Aldi Guitar Pedals

[chromesphere]

Hey guys,
I've previously reviewed a couple of these 'livingstone' guitar pedals, the delay and the chorus, which were borrowed from my brother in law.  Both were...well...failures, for numerous reasons.  But I was thinking, the overdrive....SURELY they couldn't stuff up an overdrive right?  Anyway, I was thinking if you guys were interested in seeing / hearing one of these I would buy one and check out what's inside.  Or the distortion?  Or maybe just take my $30 and set fire to it?

here's the catalogue:
https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-buys/saturday-08-march-2014/

Paul

[haveyouseenhim]

If it sound like poo I'll gladly shoot it with an AK-47 for ya 

[RobA]

Hmm, it says "Battery or AC powered" in the ad. That could lead to some interesting outcomes.

[LaceSensor]

you can get Joyos for that which are verified as good. personally I wouldnt bother.

[sonarchotic]

My wife is there now grocery shopping. I'll have to call her to pick up lunch meats and uh, oh yeah a delay and overdrive. Be sure and get that delay from the deli because you know how I hate that freezer burnt sound. I know the new overdrive says it's made with all natural ingredients but if it doesn't have the organic sticker then I don't want it. They'll put those cheap Tayda caps in there and claim it's all natural but they don't care about our tone. Monsanto is behind this.

[chromesphere]

I think you would need something a bit more powerful mike

Good point Lace.  These pedals are buffered and the only shielding they have is a backplate, whereas the joyos are metal enclosure and true bypass.  I guess this is the only way to make a pedal for $30 inc profit, but those 2 features are pretty necessary if you ask me.  I'd say the overdrive is an smd tubescreamer no doubt.  Im concerned about the buffer though.  If it was made by a reputable company it probably wouldn't matter.  But "livingstone" labelled the dials on the chorus wrong.. 

Aldi's stuff is hit and miss (probably more miss then hit).  They had a woodworking chisel set that were incredibly good for the price, woodworkers were raving about them being an excellent choice for a beginner set, wooden ash handles, holds an edge well etc.  They also sold out in 2 days before I had a chance to buy them. 

[Willybomb]

I have the chorus and the OD from a couple of years ago.  Overall, they're not too bad.  The chorus in particular is great (didn't notice the swapped labels, I'll check that out) but I'm keen to try it against the pork barrell I'm building now.  The Aldi is better than my Little Angel imo.  It nails that Police clean chorused sound, and the dirty Def Leppard tone.

The OD is supposed to be an SD-1 from what I've heard around the tracks, but I'm not a huge fan of it mainly because it just seems pretty flat and lifeless.

[chromesphere]

Actually, from memory willy it was the delay that had the dials around the wrong way (repeats and time were swapped or something like that)!

I think the issue with the chorus was the distortion, the signal sounded clipped.  Well...the particular pedal I was using was definitely clipping the signal.  It was impossible to ignore and rendered the pedal useless.  I gotta say if they fixed that issue, the chorus would have actually been fairly decent!

[Willybomb]

I gotta say, mine's pretty awesome.

[Gledison]

Hey Paul, those are plastic enclosures?
im wondering if i could find it in Aldi Germany, never seen before.
Cheers

[chromesphere]

idk willy, this chorus distorted big time.  Maybe it didn't like high output pickups (humbuckers)?  I found the video i uploaded here if your curious to hear it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NThkiYa_zd0
Paul

[Willybomb]

I use mine with a Tonezone, a JB, and a Super Distortion... never had any issues like in your vid.

[Willybomb]

I just re-tried my three choruses just to make sure I wasn't deceiving myself:

Little Angel:  Thin sounding.  Maybe not a huge range of depth but okish
Aldi:  The most range of the three I have.  Seems to be the only one that can do a "warble".  Probably my favorite.
Pork Barrel:  I like it, but even though I like a more mellow chorus I can't seem to get much depth out of it so far.  I'd just like a bit ... more.  It has the 3207/3102 combination.

[chromesphere]

Hey Willy, I cant remember my results in the video but do your aldi / pork barrel choruses sound the same as mine?  I think I ended up concluding the small clone was actually my favourite, maybe for the same reason you mentioned.  I would say the aldi chorus would be an excellent pedal if it wasn't for the distortion!  I cant use a chorus with distortion...it just sounded terrible...If you could bypass the buffer (re-house) and fix the distortion it would be a very good effect for $30.

[Willybomb]

From the video you posted above, your pork barrel has the depth mod and gets a warble, mine doesn't, it's a bit more subtle than that - think "message in a bottle" at it's max settings.

My aldi one is similar to yours in the vid, just no distortion.