It is like us, as Americans saying we drive Tesla to save the earth. (ignoring how they get the copper from the earth). We turn a blind eye and not realize of the overall consequences.
Yes, the pedal circuit was stolen. Almost every pedal circuit is stolen. Every pedal maker, cheap, mass produced Chinese to super expensive handmade boutique, steals circuits from everyone else. That's just how the pedal scene is.
@@prgaming5063 also wrong. Greeny has the magnet reversed. (the original Peter Green guitar was evidently a factory defect) The pickup was also put in upside-down after a repair, but that doesn't really affect the tone.
Fun fact: those Fesley guitars are made in the same Chinese factory as Squier. Another Fun Fact: they stopped selling those boxes here in the US because a bunch of American TH-cam channels that reviewed Fesleys like @ScarMyGuitar totally told the company that it was a bit over the top. You also missed the Elecratic Guitar and other hilarious errors on the box. So yeah, the recently stopped shipping guitars with these boxes and all the crazy branding (like 11-13 times in total on each guitar) in the US. I guess Canada got stuck with the leftovers, lol. But I’ve heard Fesleys are great starter or mod platform guitars that outperform the Squiers from the same factory. I’ve heard this from unpaid reviewers who got them with their own money and actual customers.
I thought the amp was the weakest of the lineup. And made the biggest difference, even with the clean channel. Maybe it's how he miked it up, but It sounds thin for a clean channel.
2:29 That Fesley manifesto has changed my life To the lastested delightful creative ity Touching my Fesley makes my soul amaze It grows and blossoms universally And shit
@hummens44 Man, lol That happened years ago. He had been high on meth and booze for like twenty years at that point. And he profusely apologized the next day.
2 very interesting things: - the distortion pedal really held up with the expensive gear. Incredible. - insane how individually the guitar and amp when paired with the expensive gear were fine (even the amp, but specially the guitar), but when you swapped both the quality declined A LOT. It shows very clearly that there are several incremental gains along the way
I like how you mixed up the equipment at the end. The amp seems to have the most effect in that setup. Then the guitar. The distortion was almost no difference. Then the wah actually sounded better with the cheap one, but that's because the expensive one was way more touchy and you played it the same as the cheap one.
@@HaynesEllisDS1 is great? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* haaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Oh my Satan what a funny joke dude
As a conesuer of cheap amazon pedals, they are pretty much all the same circuits, in the same housings, just with different praint and brands. For fun, take the back plate off and see what make/model orignally ordered the board. Its even better when they come with mode toggle and you have guess what the toggle does, and half the time the modes are reverse of whats printed. As for what its based on, pretty much every pedal is riff on something. At the end of the day you can only do so much in a mass produced circuit that is affordable and profitable.
I have had a few of those mini pedals over the years- more often than not they've been awesome. You can find some absolute monster gain pedals, solid choruses and other modulation effects, and even multi-band EQs all in that same kinda housing. They're pretty awesome for a gig on a budget and the small size makes them great for travel pedalboards too
Yeah there's no reason something like a distortion needs to cost much at all. So much of the process is going to be mechanized and done in bulk, most of the labor is probably just putting the parts in and screwing things down.
@@DigitalChemistryBand I suppose it's possible they might not be up to gigging as far as reliability and durability (though maybe they are, not much to go wrong) goes but totally fine for home use.
@@DigitalChemistryBand I’m certain some are for sure.. but when you’re broke and can get a pedal that, to the normal listener, sounds no different than a klon, who cares? I don’t care if my highs aren’t as crystal clear or if the sound is a little muddy I don’t have the $100 to get a better one and when I go play a show the audience can’t tell. Honing my abilities to actually play my instrument will do far more for me than a name-brand pedal will.
3:01 guitars are wood and magnets. The fact that the frets don’t stick out and the strings are close to the board, if you’re using distortion or overdrive, you’d likely never notice a difference unless you were looking at the sound waves
Also tonewood is a lie, the science doesn’t lie. Unless you’re recording an acoustic guitar with a microphone, you’d NEVER know what kind of wood or how many pieces of wood make it up
Funny thing is I've seen $1000 brand name guitars where every one of the dozen or so guitars from that brand in the store had horrible fret sprout and some were so bad that even a quick try them would have resulted in a bloody hand.
"was the circuit just straight up stolen from something else?" all pedal circuits are stolen from something else. there are really only 5 or 6 drive pedal designs, and everything else is just a clone or slight modification.
As someone who has been playing guitar since the 1980s, there is no need to buy cheap, poor quality gear when you can buy VERY good gear for not a lot of money, and get even better deals if you buy second hand. I'm British and I remember buying my first digital delay in the mid to late 80s, it was a Boss Digital Delay, and if memory serves, I think it cost me about £180 which in today's money is about £460. I've just had a look on Anderton's at their cheapest multi FX units, and you can buy a Valeton MES-1 Dapper Mini Effect Strip with a Digital Delay, Chorus, Overdrive and Distortion for £59. PLUS! It has a tuner, and the Digital Delay goes to 1000mS (The Boss Digital Delay went to 800mS), and it has tap tempo which the Boss didn't have either. So. Compared to a guitar geek in the 1980s, today, you can buy an effects unit with 5 times the effects (I'm including the tuner as an effect as you would have to buy this as a separate unit in the 80s), with more features for nearly an 8th of the price, and I haven't even mentioned the great guitars for the money you can get from manufacturers like Vintage, East Coast, Harley Benton and Sire. Who remembers the Les Paul Copies in the 1980s from companies like Satellite or Kay? Bodies made of plywood with a steam pressed plywood top to fake a carved top, but it was hollow underneath, complete with very weedy single coil pick-ups hiding under chrome PAF style covers so it looked like it had ''humbuckers.'' SHOCKING! 🫨🫨🫨
Saying « Look out for the planet » after a ‘I bought cheap Chinese crap from Amazon’ video hurts my soul 😔 I found that cheap Amazon pedals usually sound pretty good but the parts don’t last very long when used seriously. I think they’re good for a beginner to tryout when figuring out their sound before making serious purchases. But still, I feel we should be encouraging the used marked, similar(ish)prices for better gear… and we would be looking out for the planet 😉 Good vid though!
With Telescopes they tend to call the cheaper ones "Hobby killers" because they're poorly designed, cheaply built and will lead most newbies to believe that most telescopes suck, that term should apply also to all the cheap chinese guitar gear online, they work but only long enough to leave a good review. Just had this convo with my nephew the other night when he told me his temu guitar, amp and pedals are all broken, at least with 2nd hand gear it usually still works and holds some value if you decide to sell it down the line.
I'll put it like this. In many places around the world the "used" prices are not comparable to a new, cheap guitar. These instruments provide an entry point, I doubt most parents are going to go out and buy a good, used guitar when they aren't even sure if their kid will stick with it. Secondly, the planet is pretty much fucked as it is, so I don't think there's much we can do to fix that.
Buy used gear. Decent price, excellent quality. Most guitarists treat their gear better than their own family. Sweetwater is a good place to start looking. You'll also be surprised at what you can find at second hand stores or pawn shops.
Quality is more about durability than playability in the age of CNC. Cheap woods swell more under humid conditions, causing delamination of layers, cracking in paint, and fret lifting. It's also far easier to dent cheap wood or strip screw holes in cheap woods. Look-up the Janka hardness scale. Cheap metals wear down faster causing flat spots or grooves in frets, or grooves and burrs on tremolo posts.
@SEEYAIAYE I saw many people trashing Indonesian guitars made with agathis, but it has a Janka rating of 610, which is harder than poplar, basswood, or Eastern white pine. Essentially, agathis guitars have more durability at a lower price point.
@@mdargusch The only real issue I've heard over the years were the Indonesian made Ibanez's hardware rusting like crazy just from the sweat of playing.
During the blind playback: IMO the only thing that gave away the Fesley was that there's some high end resonance that is missing. it's duller than the other guitars.
I'm amazed how much cheap gear quality standards have risen since the 90s, when I learnt to play. The Dolamo D-8 Overdrive is now my favourite single pedal gain pedal ever, and it's about £20 new. Only drawback is mains power is the sole power source not a 9V but since it's on a pedal board, genuinely not a problem.
I love you, brother. Quality content as always. My wife bought your guitar course and absolutely loves it. I hope you and yours have a fantastic holiday. Much, much love, my friend. ✌️
Impressed with the guitar to be honest. I started on a Rogue I bought from Musician's Friend in the 90's and that was more money than this one. I think with anything else that is cheap, like furniture, time will be the big factor. You can move cheap furniture around so many times before it starts falling apart on you. Same thing here. My Rogue was fine until the saddles started breaking strings, the knobs started to go out, the chrome on the tuning pegs started to peel, and the plug connector started to become loose and eventually just let the plugs slide right out.
Amazing video! The Guitar was indeed impressive. The Stax pedal sounds incredible! I must admit, I'm not really sure about the Wah pedal, seems you were holding back on how you felt. 🤔😜
I have that Daphon. The moment I saw I had to remove a piece of rubber so I could switch it on/off, it went back to its box and never saw the light on the day ever again. I'm using it in the future for some electronics experiments, though.
I bought one of those wah pedals years ago (probably 10+ years?) and it's still the same design. It lives in a draw and I basically never use it. The most annoying thing is that it has a 3.5mm audio style plug socket for the power rather than the one that is pretty much standard across all other pedals. Not so bad now with isolated power and various connectors but when you are starting out with normal power blocks or daisy chains it can't be connected to them.
Sooo.. I've been looking at your courses for a while and always wanted to buy them. I was waiting for a good deal during the holidays. Currently I'm in a cast because I broke my left wrist :/ but I'm still going to enroll because this is just too good to give up, hope I can get back to playing soon
Been watching your vids for a while (and just realised i wasnt even subbed, YT feed is a strange place) and just signed up to the Dojo, I've been playing for many years completely by ear and feel I'm missing huge chunks in my knowledge, particularly when it comes to theory. I've been looking to fix this for a while and that price is just insane, looking forward to firing into it.
@@dfkman50 watts is 50 watts. Class A vs class B vs class D, etc. is about efficiency - so how much waste heat you are generating to push those 50 watts into the load.
Speaker efficiency is also a key to a classic Vox AC amp. Celestion alnicos are 4-5dB hotter than most other guitar speakers (ex: Fender Special Design), and maybe as much as 8-10dB hotter than the kind of speaker that often shows up in a modern < $200 guitar amp.
@@brucewahler6789 Excellent point often overlooked. I had an amp that went from "is that thing even on?" to "holy crap, is that mother loud!" just with a speaker change. A 3db increase is like going from ten to twenty watts. Every 3db increase is like doubling the wattage of the amp. An increase of 10db is like switching from ten watt amp to a hundred watts.
is the coil cover on upside down or did they do it for phase reasons? in the past I've seen where the weight if the pedal was heavy giving it a sense of quality because they used SAND mixed with epoxy the the cavity for weight. was the case at least made of pot metal?
Not so long ago, the question I kept hearing was _"If I'm a beginner with a limited budget, should I buy a good guitar and an affordable amp or an affordable guitar and a good amp"_ but I think that nowadays, affordable doesn't necessarily mean bad anymore. My answer used to be to buy a good guitar because if you start with an unplayable guitar, no matter how good your amp is, eventually you'll get frustrated and chances are you'll give up on guitar. Nowadays, though, as we can see here, it is possible to get a good guitar that's affordable and if you can't afford a tube amp, you can go digital, which will give you a decent sound.
That cheap wah was kinda smooth sounding, even if it was built like trash. The sweep as you stepped on it was softer than the other pedal. I can imagine a place for both.
Had the same reaction from the Squier’Debut’ strat. Needed a Strat to demo some pickups and it was $129 on US Amazon. My pickups, new pots and cap and a bone nut and it’s a decent guitar.
If someone asked why I’d recommend this channel and I wanted an example of SG’s wit, expertise, and tasty playing, this is the video to which I’d point them.
@@samuraiguitarist It would have been a more interesting comparison if you used the same stings on both. I have a feeling the Fesely would have sounded better. My guess is that it didn't come with the best strings to begin with.
I have an impression that you would make any guitar/rig sing... No, seriously, your playing is awesome; however you clearly showed the difference between the sound produced with cheapest and the more expensive gear. Thanks for the damo, great job! :) BTW, I own a piece of equipment which cost me an equivalent of 80 US dollars (brand new); it's an amp/cab modeller with all the basic effects you might need, namely a VOX StompLab. Plugged into a good monitor, it sounds just great. It has cured me of all the prejudices I might have had about cheap gear.
5:50 yeah like i expected that when magic ends cheap guitars (new or used) can be great often cheap amp have decent clean tones but when it's comes to overdrive distortion fuzz (depends what kind of overdrive it's have) it's starting to sound bad
I’ve kept exactly TWO pedals in the span of 30 years of playing: a Vox Wah that I modified to be true bypass, and added in the Foxrox buffer to make it happy next to a fuzz. The other is a “Rogue” branded plastic stereo volume pedal from Musicians friend that cost me $20 25 years ago… that thing might just survive the apocalypse.
Whenever you used the cheap amp, it was pretty easy to hear. The speaker is probably crap and it seems to like any power or high end. Everything else (even the wash), was hard to distinguish.
Yea I got one of those War's yep plastic and I removed one rubber part of the foot part, it just works great after lubing the hinge and I have played around with the circuit great little thing for learning how they work.
The cheapest guitar I've ever owned was €114, and has outperformed some guitars that cost thousands. It was almost perfectly set-up out of the box. (For those interested, it's the Washburn Win14.) I've had professional guitarists with custom-built guitarists check it. They couldn't believe it was a cheap guitar. It plays and sounds amazing. Always stays in tune no matter how much abuse I give it. The only problem after 8 years of ownership and gigging, is that the tone and volume knobs are a bit worn out and might need replaced.
I remember buying one of these wah pedals from Amazon about 13/14 years ago, I didn't know that much about guitar tech then and got fed up having to click on and off the wah by hand. I ended up gluing in a small scrap of wood to make it foot switch activated! Still got it today... However, it seems to be very dead even with a new battery.
When it comes to cheap gear, if you have a good speaker (or IR) and a guitar where the notes ring true without buzzing, you can get tones. I bet that amp could sound decent with a speaker that costs about as much as the amp itself.
Me, a bass player with a small bed room studio. That guitar might be good tool for writing/recording. That it came with low action and was intonated is insane at 130 dollar. I have never touched a starter instrument that did not need a full set up out of the box.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone point this out yet, but the headstock on the Fesley is literally just the "Warhead" headstock you can get on Warmoth necks. Which makes the blurb on the amazon product page about the "unique Fesley headstock design" even funnier tbh
Used wahs are always available used. I guess the novelty wears off fast. With most good wahs being quite robust and the circuitry being simple, buying used is pretty low risk
A $30 pedal does have ramifications for the whole industry. I make boutique pedals and the key is that somebody can buy a fuzz pedal for $30. So why would they buy mine? I have to offer something unique. Be it the case, the sound, and going for people that want something by a guy in his garage. That's hand built. If all you want is the sound by the $30 pedal. Guitar circuits are basically all the same. Everybody makes a fuzz face. Everybody makes a tube screamer. Pedal companies that care have to come up with a different offering.
As a boutique builder you can offer so much more. I get that everyone does the standard fuzz face, but you can make all the versions and flavours that Chinese manufacturers doesn’t make. Correct me if I’m wrong, but boutique makers can also make bespoke pedals. Obviously you can’t sell a pedal for 30€, but doing so would cheapen the product for how is it perceived
@@vittorioballeriocastoldi6171 A boutique builder can really only offer higher build quality and the good feeling that comes with supporting a small business. However, I am not paying over $300 for a fuzz pedal whose circuit has been cloned 400 million times over. Most of the classic tones we're all chasing were achieved with fairly cheap, off the shelf equipment. There's a room for both a high end boutique option, and a cheap option. But the reality is it's only a matter of time before a Chinese company clones any pedal and provides a cheaper option.
Are you in Canada but showing American prices for the masses? Because I'm in Canada and that guitar is $175 to me this Black Friday. I just tried a couple Donner and Monoprice/Indio strats during the sale. The Indio California Classic seems to be advertised as true American Fender specs, but I wonder if it's like a Squier body routed for American parts because the Donner body is bigger, thicker, and nicely rounded around the horns. I love the cheapest Donner DST-80 with open woodgrain in shell pink, but mine came with a cracked body and other signs of bad storage so I'm hoping more come in stock for a replacement. But check out the Leo Jaymz flamed maple top tele. That's the one. Dude...
I got a staxx EQ as some boot on a trade and I’ve had it close to 10 years and it’s fine a little noisy on a wall power supply but ran off a 9v on a dongle as quiet as any other quality pedal.
I'm fine with using them. My Harley Benton Rodent has 3 modes, classic Rat, turbo Rat and solo Rat for 20 bucks and it sounds amazing pushing a Plexi style amp with a tubescreamer in front of it for some extra gain. I would have never bought a turbo Rat but it was exactly what I needed, regular Rat didn't have the massive output I wanted because my amp has tons of headroom and I play high gain. I try not to buy Behringer anymore but plenty of the low budget mabufacturers are great and they are ok companies not any worse than any mass production company (Behringer is).
60CycleHum's Afford-a-Board and AffordaStrat series is an awesome deep dive into neat stuff you can find in Amazon's cheap bins if this kinda content tickles your fancy. There's some really great fuzz and distortion pedals out there for under $40.
On the guitar blind-test, is it bad that I genuinely preferred the sound of the Fesley and Squier over the more expensive guitars? Also, fun fact: "Whelmed" actually means what people mean when they say they're "overwhelmed". People just started exaggerating and saying they were over-whelmed, so now overwhelmed means you're overwhelmed and whelmed is largely forgotten despite meaning the same thing originally.
"I am super impressed to the point where I have human rights concerns" is just such a sentence
Why I buy used axes
Future generations will be paying the cost...
Yeah, because human rights abuses started yesterday.@@LazyCat010
buys it through amazon.....
It is like us, as Americans saying we drive Tesla to save the earth. (ignoring how they get the copper from the earth). We turn a blind eye and not realize of the overall consequences.
Yes, the pedal circuit was stolen. Almost every pedal circuit is stolen. Every pedal maker, cheap, mass produced Chinese to super expensive handmade boutique, steals circuits from everyone else. That's just how the pedal scene is.
You technically can't 'steal' a circuit!
The famous Tube Screamer itself is just a Boss OD-1 copy with one diode changed and a high shelf EQ stage tacked on.
@@anttihuovilainen1653 It's a clone of the MI Audio Crunch Box
Just like IPA’s, same from everyone haha
@@Octo98V01 1 of my favourite drops!
I had a really nice Korean 1 a few weeks ago!
The upside down pick up cover makes it the Greeny of Fesleys.
LOL! That's NOT how it works... but ok!
nope. the greeny has one of the pickups wired incorrectly. the fesly just has upsidedown pickup covers
@@prgaming5063 I did say that! (In not so many words!)
@@prgaming5063 also wrong. Greeny has the magnet reversed. (the original Peter Green guitar was evidently a factory defect) The pickup was also put in upside-down after a repair, but that doesn't really affect the tone.
@@DMSProduktionsno! You actually didn’t say that😂 hope this helps❤
Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Guitar Gear $13,000
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying.
Put all this wasted money into dogecoin and just leave it and wait. I've made money before off little down.
Cut out food and rent, those are just wasted money
@@MaydupNem good point, good point .. plus water too. Water definitely adds up over time. Just cut out those three things you'll be saving in no time
@@ULTRAVISTA. Crypto scam bot!
consider investing in candles
Fun fact: those Fesley guitars are made in the same Chinese factory as Squier.
Another Fun Fact: they stopped selling those boxes here in the US because a bunch of American TH-cam channels that reviewed Fesleys like @ScarMyGuitar totally told the company that it was a bit over the top. You also missed the Elecratic Guitar and other hilarious errors on the box. So yeah, the recently stopped shipping guitars with these boxes and all the crazy branding (like 11-13 times in total on each guitar) in the US. I guess Canada got stuck with the leftovers, lol.
But I’ve heard Fesleys are great starter or mod platform guitars that outperform the Squiers from the same factory. I’ve heard this from unpaid reviewers who got them with their own money and actual customers.
I'm guessing combination of language barrier and AI slop resulted in that word salad.
The Squiers have more resale value, but yeah, they're not much better than this guitar at the lowest end.
*l a t e s t e d d e s i g n*
... smells like it.
@@AeduoIt made complete & total sense? 😅 You just have poor reading comprehension.
Drive channel on that amp is rough, pheweee.
Absoluuuuutely my friend.
Are you a fan of doctor mike or something
NASTEH! Clean ch is ok tho!
I thought the amp was the weakest of the lineup. And made the biggest difference, even with the clean channel. Maybe it's how he miked it up, but It sounds thin for a clean channel.
@@Alkatross Most likely the speaker.
2:29
That Fesley manifesto has changed my life
To the lastested delightful creative ity
Touching my Fesley makes my soul amaze
It grows and blossoms universally
And shit
And then 2 days after this review, the distortion box goes up to ~$80.
Ahh the fomo! I just bought one
@nocaster5120 Odds are this is a copy of a DS-1, so if you don't have one, this is a good way to fill that gap if you like the sound.
The guitar is up to $220. 😁
Lovely
Ah yes, the old JHS effect (pun intended).
Josh Homme will soon be using this gear as his secret weapons!
Do you mean he'll be using it to beat the audience with it?
Hahah Buy it now and sell in a week at 10x the price!
He only uses american/japanese/australian shit to turn into gold.
Josh Homme signature Wesley
@hummens44 Man, lol That happened years ago. He had been high on meth and booze for like twenty years at that point. And he profusely apologized the next day.
2 very interesting things:
- the distortion pedal really held up with the expensive gear. Incredible.
- insane how individually the guitar and amp when paired with the expensive gear were fine (even the amp, but specially the guitar), but when you swapped both the quality declined A LOT. It shows very clearly that there are several incremental gains along the way
I like how you mixed up the equipment at the end. The amp seems to have the most effect in that setup. Then the guitar. The distortion was almost no difference. Then the wah actually sounded better with the cheap one, but that's because the expensive one was way more touchy and you played it the same as the cheap one.
The amp has ALWAYS the most effect on any setup, though.
I agree, the cheap wah sounded better. If you could move the works into a better casing, it would be a good pedal.
How lucky is this, I just went to the channel about 10 minutes ago and sammy flies in with the clutch upload
Also, that distortion pedal is an exact repro of whatever Distortion is hip with the kids here in the states. Probably a Boss DS-1....
DS-1 is great so that should be good too
@@HaynesEllisDS1 is great? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* haaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Oh my Satan what a funny joke dude
Learn to dial it in
.. hip with the kids...
Nah the DS-1 kinda sounds closer to a ProCo Rat for my ears. That stax kinda gives me TS-9 vibes with a pre-amp boost.
That demo was awesome! I love the dynamics of the different sounds and styles!
the cheap amp with the expensive guitar had this really nice lofi tone
@@rainbowslushy223 yeah it caught me off guard as probably my favorite tone in the video
Yeah, I thought the same about that. I liked that a lot.
8:20 "It smells funny." My favorite part of the gear review. lol
As a conesuer of cheap amazon pedals, they are pretty much all the same circuits, in the same housings, just with different praint and brands. For fun, take the back plate off and see what make/model orignally ordered the board. Its even better when they come with mode toggle and you have guess what the toggle does, and half the time the modes are reverse of whats printed.
As for what its based on, pretty much every pedal is riff on something. At the end of the day you can only do so much in a mass produced circuit that is affordable and profitable.
I have had a few of those mini pedals over the years- more often than not they've been awesome. You can find some absolute monster gain pedals, solid choruses and other modulation effects, and even multi-band EQs all in that same kinda housing. They're pretty awesome for a gig on a budget and the small size makes them great for travel pedalboards too
Yeah there's no reason something like a distortion needs to cost much at all. So much of the process is going to be mechanized and done in bulk, most of the labor is probably just putting the parts in and screwing things down.
They're crap... you're deluding yourself
@@DigitalChemistryBand I suppose it's possible they might not be up to gigging as far as reliability and durability (though maybe they are, not much to go wrong) goes but totally fine for home use.
@@DigitalChemistryBand I’m certain some are for sure.. but when you’re broke and can get a pedal that, to the normal listener, sounds no different than a klon, who cares? I don’t care if my highs aren’t as crystal clear or if the sound is a little muddy I don’t have the $100 to get a better one and when I go play a show the audience can’t tell. Honing my abilities to actually play my instrument will do far more for me than a name-brand pedal will.
@@Aeduo This. If you ever try building your own pedal you understand why a pedal could be built on the cheap.
I have a fesley I use as a knock around back up guitar especially for when I'm on break at work and for the price its really worth it
For a cheap amp check out the smaller analog Hiwatt amps. The Crunch 17 or Leeds 25 sound amazing and they are right around $200.
Hiwatt amps have been around for ages and are actually made in England! Peter Hook of Joy Division used one.
3:01 guitars are wood and magnets. The fact that the frets don’t stick out and the strings are close to the board, if you’re using distortion or overdrive, you’d likely never notice a difference unless you were looking at the sound waves
Also tonewood is a lie, the science doesn’t lie. Unless you’re recording an acoustic guitar with a microphone, you’d NEVER know what kind of wood or how many pieces of wood make it up
Funny thing is I've seen $1000 brand name guitars where every one of the dozen or so guitars from that brand in the store had horrible fret sprout and some were so bad that even a quick try them would have resulted in a bloody hand.
"was the circuit just straight up stolen from something else?" all pedal circuits are stolen from something else. there are really only 5 or 6 drive pedal designs, and everything else is just a clone or slight modification.
That's an oversimplification, but yes there's only a few principles to distortion pedals.
Most cheap pedals also tend to be intentional clones of more expensive ones. its an open secret with pedals.
As someone who has been playing guitar since the 1980s, there is no need to buy cheap, poor quality gear when you can buy VERY good gear for not a lot of money, and get even better deals if you buy second hand.
I'm British and I remember buying my first digital delay in the mid to late 80s, it was a Boss Digital Delay, and if memory serves, I think it cost me about £180 which in today's money is about £460.
I've just had a look on Anderton's at their cheapest multi FX units, and you can buy a Valeton MES-1 Dapper Mini Effect Strip with a Digital Delay, Chorus, Overdrive and Distortion for £59.
PLUS! It has a tuner, and the Digital Delay goes to 1000mS (The Boss Digital Delay went to 800mS), and it has tap tempo which the Boss didn't have either.
So. Compared to a guitar geek in the 1980s, today, you can buy an effects unit with 5 times the effects (I'm including the tuner as an effect as you would have to buy this as a separate unit in the 80s), with more features for nearly an 8th of the price, and I haven't even mentioned the great guitars for the money you can get from manufacturers like Vintage, East Coast, Harley Benton and Sire.
Who remembers the Les Paul Copies in the 1980s from companies like Satellite or Kay? Bodies made of plywood with a steam pressed plywood top to fake a carved top, but it was hollow underneath, complete with very weedy single coil pick-ups hiding under chrome PAF style covers so it looked like it had ''humbuckers.'' SHOCKING! 🫨🫨🫨
Other than the pickups having a little less punch its not too bad for the price.
Saying « Look out for the planet » after a ‘I bought cheap Chinese crap from Amazon’ video hurts my soul 😔 I found that cheap Amazon pedals usually sound pretty good but the parts don’t last very long when used seriously. I think they’re good for a beginner to tryout when figuring out their sound before making serious purchases. But still, I feel we should be encouraging the used marked, similar(ish)prices for better gear… and we would be looking out for the planet 😉 Good vid though!
With Telescopes they tend to call the cheaper ones "Hobby killers" because they're poorly designed, cheaply built and will lead most newbies to believe that most telescopes suck, that term should apply also to all the cheap chinese guitar gear online, they work but only long enough to leave a good review. Just had this convo with my nephew the other night when he told me his temu guitar, amp and pedals are all broken, at least with 2nd hand gear it usually still works and holds some value if you decide to sell it down the line.
I'll put it like this. In many places around the world the "used" prices are not comparable to a new, cheap guitar. These instruments provide an entry point, I doubt most parents are going to go out and buy a good, used guitar when they aren't even sure if their kid will stick with it. Secondly, the planet is pretty much fucked as it is, so I don't think there's much we can do to fix that.
Buy used gear. Decent price, excellent quality. Most guitarists treat their gear better than their own family. Sweetwater is a good place to start looking. You'll also be surprised at what you can find at second hand stores or pawn shops.
Quality is more about durability than playability in the age of CNC.
Cheap woods swell more under humid conditions, causing delamination of layers, cracking in paint, and fret lifting. It's also far easier to dent cheap wood or strip screw holes in cheap woods. Look-up the Janka hardness scale.
Cheap metals wear down faster causing flat spots or grooves in frets, or grooves and burrs on tremolo posts.
Very interesting info, hadn't thought about this before, thanks!
There's a reason a lot of guitar makers went with Indonesia instead of China
@SEEYAIAYE I saw many people trashing Indonesian guitars made with agathis, but it has a Janka rating of 610, which is harder than poplar, basswood, or Eastern white pine. Essentially, agathis guitars have more durability at a lower price point.
@@mdargusch The only real issue I've heard over the years were the Indonesian made Ibanez's hardware rusting like crazy just from the sweat of playing.
@@SEEYAIAYEdon’t sweet it
I just bought that distortion with your link. Love your videos 🤘🤘
10:08 I was actually about to try and get that back in 8th grade, before I found the Hotone Wah/Vol pedal. Thanks for helping me dodge a bullet there
During the blind playback: IMO the only thing that gave away the Fesley was that there's some high end resonance that is missing. it's duller than the other guitars.
It could be because of the ceramic pickups
I think the bridge was muffling the strings somehow.
Fesley baby!!!!
Aren't you that guy that does that thing on that internet channel thingy?
@ excellent description of what I do
@@seandaniel23 I'm a man of of of (what do you call them???) oh yeah...words.
Could you review the Amazon basics dreadnaught acoustic? It’s like $80 I have one and love it think it sounds amazing with some quality strings
Should we do round 2?
@@samuraiguitarist YEAAAAH
@@samuraiguitarist 100% should
Great Video Samurai! Amazing comparisons, truly showing where gear and hard earned money is differential!
I'm amazed how much cheap gear quality standards have risen since the 90s, when I learnt to play. The Dolamo D-8 Overdrive is now my favourite single pedal gain pedal ever, and it's about £20 new. Only drawback is mains power is the sole power source not a 9V but since it's on a pedal board, genuinely not a problem.
This video took a lot of time and editing. That is most impressive. Great job S⚔️G!
I love you, brother. Quality content as always. My wife bought your guitar course and absolutely loves it. I hope you and yours have a fantastic holiday. Much, much love, my friend. ✌️
Most of the guitar channels that routinely review cheap guitars have given the Fesley guitars rave reviews.
"Latested Design" (sic at 2:23) - obviously no Scripps-Howard spelling champs at the FesleyWorks
Impressed with the guitar to be honest. I started on a Rogue I bought from Musician's Friend in the 90's and that was more money than this one. I think with anything else that is cheap, like furniture, time will be the big factor. You can move cheap furniture around so many times before it starts falling apart on you. Same thing here. My Rogue was fine until the saddles started breaking strings, the knobs started to go out, the chrome on the tuning pegs started to peel, and the plug connector started to become loose and eventually just let the plugs slide right out.
Very helpful shoot-out - thanks Sammy G!
Amazing video! The Guitar was indeed impressive. The Stax pedal sounds incredible! I must admit, I'm not really sure about the Wah pedal, seems you were holding back on how you felt. 🤔😜
Did I miss the part where the amp is tube or solid?
At that price, you just can't expect it to be a tube amp, it is certainly solid state, probably even a class D in the power section.
I have that Daphon. The moment I saw I had to remove a piece of rubber so I could switch it on/off, it went back to its box and never saw the light on the day ever again. I'm using it in the future for some electronics experiments, though.
I bought one of those wah pedals years ago (probably 10+ years?) and it's still the same design. It lives in a draw and I basically never use it. The most annoying thing is that it has a 3.5mm audio style plug socket for the power rather than the one that is pretty much standard across all other pedals. Not so bad now with isolated power and various connectors but when you are starting out with normal power blocks or daisy chains it can't be connected to them.
Sooo.. I've been looking at your courses for a while and always wanted to buy them. I was waiting for a good deal during the holidays. Currently I'm in a cast because I broke my left wrist :/ but I'm still going to enroll because this is just too good to give up, hope I can get back to playing soon
Wouldve been cool to see if the fesley stays in tune after using the whammy (probably not)
That Daphon wah was my first ever wah! I can't believe they still exist!
The first wah i had, was the same one that was in this video. I remember after a bit of use, it would randomly start ”screeching” when i used it lol
Been watching your vids for a while (and just realised i wasnt even subbed, YT feed is a strange place) and just signed up to the Dojo, I've been playing for many years completely by ear and feel I'm missing huge chunks in my knowledge, particularly when it comes to theory. I've been looking to fix this for a while and that price is just insane, looking forward to firing into it.
I like the sound of that amp. The speaker has a nice tone. I may have to pick one up to try with my synths.
"It's not very loud"…the VOX AC30 would like a word ;-)
AC30 is class A and this is probably class D though, so those 50 watts aren't the same
@@dfkman50 watts is 50 watts. Class A vs class B vs class D, etc. is about efficiency - so how much waste heat you are generating to push those 50 watts into the load.
@@akkudakkupl If you think 50 solid state watts = 50 tube watts, you need a basic lesson in how gear works.
Speaker efficiency is also a key to a classic Vox AC amp. Celestion alnicos are 4-5dB hotter than most other guitar speakers (ex: Fender Special Design), and maybe as much as 8-10dB hotter than the kind of speaker that often shows up in a modern < $200 guitar amp.
@@brucewahler6789 Excellent point often overlooked. I had an amp that went from "is that thing even on?" to "holy crap, is that mother loud!" just with a speaker change. A 3db increase is like going from ten to twenty watts. Every 3db increase is like doubling the wattage of the amp. An increase of 10db is like switching from ten watt amp to a hundred watts.
is the coil cover on upside down or did they do it for phase reasons?
in the past I've seen where the weight if the pedal was heavy giving it a sense of quality because they used SAND mixed with epoxy the the cavity for weight.
was the case at least made of pot metal?
As always, I love the production of your demos Sammy G! Love from North Dakota!
You're just down the road! I've driven through ND many times, me and my buddies would go to concerts in Fargo.
@@samuraiguitarist Awesome man!!!
Not so long ago, the question I kept hearing was _"If I'm a beginner with a limited budget, should I buy a good guitar and an affordable amp or an affordable guitar and a good amp"_ but I think that nowadays, affordable doesn't necessarily mean bad anymore.
My answer used to be to buy a good guitar because if you start with an unplayable guitar, no matter how good your amp is, eventually you'll get frustrated and chances are you'll give up on guitar.
Nowadays, though, as we can see here, it is possible to get a good guitar that's affordable and if you can't afford a tube amp, you can go digital, which will give you a decent sound.
Cheap amp with the Fesley sounded great to play some indie rock/The Smiths type music, just need to add a good reverb pedal and a delay.
I want to know where I can get a Fesley T-shirt.
I got a Daphne Wash that had no way to switch on and off. The treadle didn’t reach the switch underneath. 😅
I liked the sound of the cheap guitar with the expensive amp at the end more than the expensive guitar with the cheap amp
How much lead is in the Paint?
That cheap wah was kinda smooth sounding, even if it was built like trash.
The sweep as you stepped on it was softer than the other pedal. I can imagine a place for both.
That mix-up demo at the end was 👌🏼I appreciate the time it took you to make that. Conclusion: crappy amp = crappy tone. Especially with cleans.
Had the same reaction from the Squier’Debut’ strat. Needed a Strat to demo some pickups and it was $129 on US Amazon. My pickups, new pots and cap and a bone nut and it’s a decent guitar.
driving me nuts that the neck pickup is installed the wrong way lol
Ok but like what is the good wah wah pedal you used tho?
I bought a fesley telly style diy kit and I was blown away at its quality
I was so confused why it suddenly turned into a shopping channel bit but then you mentioned the amazon links lol
If someone asked why I’d recommend this channel and I wanted an example of SG’s wit, expertise, and tasty playing, this is the video to which I’d point them.
I'm curious if you used the strings that the Fesley shipped with, or if you changed them?
Those are the strings it came with, which I am pretty sure would be 9's, my preference is typically 10's
@@samuraiguitarist It would have been a more interesting comparison if you used the same stings on both. I have a feeling the Fesely would have sounded better. My guess is that it didn't come with the best strings to begin with.
I have an impression that you would make any guitar/rig sing... No, seriously, your playing is awesome; however you clearly showed the difference between the sound produced with cheapest and the more expensive gear. Thanks for the damo, great job! :)
BTW, I own a piece of equipment which cost me an equivalent of 80 US dollars (brand new); it's an amp/cab modeller with all the basic effects you might need, namely a VOX StompLab. Plugged into a good monitor, it sounds just great. It has cured me of all the prejudices I might have had about cheap gear.
5:50 yeah like i expected that when magic ends cheap guitars (new or used) can be great often cheap amp have decent clean tones but when it's comes to overdrive distortion fuzz (depends what kind of overdrive it's have) it's starting to sound bad
I got a delay pedal from Amazon in about 2017. It cost me £8 and has a short delay but is all metal and still works to this day.
That Fesley looks better made than the cheap 80s Washburn I started my guitar journey on!
I’ve kept exactly TWO pedals in the span of 30 years of playing: a Vox Wah that I modified to be true bypass, and added in the Foxrox buffer to make it happy next to a fuzz. The other is a “Rogue” branded plastic stereo volume pedal from Musicians friend that cost me $20 25 years ago… that thing might just survive the apocalypse.
Whenever you used the cheap amp, it was pretty easy to hear. The speaker is probably crap and it seems to like any power or high end. Everything else (even the wash), was hard to distinguish.
That distortion box is a beast!
Yea I got one of those War's yep plastic and I removed one rubber part of the foot part, it just works great after lubing the hinge and I have played around with the circuit great little thing for learning how they work.
The cheapest guitar I've ever owned was €114, and has outperformed some guitars that cost thousands. It was almost perfectly set-up out of the box. (For those interested, it's the Washburn Win14.) I've had professional guitarists with custom-built guitarists check it. They couldn't believe it was a cheap guitar. It plays and sounds amazing. Always stays in tune no matter how much abuse I give it. The only problem after 8 years of ownership and gigging, is that the tone and volume knobs are a bit worn out and might need replaced.
I remember buying one of these wah pedals from Amazon about 13/14 years ago, I didn't know that much about guitar tech then and got fed up having to click on and off the wah by hand. I ended up gluing in a small scrap of wood to make it foot switch activated! Still got it today... However, it seems to be very dead even with a new battery.
0:57 the was cost me like 10 bucks on wish 2 years ago
When it comes to cheap gear, if you have a good speaker (or IR) and a guitar where the notes ring true without buzzing, you can get tones. I bet that amp could sound decent with a speaker that costs about as much as the amp itself.
you should check the cool music delay and crunch..two amazing pedals
Me, a bass player with a small bed room studio. That guitar might be good tool for writing/recording. That it came with low action and was intonated is insane at 130 dollar. I have never touched a starter instrument that did not need a full set up out of the box.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone point this out yet, but the headstock on the Fesley is literally just the "Warhead" headstock you can get on Warmoth necks.
Which makes the blurb on the amazon product page about the "unique Fesley headstock design" even funnier tbh
Does that distortion pedal use a battery? I would actually replace my no battery/weird power supply Black star pedal with that!!
I wonder if the Fesley brand is the same as the Fazley brand you can buy here in the Netherlands.
Fazley is overal te koop. Fesley is denk ik een rip-off van Fazley wat heel amusant is want Fazley is sowieso al een budget merk.
As much as anything else, they'd potentially all (except that wah, I guess) be usable for adding a slightly different layer to recordings.
They use MSPA13 transistos. ou can make the circuit for $ 2. Input and output jacks will cost extra $5. So $8
... i wonder if that Amp kicks it up some within a few hours of live play.
Used wahs are always available used. I guess the novelty wears off fast. With most good wahs being quite robust and the circuitry being simple, buying used is pretty low risk
A $30 pedal does have ramifications for the whole industry. I make boutique pedals and the key is that somebody can buy a fuzz pedal for $30. So why would they buy mine? I have to offer something unique. Be it the case, the sound, and going for people that want something by a guy in his garage. That's hand built. If all you want is the sound by the $30 pedal. Guitar circuits are basically all the same. Everybody makes a fuzz face. Everybody makes a tube screamer. Pedal companies that care have to come up with a different offering.
As a boutique builder you can offer so much more. I get that everyone does the standard fuzz face, but you can make all the versions and flavours that Chinese manufacturers doesn’t make. Correct me if I’m wrong, but boutique makers can also make bespoke pedals. Obviously you can’t sell a pedal for 30€, but doing so would cheapen the product for how is it perceived
@@vittorioballeriocastoldi6171 A boutique builder can really only offer higher build quality and the good feeling that comes with supporting a small business. However, I am not paying over $300 for a fuzz pedal whose circuit has been cloned 400 million times over. Most of the classic tones we're all chasing were achieved with fairly cheap, off the shelf equipment. There's a room for both a high end boutique option, and a cheap option. But the reality is it's only a matter of time before a Chinese company clones any pedal and provides a cheaper option.
Are you in Canada but showing American prices for the masses? Because I'm in Canada and that guitar is $175 to me this Black Friday.
I just tried a couple Donner and Monoprice/Indio strats during the sale. The Indio California Classic seems to be advertised as true American Fender specs, but I wonder if it's like a Squier body routed for American parts because the Donner body is bigger, thicker, and nicely rounded around the horns.
I love the cheapest Donner DST-80 with open woodgrain in shell pink, but mine came with a cracked body and other signs of bad storage so I'm hoping more come in stock for a replacement.
But check out the Leo Jaymz flamed maple top tele. That's the one. Dude...
It’s like they researched how to make the worst guitar gear and now you are peer reviewing their research.
it was at this point I realized what a good idea it was to get the black friday deal. That song at the end was niiiiice
So what about the gear you didn't buy like cheap cables? Curious.
That distortion pedal has a 40% coupon on it right now at US Amazon, so it's around 15 bucks. Crazy.
There is a 40% discount on the STAX pedal right now! (12 DEC 2024 9pm EST)
I got a staxx EQ as some boot on a trade and I’ve had it close to 10 years and it’s fine a little noisy on a wall power supply but ran off a 9v on a dongle as quiet as any other quality pedal.
All the stax/joyo/donner stuff is incredible value for money. Since their circuit clones you can use them to test drive the more expensive pedals.
I'm fine with using them. My Harley Benton Rodent has 3 modes, classic Rat, turbo Rat and solo Rat for 20 bucks and it sounds amazing pushing a Plexi style amp with a tubescreamer in front of it for some extra gain. I would have never bought a turbo Rat but it was exactly what I needed, regular Rat didn't have the massive output I wanted because my amp has tons of headroom and I play high gain. I try not to buy Behringer anymore but plenty of the low budget mabufacturers are great and they are ok companies not any worse than any mass production company (Behringer is).
Okay, but did the wah smell funny before or after you used it?
60CycleHum's Afford-a-Board and AffordaStrat series is an awesome deep dive into neat stuff you can find in Amazon's cheap bins if this kinda content tickles your fancy. There's some really great fuzz and distortion pedals out there for under $40.
On the guitar blind-test, is it bad that I genuinely preferred the sound of the Fesley and Squier over the more expensive guitars?
Also, fun fact: "Whelmed" actually means what people mean when they say they're "overwhelmed". People just started exaggerating and saying they were over-whelmed, so now overwhelmed means you're overwhelmed and whelmed is largely forgotten despite meaning the same thing originally.