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This article was sparked by the recent launch of the Andy James Signature Revenant Distortion Pedal - made by STL Tones - which are an outfit best known for their digital apps and plugins - this is their first hardware effect and is excellent regardless of a first attempt. It uses all-analogue components to recreate the Andy James tone that STL previously generated via software and DSP means.

Most of the other pedals here have been listed and featured before on this side - and besides ...

I think it’s fairly self-evident on this blog that I’m a fan of the Big Muff style of fuzz pedals - having 40+ in my collection to-date and including all the JHS-Modded versions of each of the previous EHX reissues. In fact I’m still waiting to see if Josh will do anything with EHX’s Flatiron Fuzz - what is certain sure is that there will be a JHS Mod of this Violet Ram’s Head in the not too distant future - likely with an added Mids knob and a couple of clipping ...

Most of you should have seen by now my ’Yellow Means OverDrive’ (9) feature which covers off all of Boss’s Yellow OverDrives, and more recently I did a piece on ’Boss’s High Gain and Metal Distortion Pedals’ (9) - so this article covers all those remaining Boss Drive and Distortion Pedals (13) (past and present) which exist between those two extremes.

This article is written with a view towards the forthcoming OD-200 Hybrid Drive Workstation which in...

Readers of this blog will know that I’m a big fan of high gain / metal distortion, and have a fair few pedals in that category - in fact I have 4 permanent slots in my pedal-chain which are dedicated to high gain (#24-#27). The two medium-sized slots (#25,#26) have pretty much been permanently occupied by the Empress Heavy and MI Effects Megalith Delta for the longest time now (even though I have great rotation alternatives here too) - while there is quite a lot of rotation on my 2 other ...

In advance of the arrival of the OD-200 I thought it would be good to do an overview of Boss’s own various Drive and Distortion pedals. In my recent ’Yellow Means OverDrive’ feature I covered off all of those particular Boss pedals, so this article is at the other end of the scale of gain - the High Gain and Metal Distortions. I will then follow up with a 3rd article covering those drives and distortions that sit between these and the 9 OverDrive pedals covered already.

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Electro-Harmonix has introduced a Nano version of its Operation Overlord Overdrive which manages to preserve most of that larger pedal’s functionality / feature set while there obviously have to be some compromises and concessions - and we loose the Stereo component of the original, as well as the Boost Level control and second Boost footswitch. I’m not sure why EHX hasn’t gotten onboard with the dual-footswitch compact enclosure style which is really fairly common nowadays - ...

I have mentioned several times on this blog - my surprise that PRS did not offer direct replacement locking tuners for its SE Line of guitars - which have been in production now since 2005. The current Core Line Phase II/III tuners have a much wider barrel/bore which could not be accommodated by the existing narrower tuner holes of the SE’s without significant alterations (drilling!).

Players like myself have had to buy locking tuners from different brands that fit the SE’s...

So Source Audio has made a slightly different move to the one I and a few others expected - I thought we might get a 12+ Mode Modulation Workstation next - following on from the Nemesis and Ventris - and continuing the lineage much like Strymon’s TimeLine, BigSky and Mobius, and Boss’s DD-500, RV-500 and MD-500.

But Source Audio have decided to do a combination of the Nemesis and Ventris into the same format - giving you 5 Delay Modes from the Nemesis and 7 Reverb Modes ...

This feature was inspired by a few conversations I had at the recent Islington / London UK Guitar Show where I encountered a number of exhibitors throughout the day in varying states of repair and alertness. It recalled my advertising agency days where and when I attended numerous trade shows for extended periods all around Europe - including also some more recent events escapades. I promised I would write up this handy guide to help others benefit from my acquired tips and tricks from those ...

I’ve featured MXR quite a lot on this site over the years, but bizarrely and somewhat inexplicably to date have only acquired one of those numerous pedals - the Mini Phase 95, actually with the Brown Acid it makes 2! And this just after my fairly recent acquisition of the Pigdog Juju Fuzz - which also happens to be a TB MKIII style fuzz - I think I now have a nicely rounded quartet of MKIII’s with room for a couple more no doubt. Of course I’m an avowed fuzz fan, and I have ...