I covered the Ibanez Mini Pedal Range back in August - when there were 8 in total. Ibanez has since decided to round out its lineup with a 2-Band EQ tone-sculpting Boost, and a 4/6 Stage switching Phaser - which provides decent competition for MXR’s ever successful Phase 95.

Both pedals have enough variety and versatility about them to be amongst the strongest contenders in their respective categories. It’s been a while since I did my classic Mini Boost roundup of 16 highly...

This article was prompted by an observation of obviously complementary fuzz pairings - where I currently own all of these bar the two Dwarfcraft Devices - Limited Edition Necromancer and Reese Lightning. In fact a number of these could be construed to be officially highly limited - where Buffalo FX and Dwarfcraft Devices have both ceased trading and their products are in very short supply. There were only 25 dual-footswitch editions of the Dwarfcraft Devices Limited Edition Dark Arts ...

This is obviously a follow-up from the Josh Scott / JHS January 1st YouTube video as below. Where Josh carried out and exercise where he compiled the best pedals released over the last two decades - in 6 specific categories - Best Overdrive / Distortion, Best Fuzz, Best Time-Based Effect, Best Modulation, Best Compressor, and Best Weird / Other - all must have been release January 1st 2000 or later.

Along with his own take, he solicited opinions from Jamie Stillman of EQD, Matthew ...

This is one of those articles that’s been a long-time coming, and where I needed to spend a rather large chunk of time getting fully under the skin of the pedal in question - the really quite superb, but also somewhat slightly flawed Boss GT-1000 CORE Guitar Effects Processor.

I must start by stating that I came into this project with somewhat lofty expectations, and there was some degree of naivety to my beliefs as to what was contained within this pedal, and more importantly ...

I do love pedals with 3-Band EQ’s - and fuzz pedals with such a topology are still relatively rare to make this new pair some keen objects of interest.

Besides having similar EQ controls these pedals are really quite different in the tones they render and at which price point. Both offer sufficient appeal for me to want to add them to the collection, while the new EHX Nano Metal Muff really ramps up its attractiveness with with a very attractive price-tag - where the 3 Leaf Doom ...

Readers of this blog will know by now that I have been effusively complementary towards the Decibelics Golden Horse Klone Overdrive over the years - my absolute favourite Klone of all time, and a much celebrated marvel of pedal engineering.

I have recommended said pedal to countless players by now - and once you have encountered its wonderfully elegant creamy, articulate, and dynamic delivery you will look towards the originals with disdain - as somewhat over-bloated and unwieldy ...

It’s been one heck of a journey this year - with a particular flurry of activity in the final quarter - all those ’12 Degrees’ and ’Year End Best of’ articles really knocked the stuffing out of me - you will have noted those came fairly thick and fast. I have related a number of my favourite posts from the year to this article - viewed below on mobile and to the right on desktop, laptop and tablet!

I’m a little shattered from all those exertions - ...

And so here is the culmination of everything that happened to the pedal-chain in 2020.

There were quite a few more displacements than I had expected - all told 22 slots changed over this year - including 19 Brand New Pedals for 2020, then 3 slightly older pedals, and some incidentals.

The most significant shift, and the one that caused the most disruption was the arrival of Boss GT-1000 CORE in October. This is often the case when you bring in a big new pedal - and you need to...

So I’ve now completed 5 preliminary shortlists type articles featuring between 9 and 30 or so of the best pedals released in 2020 - in each of the following categories :

• Best New Reverb Workstation Pedals (9)
• Best New Overdrive and Distortion Pedals (29)
• Best New Fuzz Pedals (31)
• Best New Delay and Reverb Pedals (20)
• Best New Modulation, Pitch, and Utility Pedals (28)

I sincerely apologise if I’ve overlooked any here, while I’m not sure they would have necessarily ...

This is the fourth of the preliminary roundups - before I reveal the 25 or so ’Best of the Best of 2020’ - it covers most other pedal genres not yet feature - including in particularly modulation and utility types. Note though that there will be a couple more surprises in the final reckoning!

Unlike the Delay and Reverb category I actually own a few of these, while other outstanding ones are very high on the priority list for next year.

I own 7 of these all-told - ...