what's the cheapest piece of gear in your rig that genuinely surprised you?

a lot of my coolest stuff I got cheaply when it was unpopular or some was gifted to me broken, but in generally cheap-o gear that's great I absolutely love the behringer superfuzz that's a copy of the boss hyperfuzz.... the junk housing doesn't bother me because its a once in awhile pedal, it sounds just like a real hyperfuzz and mimics the univox i sold for an insane profit well enough that I can live without it, great cheap-o clone pedal

Honestly? EQ pedal with a boost. In my opinion the easiest and cheapest way to drastically alter your sound and add versatility.

speaking of tech21, I've come to like the XXL which was a gift, so cheap! But they don't seem to trade for much.

EDIT:

here's some not guitar-specific cheap gear I love; the FMR really nice compressor, I have 6, less than 600 including the 2 unit racksmounts, they work. Old ibanez digital delays before the sdd3k. They're all cool, especially the harmonics delay, they're all over early skinny puppy. TOA triple delay line, 12 bit, but really cool, got 2. Cheap lexicons like the Alex, Reflex, Vortex (crazy) and mx series. The MXes are actually really good, even the pushbutton 200. Old german-made behringer stuff. The west-german composer has a cult following due to the daft punk connection, but they did a pretty solid parametric. No mojo, but good utilitarian gear. Symetrix! Anything with a toggle power switch. Why did I just share that?

https://rockstockpedals.com/products/nano-tuner

These used to be $25 and now I can't live without it, wish I had gotten a spare

Any EQ pedal >>> buying another overdrive

Agreed, but it took an embarrassing long time for me to learn that lesson.

I picked up a cheap used Zoom MS-50G on eBay at a time when I knew nothing about effects pedals.

At that time I was into the Rocksmith guitar game/tutor and I quickly realised that a lot of the gear in the game's "Tone Designer" corresponded to many of the effects and gear emulated in the Zoom's virtual inventory. I became obsessed with figuring out what the actual real world gear was that was being emulated, so over the course of about a year I systematically researched each effect until I'd got an idea of the purpose, history and usage of a whole bunch of stuff I would have otherwise known nothing about.

Learning the history of pedals and effects has become a hobby within the hobby to the extent that I've even compiled playlists of historic songs that prominently feature or pioneer particular effects.

All thanks to the rabbit hole that humble old Zoom Multistomp led me down... Not only surprised, but inspired.

I compiled all my notes and references on a massive spreadsheet here if anyone's interested - It's still an ongoing project (so comments/corrections always welcome)

I gotta hear these playlists

and let me add another budget monster: behringer sf300 we already mentioned, but there's also the joyo american sound (a clone of the tech 21 blonde as i remember). for $35-40 you get a fully analog fender-tweed emulator with a working eq and cab sim. kinda funny thing.

I'm pretty sure its a blonde/brownface emulator, not a tweed emulator... the blonde's were made for about 3 years give or take and are closer to a blackface electronically than a tweed, individual tonestacks per channel between stage 1 and 2, no cathode follower driving the tone controls so they're lossy and uniquely the mid control is center-tapped and wired up in a unique way that gives them some of the grunt of a big tweed, only twins and bassmans even had mid in tweed... the small brownfaces are closer to late 50s small tweeds like the Harvard and Tremolux have a lot in common with the tweed Princeton and Deluxe, especially the Princeton which went to fixed bias push-pull from being a tweed champ with a tone knob and a 10"

sorry, I really know vintage fender amps and will just ramble

thought of another one, quilter microblock... its an mxr sized amp that sounds pretty darned good even in overdrive and it drives like 45 watts into a 4 ohm cabinet and can hanf with a loud drummer, its outright nice to play through and if you don't have a tube amp right next to her you won't know the difference

Quilter makes darn good stuff, some of my favorite solid state amps

The Earthquaker Devices Plumes for the Money it can create really good low to mid overdrive Sounds and can be tweaked very precise.

I've met Jamie and Julie from Earthquaker a couple times, not only do they make excellent products, they're top tier people.

Yea the Plumes is not the cheapest , but very cheap for what it can do. Love their Youtube Channel EarthQuaker Sessions, great Idea to invite Artist and let them Jam making a Pedal and Artist Promo everyone can watch without being annoyed by too much talking, just let the Pedals and Artist speak is a great Idea. They even had the Mass of the Fermenting Dregs from Japan in their Studio, love that Band at the moment I try to support a similar Band very new , releasing a few Songs soon They are called "When a Whale Dies", and did Mass of the Fermenting Dregs Covers before , now heading to do their own Music. We got Jamie also here: https://equipboard.com/pros/jamie-stillman They are really great doing a lot for Music in General , making Pedals , supporting Artists, having an own Record Lable, having Jams ....

I gotta hear these playlists

Here's a few:

HiSTORY of DiSTORTION

HiSTORY of FUZZ

HiSTORY of TREMOLO

HiSTORY of DELAY/ECHO

HiSTORY of PHASER

HiSTORY OF FLANGE 〰️

HiSTORY of RiNG MODULATiON

HiSTORY of GATED REVERB

HiSTORY of The TELECASTER

All remain work in progress so I'm always happy to hear suggestions/corrections.

Perhaps I should start a thread on classic effect showcase tracks?

If you know the exact gear and musician, I'd go and add the albums to artist submissions.

Edit: These are awesome man!!

Gotta say...the cheapest and surprisingly BEST change I made to my gear....assortment of picks. Ive always just used whatever pick I could find (under furniture, in the couch, washing machine etc...) and rolled with it. When I was about to hang up the possibility of ever hitting harmonics, I was given a heavier gague pick than what I was used to using. YES!!! Picks....they work!