How does everyone out there in FenderForum land shop for pedals? I never seem to get stuff that I actually like 2 weeks down the road.

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CREDO ELVEM IPSUM ETAIM VIVERE

I buy my pedals online (after trying them at a store), but I never seem satisfied with the pedals I buy. The only pedals I ever use are Wah's and Distortion pedals though, becuase I try to make my effects without pedals.

I go into a music store. Plug in a like guitar to the pedal demo. If I like it, I'll purchace it. If I do not have the cash for it, I will wait and buy it when I do.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

Avoid buying new pedals, the majority of em are rubbish sound the same as everything else affairs.
Your far better off to go looking for old, used, little known pedals. Oh another thing, dont expect to have a great clean amp sound great driven by throwing a OD pedal infront of it. Theres not a pedal on the planet that can do that.

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No no and no

If your trying pedals out and then buy them and don't really like the sound then as clichéd as it sounds, listen to albums where they are using that effect and find out what's in their rig on the net. It should be pretty easy to find most bands guitar rigs on the net.
Hope this helps

I go to GC on a Monday or Tuesday morning ... there's rarely anyone other than me there. I have them set me up with a guitar similar to what I plan to use the pedal with (SG, Tele, Strat, etc.) and an amp that's as close as I can get (I have an old Super 210, so some kind of more vintage sounding Fender tube amp).

Now I try the pedals I'm considering back and forth for a while, running through whatever tunes I might use the pedal on. I'll sit in there for an hour if need be trying the pedals under consideration. I will typically also try more than one guitar unless I "know" somehow that I'd only ever use the pedal with one type.

If you can't take a day off and go somewhere early in the week in the morning, at least try to go when half the kids in town aren't out in the main room banging away on power chords. The trick is to be in a quiet environment so you're hearing just your pedal and to spend enough time to go through different amp/guitar settings and songs so that you have a very good idea of what it sounds like.

The exceptions -- Eccentric0 hits it on the head if you're trying to sound like someone else. In that case, look for artist or other discussion pages that might tell you the gear and settings the original artist uses. They may not be obvious and may not be the rig the person is "known for."

The other -- if you're playing very loud, heavy distortion, well beyond what you could do in a store -- see if you can find someone who'll loan you the pedal to try either on a gig or in a practice room.

When I go shopping for pedals, I usually have a pretty good idea of what I want. I'll go to the music store when it's relatively quiet and pick two or three similar pedals to try out through a similar guitar and amp combination to my own. Then it's just a matter of sitting down and playing at stage volume through all of the pedals. Then I'll buy what I like and return the rest.

Used pedals can be great as well. Kijiji, Craigslist, and even the back corners of big box guitar stores can be goldmines. No pedals are truly cheap anymore -- even ubiquitous Boss units will rarely be less than $100 -- so buying used can be a lifesaver. On the other hand, the new series of Danelectro Cool Cats are in the $50 range -- quite reasonable given their quality. I have the Cool Cat Drive, a copy of the Fulltone OCD, and it sounds great. I actually sold my OCD for three times what I paid for the Dano. Bargain pedals can sometimes be a good thing: onstage and piped through a big PA system, no one will notice that you're using a Dano instead of an OCD.