STOMP BOX STEALS: ___ THE UPDATER___MARCH 2026___NEW GEAR NEWS___UPDATED__

THE UPDATER
MARCH 2026

Separate those pedals that are a steal from those
that are stealing from you at any price.

IF ITS WORTH KNOWING ITS HERE FIRST

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MY MONTHLY RANT
Tarriffs off ....Tariffs on. 10% then 15% then who knows WTF!!!

TIME TO SHOUT

Like most of you the budget is a more than a bit strained. My wife will be out of the country for a month so Muggins here will be doing all the household buying which for the most part will be groceries at the new eye watering prices.
New pedals have slowed down. No one knows when to buy the parts etc. as they may overpay and won't be able to recoup the costs and no one is shipping the parts for transportation is all over the map with prices and delays etc. is also in a mess.

FENDER

....is going to fire 250 workers in May. They have kept creeping up the prices and no one is buying. Amps new at $2000 are literally easy to find used and even mint sell

for $1000. Last week Youtuber Phillip McKnight bought a Fender Hot Rod amp and was
shocked at the difference. He said he found 3 under $1000 in just seconds of looking.
.....Double back here over the month as I will keep you updated with all the whatever, lol.

ACCORDING to REVERB

___The Best Selling Guitars are Strat, then LP then Tele, then SG and
lastly Jazzmaster. Many other guitars are selling at a healthy amount but they share the market with dozens of others. If it was a car race then the 5 big sellers have lapped them twice,

You must add in the inflation but once you do prices and quantities sold are basically now at pre Covid levels. They are expected to stabilize and

neither go up or down.

___Amps outsell modeler type units 4.5 to 1. Keep in mind amps come in tube, or solid state and digital/modeler types.

___Pedals are doing the same as all gear. In fact all gear is back to 2019 plus inflation prices. The exception are rare pedals. They go from high to stupid to beyond sanity every year. The BIG BUT is if you bail out you make more so it is literally like having use of it for free. Used multi sound pedals have nosed dived by 20%. I am not surprised as you end up loving one sound and hating the other.

___The biggest seller in Modelers, Capture & Profiler units is the
Neural DSP Quad Cortex. The cheaper makers share the market and the other high end makers are just to damn difficult to use. User Friendly is a monstrous biggy. The Quad has a very fast learning curve and an intuitive layout when compared to all else.

Pretty much all of these units are not holding their value. They are Music computers and like all computers become redundant when new units come out that are both better and cheaper.

The good news is like laptop computers 99% of us do not use more than what we can do on a 10 year old one. Todays modeler/profiled etc sound will show up on some hot but obscure players recordings years from now and none of us

will notice something is not quite right.

WTF!!! IT HAPPENED AGAIN
Lately a couple of thousand visitors here at Stomp Box

Steals is healthy buy relatively normal. But today I

already had well over 16,000 by mid afternoon.

I can only think this is the go to as a diversion

from bad news about War &/or Money.

Ibanez PEDALS 1974 to 1976

No one gave a F. back then.

No one would even plug them

in and try them out. They just

had to be Asian junk, lol.

SOME TIMES WE ALL GET LUCKY

I just got a pic in my 'E'. of my wife in Jamaica. She is a contractor. She is down in Jamaica building a road that will be done in a couple of weeks. She will then fly home.
She is also my Bass player. She has a very old American made Fender Jazz Bass, an equally old American P. Bass. Both in excellent condition. She also has a mint condition Ernie Ball Musicman Sting Ray that was made when Leo Fender was working there at

the Musicman factory.
How old is she??? Well she works out but she is 'decades' younger than me, LOL.
Some times we all get lucky ...even really lucky!!!! 😎

__she has been photographed for many years in news papers that cover street fashion.

In those circles she is nicknamed 'The Fashionista'. In other circles she is highly respected as

a Jazz tenor Sax player :-)

BEHRINGER SUES BOSS ???

TOYS FOR THE OLDER BOYS

Some old, some new, all cool !!!

TC ELECTRONIC MOJO MOJO-Paul Gilbert Ed.

Sold as a medium gain OD it is really more like a low gain OpAmp Fuzz. That said it

is damn effective as it can cover both a low gain Fuzz and OD. It has a chunky balzy

sound yet it has excellent definition and articulation.

At $75.00 USD any risk it does not meet your needs is not a big ouch.

WARM AUDIO FLUFF DRIVE

The is Ryan 'Fluff' Bruce's Signature OD. The biggest selling pedal on the planet is the Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer. The guy simply wanted a ts that he could use with any amp or guitar and get the same sound he was getting at home when he could pick his ideal rig. It is the ideal ...(FIX-IT)-in-a-Box.

JHS PEDALS MORNING GLORY CLEAN

The standard morning Glory is Josh's biggest selling pedal. A BluesBreaker clone that every upgrade took from a transparent Drive to a mediocre mid gain pedal. This one is his original v.1 but with a knob to add cleans. I had the standard one for 2 years. Garabage! If I pulled it back where I wanted it ,it had nasty artifact like an extra cheap Chinese OD. The clean version is easily 110% better. If the one I had was this I would still own it.

GOKKO AUDIO GK-61 Mogwai

You can switch between OD or Fuzz. the damn thing will literally rip your face off.

I have never heard better that is actually usable!!! Anything else squeals with

feedback and makes more noise then a jet plane if you were strapped to

the fuselage. It is at its best as a booster in front of your favorite OD to

take that OD to NeverEverland.

It will be the best $35.00 USD you ever spent.

KITCHENAID Ultra Power
Yes you can lower it down by as much as to 2 octaves. It has endless sustain and unbelievable clatter. Killer for a solo when you crank it.

NUX NPO-2 TUTTI Octave Pedal
This just came out and is sonically damn impressive. Most guys have heard of the NUX brand but do not know it was one of the first MIC companies going back to 2006. They were the first to offer digital budget pedals back when budget meant a made in Denmark

TC Electronic pedal. Back then 99% of the players never heard of NUX. In fact I bought one to replace my TC. They make the killer re-Issue line that really are the first clones that were made using NOS parts even when they first came out. There stuff is never dumbed down.

I still use the Chorus pedal they know sell as a Re-Issue. Yes, mine is nor only the original but when I went all digital using Strymon I sold it. I hated the Strymon, sold it and had to purchase another NUX, LOL.

$100.00 USD is cheap for sonics this good

Wait for it!!! WTF ...I only just got out of bed!!!!
Come back in an hour or 2 for more sh@t _______________________________________________________

THE GUITAR KIOSK

DANO the Dano O. Mano
made by Danelectro

$600.00 USD

... DANO is The brand name of The new budgeT guiTars

...This one has P90 PU's. THE guiTar is handmade in Korea

...THE Sound has a Gibson ES 330 vibe because IT IS HOLLOW

...YOU GET A SEMI buT WITHOUT THE BULKY BODY OR FEEDBACK HASSLES

2006 Ibanez Jet King JTK30
Ibanez started life as a distributer of budget rebranded
cheap guitars in the early 60's. One of the first was the Guyatone LG70
In 2006 they reissued it. The only notable revision was
using cloned 1960's Gibson P90 PU's
Otherwise mahogany body, maple bolt-on neck and rosewood
fretboard.
In spite of a nod to Retro the guitar this has...
the balz & punch for Metal tones
___
I bought mine 10 years ago, used, in near mint condition
for $220.00 USD

GRETSCH

SLJetGM Streamliner

$350.00 USD

You play Metal? You want an LP Standard to add to your arsenal

but you barely have the bucks for a good pedal.

How about a serious brand name like Gretsch that

comes to the rescue with a guitar made for your exact purpose

Yes very un-Gretsch/more Duncan like high gain PU's

Your audience sees the brand name

and thinks you must have come up with some serious coin.

In short you are not making excuses for standing there with

a Harley Benton or equivalent.

Remember Malcom Young of AC/DC didn't

buy a Gretsch to play Country on.

Do not tell me he is an exception & you

don't want to be exceptional, 😇

SOLO Pro GUITARS

$255.00 to $270.00 USD. Made in Canada.
Parts are made in Japan. Choice of colors.
Basswood or ash body. Necks are roasted
maple or maple with rosewood fret boards.
Dual action adjustment. Wilkinson PU's.
Quality hardware.
Seriously good guitars ...dirt cheap prices!!!