Doogs Tremolo Pedal Roundup (Yes I Have Owned All Of These):
Marshall: good construction and bypass but found the tremolo waveform too sharp, even all the way to the left on the wave dial. Not much vintagey throbness going on here. Having the option of real vibrato is cool if you like it.
Nobels: Flexible, can get warmer and smoother than the Marshall. Has a tone control that works in a weird way, I forget how. Effect volume is handy so the trem won't get lost in the mix. Try and get the older multi coloured one (the trem is purple) rather than the silver series, footswitch is little iff on the newer ones. Cool little speed indicator light to help you get the tremming in time with the drums or whatever.
Danelectro: Lovely sounding unit, very warm and vintagey throbby, just 2 dials but that's all it needs. 2 way switch for "soft" and "hard" (choppy modern on/off trem), totally does the trick. Even for such a little cheap pedal, the bypass is pretty damn good, doesn't cain your clean tone as much as some more pricey unit. On the bad side, the mode switch died on me 6-12 months after I bought it leaving it in soft mode. Which was fine by me to be honest 😁
Voodoo Lab (4 dial version): Pricey but a nice sounding unit. Didn't quite have the smooth throb thing for me, but sounded warm with it. Volume helps the fx cut through again. I think it had true bypass.
DOD Vibrathang: Technically more of a Leslie sim than a tremolo, but rolling down the phasing dials gives you a tremolo sound. If they made this pedal with just the tremolo section with the 2 dials and a decent/true bypass, it'd be my favourite trem by far. Very pleasant sounding waveform, but the bypass is bad, and it gets even worse with the pedal on. Such a shame, maybe I can get mine modded or something.
George Dennis: The one I've stuck with. It's pretty big and has a weird footswitch, but it's true bypass and has a cool symmetry dial so you can decide which direction (up or down) the waveform slopes most in, in the extreme settings it works as a gradual fade in and quick fade out, and vice versa on the other end of the dial. Once again, a volume to help the effect cut through. Also has the little indicator light to help you get the trem in time with drums or whatever.
Phew. I'm gonna go sit in a dark room.
