Mooer Mini Pedals vs OneControl vs Tone City vs All The Rest!

So in my usual twisted fashion I’ve somewhat fallen down a rabbit hole of Mini Pedals these days. This project was sparked off by the recent Andertons Ultimate Doom Pedal Shoot-out. That has some very oddly selected pedals within its shoot-out considerations, but where the Tone City Matcha Cream Green Russian did extremely well - in fact winning the most rounds - 8 in total of all the pedals trialled.

The eventual winner was kind of immaterial to me, I was all of a sudden intrigued as to whether there were any further Tone City Mini Gems that I might have overlooked. Andertons, the exclusive UK Dealer for Tone City - has really heavily pushed those pedals in various group rundowns since 2015, that even resulted in Pete Honoré and Rabea Massaad having custom signature editions of the Mandragora > Durple (Lovepedal Kalamazoo), and Wild Fire > Wild Fro (Suhr Riot). Truth is I’ve never really been that tempted by Tone City pedals - bar the recent Matcha Cream. My Mini Pedal champions have typically overall been Mooer  - which is the brand I own the most Mini Pedals from!

So I thought it would be a fun exercise to try to compare and contrast the 20 Tone City ones with two of my favourite Mini Pedal Brands - Mooer and OneControl. It needs to be said that these all sit at slightly different price points - where Tone City is around £45 / $65, Mooer aggregates around £65 / $85 for those older mostly analog minis - but they can be as low as Tone City, and finally OneControl are a little bit more again at a current aggregate value of around £129 / $139 - with the BJFE Honey Bee etc. variants circa 100 credits more in each currency.

Tone City has only 20 Mini Pedals in total - so no need for any selection exercise or curation - while the OneControl range amounts to around 34 Mini Pedals - including the BJFE Bee variants. And Mooer has around the 60 mark - give or take a few discontinuations!

And while I have the full complement of Tone City pedals in consideration, I thought I should limit the Mooer and OneControl ones to an even 24 specially selected pedals.

I’m actually going to start the Rundown from the Mooer perspective first - per the above cover visual, and then work my way down through OneControl and Tone City - in such a ways that we only feature each pedal variant once! So a progressively smaller subset on each pass.

So I will name the source / inspiration pedal for each type, and then list any of the 3 featured brands if appropriate - before settling on a Mini champion for that pedal type - and we can then review the full category and see who is kind of the mos potent overall - albeit note that this exercise will require some modicum of subjectivity! While I will of course endeavour to be as objective as possible I will always lead on quality, but at times pricing becomes a key factor.

UPDATE! - I’ve decided to list 2 champion choices - [A] Budget (<£70), and [B] Boutique! types (>£100) - Just to make it all a little fairer and more salient!

My Personal Favourite Mooer Micro  / Mini Pedals (not including the Preamps) :

Black Secret (Rat), Blues Mood (Keeley Modded BD-2 Blues Driver), E-Lady (EHX Electric Mistress), Hustle Drive (Fulltone OCD), Rage Machine (DigiTech Death Metal), Trelicopter (Demeter Tremulator), Triangle Buff Muff (EHX Triangle Muff), Ultra Drive (Keeley Modded DS-1 Distortion).

Mooer Selection Rundown

Analog Delay : Mooer Ana Echo (Boss DM-2), One Control Sea Turqoise Delay >> [A] Donner Yellow Fall Delay || [B] MXR Carbon Copy Mini

Proco Rat : Mooer Black Secret, Tone City Mickey >> [A] Mooer Black Secret || [B] Wampler Ratsbane

Silicon Fuzz Face : Mooer Blue Faze >> [A] Mooer Blue Faze || [B] El Musico Loco Wee Beaver / MXR Classic 108 Fuzz

Germanium Fuzz Face : Mooer Grey Faze >> [A] Mooer Grey Faze || [B] MXR JHW1 Jimi Hendrix ’69 Psych Series Fuzz Face / Expresso FX Germanium Fuzz Mini

Blues Breaker : Mooer Blues Crab, Tone City Blues Man >> [A] Mooer Blues Crab || [B] MXR Duke of Tone

Blues Driver / Crunchy Overdrive : Mooer Blues Mood, OneControl Strawberry Red Overdrive RC >> [A] Mooer Blues Mood || [B] OneControl Strawberry Red Overdrive RC

MI Effects Crunch Box : Mooer Cruncher, OneControl Anadodized Brown Distortion 4K >> [A] Mooer Cruncher || [B] OneControl Anadodized Brown Distortion 4K

EHX Electric Mistress : Mooer E-Lady >> [A] Mooer E-Lady || [B] Ibanez Flanger Mini

Analog Chorus : Mooer Ensemble King (Boss CE-2), OneControl Little Copper Chorus, Tone City Angel Wing >> [A] Tone City Angel Wing || [B] Ibanez Chorus Mini

Auto-Wah : Mooer Funky Monkey, OneControl Butter Yellow Auto Quack >> [A] Mooer Funky Monkey || [B] Function F(x) Accufunkture Envelope Filter Mini

Tube Screamer : Mooer Green Mile, One Control Persian Green Screamer, Tone City Kaffir Lime >> [A] Tone City Kaffir Lime || [B] Becos FX Ziffer Overdrive

Fulltone OCD : Mooer Hustle Drive, Tone City Dry Martini >> [A] Mooer Hustle Drive

MXR Phase 90 : Mooer Ninety Orange, Tone City Summer Orange >> [A] Mooer Ninety Orange || [B] MXR Phase 95

Pitch-Shifter : Mooer Pitch Box  >> [A] Mooer Pitch Box || [B] Bananana FX Mandala Pitch Shifter-Sampler / EHX Pico Pitch Fork

Octaver : Mooer PureR Octaver >> [A] Mooer PureR Octaver || [B] EHX Pico POG

High Gain Distortion : Mooer Rage Machine >> [A] Mooer Rage Machine || [B] Decibelics Angry Swede

Dumble ODS : Mooer Rumble Drive, OneControl Golden Acorn Overdrive Special >> [A] Mooer Rumble Drive || [B] Function F(x) Zen Drive Clone Mini / OneControl Golden Acorn Overdrive Special

Mini Multi-Reverb (x3) : Mooer Shim Verb, OneControl Prussian Blue Reverb >> [A] Mooer Shim Verb || [B] EHX Pico Oceans 3-Verb / TC Electronic Hall of Fame Mini

Slow Gear : Mooer Slow Engine >> [A] Mooer Slow Engine || [B] EHX Pico Attack Decay / TC Electronic Infinite Mini

Suhr Riot : Mooer Solo, OneControl Rebel Red Distortion, Tone City Wild Fire >> [A] Mooer Solo || [B] Suhr Riot Mini!

Tremolo : Mooer Trelicopter, OneControl Tiger Lily Tremolo, Tone City Tremble >> [A] Mooer Trelicopter || [B] Mr Black Mini (Harmonic) Tremolo

EHX Big Muff : Mooer Triangle Buff, OneControl Baltic Blue Fuzz, Tone City Matcha Cream Fuzz >> [A] Tone City Matcha Cream Fuzz || [B] Free Fall Diver Huge / OneControl Baltic Blue Fuzz

Boss DS-1 : Mooer Ultra Drive >> [A] Mooer Ultra Drive

Compressor : Mooer Yellow Comp, OneControl Lemon Yellow Compressor, Tone City Comp Engine >> [A] Mooer Yellow Comp || [B] Becos FX CompIQ Mini Pro

Mooer Category Champions :

[A]’s :: Mooer [20], Tone City [3], Donner [1]

[B]’s :: MXR [5], EHX [4], OneControl [4], Becos FX [2], Function F(x) [2], Ibanez [2], TC Electronic [2], Bananana FX [1], Decibelics [1], El Musico Loco [1], Expresso FX [1], Free Fall Diver [1], Mr Black [1], Suhr [1]. Wampler [1].