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After doing lots of more individual flavours of drive pedal overviews recently - it’s time to do another roundup of that most eternally favoured of amp distortion tones - the many flavours of Marshall. There are a few here that are based on JTM45 sounds - but generally I’ve separated the Bluesbreaker style pedals into their own category. Most of these are within that classic rock heyday range or sort of Plexi through JCM800.

I’ve tried to indicate most relevant Amp ...

So back in March of 2018 I published my first thoughts on an idealised perfect Compact Pedal/interface design - taking the best of current pedal-design and extrapolating forwards - to include a more intuitive control interface with presets, and my much beloved dual footswitches and alternative/secondary functions. Leaning chiefly on ideas borrowed from Alexander Pedals, Chase Bliss Audio, Fender, TheGigRig, Meris, Stone Deaf and TC Electronic I produced / proposed my first prototype sort of ...

I’m known for my 12 Degrees of Saturation Methodology and organising drive/dirt pedals into a specific category. I do however also like multi-talented multi-tankers, and have always had one or two all-rounder multi-drive overdrives in my pedal-chain. In fact of the 9 listed here I have all but the last featured, which also happens to be the most recently released - by Greek Boutique Builder Tsakalis - that pedal is currently only available in Greece - direct from the maker and from one or...

This article is prompted chiefly by my fairly recent acquisition of the Demon Pedals Kondo Shifuku D-Style Overdrive - which brings my tally of Dumble style drives to three - or 7 kind of, depending on how you characterise these things. The very first Dumble Style pedal I acquired was the Mad Professor Simble - which I still love, but substituted eventually with the more versatile Wampler Euphoria. While both those are excellent conveyors of the kind of Dumble tones I was looking for - the ...

So per the recent NAMM coverage we know that there is a new compact version of the RevivalDrive coming down the line - and a raw prototype alongside likely facia design were on display at the show. The RevivalDrive was my favourite new pedal of last year - I have the Custom version with all the additional EQ options - alongside the additional 2-button footswitch. I wrote in my ’RevivalDrive First Impressions Article’ how much I like this multi-drive/PreAmp pedal - and how I use all ...

Dunlop Manufacturing is one of the many, as well as one of the chief family businesses in the general guitar industry / sector - setting the pace and scope of what’s possibly with quality gear alongside outfits like Ernie Ball for over half a century (since 1965). And while Jim’s involvement of late has not been so prominent as in previous years, he has nonetheless left an indelible mark on the brands that he developed, innovated and evolved.

Dunlop probably means a great ...

I’ve been aware of the American Pedal Genie effects pedal rental service for a while now - chiefly because I follow Gearmanndude and he is often demoing pedals he got through Pedal Genie. I’m not sure if he’s got some sort of a special arrangement with them, but he obviously seems to land all the latest and greatest pedals with relative ease (perhaps he gets priority) - and I’ve taken many a steer from Gearmanndude including on the Spaceman Titan II Fuzz and the Bearfoot...

So it’s that usual post NAMM-haze time where I figure out the longer-term impact of NAMM, and how those new products will affect the layout, order and composition of my now sort of 40-slot pedal-chain. As noted several times - this was indeed a bumper year for really innovative and highly appealing new pedals - and I will look to accommodate a number of those as they materialise in the forthcoming months.

As I hinted in my last pedal-chain overview - while 2018 was very evidently...

This year’s show has seen a bumper crop of interesting new pedals. In fact I was so dazzled by all the various cool pedals that I did not take note of much else - actually not entirely as there were a few synths weirdly that I liked the look of - including the new Teenage Engineering Modular Series in particular. There were very few guitars or amps though that properly piqued my interest.

Special thanks to Delicious Audio / Stombox Exhibit / 60 Cycle Hum and Premier Guitar in ...

It’s a little early to call it - in fact a full day ahead of the opening of this year’s Winter NAMM, but it looks like Joel Korte has stolen the show here! In recent weeks I have been getting to grips with the superb BYOC Crown Jewel - and I stated several times in that review - how much impact presets could have for such a pedal.

And while the Automatone PreAmp MKII does not have quite as many tone-sculpting and clipping options as the Crown Jewel, it shares a great many ...