News

I’ve already largely decided what new pedals I will be targeting this year (that I know of!) - following on from the various reveals and announcements made over the last week, and other projects I’m aware of and various themes I will be pursuing in 2020.

First of all to explain the above visual - this features and extrapolation of my current pedal-chain - with the NAMM legend in front of various new / newish pedals - Green means already acquired - or at least already ...

So despite the perilous state of the world, the first NAMM of the new decade actually turned out to be pretty stellar. I had thought that last year’s exceptional show might end up as the all-time high water mark - but this one turned out just as many pleasant surprises.

Slightly different to last year there were a more significant number of pedals announced and launched in advance of the show - while a lot of pedals at the show had very little by way of collateral and some are ...

I know Rock Fabrik best for their amazing Mind Abuse High Gain Distortion pedal - which is alas still on the wishlist awaiting acquisition - I have so many different priorities in the High Gain pedal area - it takes a while to get around all of them. It’s good to see RF branch out into new areas though - and this is their first modulation pedal as far as I am aware - and a really impressive entry into that category.

The vertical 1590BB style enclosure device is an Analog Tremolo ...

I’ve been a huge fan of the Sinvertek ’5’ series distortion pedals - owning all three in succession - the No.5 Distortion, the N5 Drive and now the N5 Drive Plus - in all its 7-knobs and 5-toggle-switches glory. This was actually my last pedal to arrive last year - in that it arrived just before Christmas. I had been chasing it since its June Summer NAMM announcement - but it wasn’t released until December of last year.

I’ve been patiently waiting for some...

Building on their already much celebrated series of Analog BBD Delays - the Delay Llama weighs in as the new master of modulated analog delay - with some clever circuitry and electronics tricks to get a variety of unusual effects out of such a pedal - which is highly unusual for an analog delay.

This newest Llama runs on 3 x 3205 BBD chips (up to 800ms delay time) and now features a Black Alt button to go with the normal series of 3 footswitches for this form factor - On/Off, Presets /...

I’ve been aware for a while that Darko Vadja was working on an unusual PT2399 style Lo-Fi delay pedal. In fact I’ve been patiently waiting for a proper demo video to materialise which alas none have yet. In the meantime Darko already announced a limited batch via Instagram - and I believe all those units are now sold.

What we have here is a very feature rich Lo-Fi / SciFi delay as I’ve taken to calling it because of it’s unusual modulation. You are presented ...

There are numerous Drum Machine style pedals out there - where you select from banks of rhythms and drum-kits - with various alternative variations, fills and changes in pattern. Dedalo though has gone back to the sort of Linn prototypes where you actually tap in your own rhythm - bass drum, snare drum, hi-hats / rides etc. Which you then save to memory as presets.

This pedal is brand new to NAMM, and there are not a lot of details on it yet - and thus far just the Delicious Audio Demo...

I’m delighted that Brian Mena has finally seen fit to release a Vertical edition of his flagship Fish Factory Combination pedal - which brings together his two legendary overdrive - the Red Snapper and Blue Collar.

New in this version also is the series direction toggle-switch so you place each of the overdrives first in the sequence. I personally have never been a fan of the horizontal compact enclosure pedals - so beloved by Zvex Effects in particular - so I was always going to...

What we have here in the Powerball EP645 is a Made-in-Germany highest quality components High Gain Distortion pedal which Engl have built themselves to sound as close to their own well-loved signature Metal Amp.

On the surface the pedal looks rather elegant in its simplicity - just a 3-Band EQ with Volume and Gain - no additional clipping, gain structure, brightness or tightness controls - and no resonance or presence. Yet the output is a very satisfying dynamic and full amp-like ...

The Visitor is the more interesting of the pair obviously as a brand new endeavour - while the Fault 2 seems on first glance mostly just to have cosmetic difference - but there is a lot more to it - as we shall see!

The Visitor essentially has two different Modulation Channels - the Primary with Tremolo, Chorus and Phaser options while the Secondary just has Tremolo and Chorus. For the Primary you get Rate and Depth Controls - while the Secondary only has a single knob which interacts ...