What pedal to get?

[spiro2903]

I know what you mean, and you are right: I am leaning a bit towards Tsakalis. But it is not quite a clear cut. If I am thinking between 2 of anything I tend to go with a more reliable brand, or more established, better customer service, etc. I have known about Weehbo for quite some time and have wanted some of their pedals, just couldn't afford them. And I have heard some of their pedals live (just not these ones), and the brand allways gets good reviews and praise. I don't know anything about Tsakalis and haven't even heard about them until I started this thread. Haven't heard of Colombo either.
I will be ordering from Thomann and I can return it within 14 days but I believe I will need to pay fro the shipping. But that might be an option, I see that shipping isn't that expensive. I might write to Thomann as well to confirm this.

 

[Matopotato]

I know what you mean, and you are right: I am leaning a bit towards Tsakalis. But it is not quite a clear cut. If I am thinking between 2 of anything I tend to go with a more reliable brand, or more established, better customer service, etc. I have known about Weehbo for quite some time and have wanted some of their pedals, just couldn't afford them. And I have heard some of their pedals live (just not these ones), and the brand allways gets good reviews and praise. I don't know anything about Tsakalis and haven't even heard about them until I started this thread. Haven't heard of Colombo either.
I will be ordering from Thomann and I can return it within 14 days but I believe I will need to pay fro the shipping. But that might be an option, I see that shipping isn't that expensive. I might write to Thomann as well to confirm this.

Cool!
At least until my last order Thomann provide free shipping if above 200Eur or something like that. If you before 14 days log in and file a return, they send you a label to print and return selected goods for free. Between d15-30 you get to pay the shipping. Not sure, happened only once, but not too costly considering. I think they are aware and even encouraged "not sure what to get? Take 'all' and return the ones you don't want to keep". It is very generous, but for sure both 'win' in the end. The get most of my business.
Once I wanted a distortion, and after hours on youtube I was down to 5 candidates: ProCo Rat, Jam Rattler, Bogner Red and Blue (smaller version) and Boss MT-2 (had to try for.myself). I ordered all and tested for keeping one.

Ended up with three...

 

[Bull Rock]

Revv g2, and/or any pedal with word plexi in it. Wampler makes a few.

 

[spiro2903]

Well the last week has been very hectic. I got both pedals on Tuesday but couldn't try them out untill today. Short version is I was leaning more towards Tsakalis but now that I've tried them I am keeping the Wheebo jcm drive. Long version is that they are very close. Or at least you CAN set them almost identical but the controls will look completely differently! What I mean is that I was trying them and my wife said "Oooooh I like the sound of that one, what does the other one sounds like?" To which I replied "I've been switching between the 2 for the last 5 min!". She isn't a guitarist but they did sound almost identical. However on Wheebo the bass was almost all the way off, as in below 9 o'clock, and on Tsakalis it was around 1 o'clock. Same with the gain, Wheebo around noon, Tsakalis almost full. Not that you can't get lower gain with weehbo, but you do need to play around with input knob and dynamic switch. 2 things I didn't like about Wheebo was a lot of bass and interactive input knob and dynamic switch. Those things REALLY affect the sound and gain (with bass) structure. Someone said that you need to fiddle a lot with Tsakalis to get a good sound. I didn't find that, it's easy to get a good sound quite easily on both but I fiddled more with Wheebo. Mainly due to a lot of bass and gain. However when I did find a sound I was looking for it was closer for MOST things on Wheebo. I would say AC/DC goes to Wheebo, Gary Moore as well, but Gary was hardest to dial in on both and was very close. ZZ top I would say sounds better with Tsakalis, and I imagine Hendrix as well, but I'm not gonna even attempt to massacre his songs that's way out of my league. With 2 channel blend on Tsakalis you can get very nice dark saturated Hendrix tones and Clapton woman tone. I think tone stack on Wheebo is active and on Tsakalis passive. It sounds like Wheebo has more adjustability. I could be wrong. Also Tsakalis has a bit more harmonics in the mids but with a bit of fiddling you can get Wheebo very close. Both pedals are touch sensitive and clean up easily with volume control or lighter picking. Both take TS type pedal nicely as well although I didn't use one, just tried it for a few seconds. One more thing I didn't like on Tsakalis is that boost switch is very close to on switch so i would often press both or press Tsakalis and pedal next door. It needs to be slightly further from other pedals. I LOVE the look of Tsakalis. Esthetics might not play a part in the sound but it is nice to have a nice looking pedal. Wheebo blue just doesn't come close, and I don't know why they chose that color. They had a gold one and black one but only in limited series.
Anyway I'll do some more playing next few days hopefully so I might post more about weehbo. If you have any questions feel free to ask, and thanks all for the replies and advice. Unfortunately Marshall is not in the stars...for now...

 

[Matopotato]

Glad you tried a few. For some reason when it gets real enough, GAS thinking has reduced impact IMHO. And there is a chance of a more balanced decision.

 

[PowerTube44]

If you want cheap, but decent:




If you want great: