Here we go, right up my alley lol.
Tried - too many to mention. Dollars spent - alot. What I needed - space saving i.e. couldn't be so big that it couldn't fit on my board. Had to work with my setup and gain. And the throb, it has to land right for me. Ultimately I look for what hits me, I'm not trying to "recreate" something.
Uni-vibes are finnicky, period. Most have their own thing going. You might get something thinking this is it and it's too dark sounding for your rig. What might sound great at medium gain levels isn't necessarily going to sound that great at higher levels. And as pointed out above, signal chain is important. I needed something to cover high gain, low gain and clean and sound good doing it. Alot of times with higher gain, it just gets washed out not to mention noise among other things. Also had to have something that was not too dark or boomy.
What I ended up with -
Micro Vibe (Modded by JHS) - I cannot let this thing go. It's perfect. The mod gives it more of everything and where the throb lands is perfect. On my big board. The mod took a nice sounding affordable pedal (which I have a stock one as well) and made it sound great. No clue what JHS did as I bought this second hand.
King Tone 1968 - Straight up awesome. Easy, board friendly and sounds incredible. It's all there in a small pedal. It's fantastic. On my smaller board. If I ever rearrange my big board its going on there.
Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe TC - Underrated. Sounds greats, hits all the marks for me. Alot of control over all parameters and a really great throb. I cannot say enough good about this pedal and it looks funky. Currently my backup to the modded Micro but it see's alot of time on my big board as well as it's an easy switch footprint wise.
Runner ups - Jam and the Vibe Machine. I very nearly kept the Jam but then got the King Tone which I preferred. Bottom line, you cannot go wrong with either of these. Great footprints, both sound great. I will say, careful with the Vibe Machine. Don't adjust to where you cannot get back so mark your settings. For footprint, it's unbeatable.
A few notables in my quest recently (as this has been going on for years and I've been through alot of them) - Sir Henry. One of the big dogs of the vibe world but I didn't bond with it for what I want to do. Klinger 69, a really fantastic pedal if you're more a single coil type player plus Shaun is great to deal with, good footprint on this one. Shin-EI Vibe 2. Really nice.
I still want to try the Weaver one day, lots of love for that thing. And seems to be alot of smaller vibes hitting the market as well. The quest is tampered down for now but you never know.
