
Alchemy Nux Mod Core
Black Arts Nux Time Force
Eternal Bind Nux Time Core
Harmony Nux Chorus Core
Hexadrive Nux Drive Core
White Wizard Nux Mod Force

Some people have problems with these pedals...

At this price point, they are pretty awesome and because they don't take up a lot of room, it makes them that much more appealing.

Thoughts?
 
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regular size pedals are fine by me. id much rather have actual size knobs that I can turn on the fly instead of those tiny little knobs on mini pedals that are so close together.

also for being chinese clones they seem to be pretty expensive. I'd rather buy the real deal even if its used.
 
Tiny pedals don't really matter much from my POV because I'm not a pedalstargalactica pedal board kinda guy to begin with.

Inexpensive 'clones' of existing production pedals don't really attract me either since 1) I'm not really interested in supporting that and 2) from practical pov, how many are actually true clones? If in the ballpark is your goal, I suppose it makes some sense. What's the quality of build and parts? If I just want to save a couple bucks on a pedal, I'd dig up a schematic online and get building.
 
If you're trying to save space on your pedalboard, these mini pedals make some sense. The Mooer pedal I use the most, the Slow Engine, is a copy of a discontinued Boss pedal. Since it came out, I see other pedal makers doing the volume swell pedal thing.
 
My mini pedals are from Z-Vex, Catalinbread, and TC Electronic. I haven't ventured into the "budget" side of things.
 
I have the Boost Killer that I picked up locally on Craigslist. It's well worth the $20 I paid for it. I don't have the Xotic RC Boost, so I can't say how good of a clone it is. It is a very usable OD though.
 
Mooer and Donner are the same company. The Mooer brand is sold by third parties. The Donner brand is sold direct, mostly via Amazon and eBay. Mooer costs more because of the distributor/retailer markups and marketing. Mooer/Donner also makes pedals for retailers who sell them as house brands. Mooer’s owner is the wife of Joyo’s owner. I learned all that from YouTube videos by that German guy they pay to do their gear demos.

I’ve only tried one Donner pedal. It arrived DOA, so I sent it back and bought a different brand.
 
I took a chance on a Mooer Eleclady flanger, because I was running out of space on the pedal board. It has turned out to be a great pedal. I don't know about them all, but I'm glad I got this pedal.

mooer-electric-lady-analog-flanger-guitar-effects-pedal_13268204.jpeg
 
I have the boost killer. I can't remember how it sounds though, it's been a while since I used it. I also have a tiny analog delay that I recall being pretty decent.
 
Lerxst said:
Tiny pedals don't really matter much from my POV because I'm not a pedalstargalactica pedal board kinda guy to begin with.

Inexpensive 'clones' of existing production pedals don't really attract me either since 1) I'm not really interested in supporting that and 2) from practical pov, how many are actually true clones? If in the ballpark is your goal, I suppose it makes some sense. What's the quality of build and parts? If I just want to save a couple bucks on a pedal, I'd dig up a schematic online and get building.
Click to expand...

YES! I'm telling ya -- they're cutting corners SOMEWHERE. Most likely in parts quality. All of your reasons are why I have no plans to buy one. I can't afford to have one fail on me at an inopportune moment.
 
I was looking at small pedal seeking something Dumble-ish. After seeing the that pedal show boost the front end of an overdrive and get positive results I went with a Mojomojo. Works pretty good too. I've got a pedal board I love, can't see rebooting to go with matchbox car size pedals. If I did fly in dates or needed my rig to fit in a Mini Cooper with the rest of the band, maybe.
 
I have a Mooer bit crusher that is rad. I have an andooer rat clone that sounds good in turbo mode. I impulse bought a one knob jcm preamp thing which is basically a suck knob.
 
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