As mentioned previously - I meant to feature Lastgasp Art Laboratories (LAL / Lastgasp) quite a while back, but access to pedals from the UK has been rather limited, and most of these therefore fairly hard to come by! I detailed how there were only two properly active current dealers that had most of the range in stock - my good friend Andy Ebsen’s Effekt Boutique in Germany, and Perfect Circuit in the USA. I also was instrumental in getting Joe’s Pedals’ Joe Light to connect with Lastgasp’s ...

As soon as you engage this Hot Saké you immediately notice that rich, dense distortion character which is so associated with the SD-9 Sonic Distortion.

This is the 3rd SD-9 derivative I feature within fairly short succession - following on from TWA’s Scott Henderson Signature SH9, and Vemuram’s Mark Landau Signature Butter Machine. The Hot Saké came long before those two, but somehow still remains a little under the radar.

I’ve long said that the SH9 and Butter Machine were rather more ...

I’ve long had a Vox AC30 style pedal on the board - slot #19 nowadays - where the Brian May Queen sound is one of the key tones in my arsenal. Not all those Voxy pedals are equal by any means - in fact a lot of them don’t quite quite reach the Top-Boosted Heights you need to cover Brian’s more searing riffs and solos. I’ve long sought out the perfect pedal to replicate those tones - and while I’ve come close on a number of occasions - I’ve never quite totally nailed it with just the one pedal -...

So scanning through this month it seems to have been mostly about Guitar / Pedal Shows, Japanese Pedals, and Pedals Delayed and Missing in the Post!

The Guitar Shows have been pretty fast and furious for March - with two of the most significant ones of the year, along with a fledgling grassroots one : The Guitar Show (Cranmore Park - Birmingham / Shirley), London Synth & Pedal Expo (Studio 9294, Hackney Wick, London), The Alternative Guitar Show (The Fighting Cocks, Kingston).

I of ...

I first featured this pedal in the run-up to Halloween 2023 - where it most definitely has a suitably seasonal pumpkin theme to the artwork. So it’s taken a while to land - thanks once more to Kevin Bolembach and Trevor Shaikin for the assist.

Obviously the first thing you notice is the excellently themed appearance of the pedal, while it’s not without its idiosyncrasies. Bypass state delivers an all-green lit-up pumpkin - which then becomes orange, with green stem when engaged. While there...

I’m a huge fan of richly textured gain pedals - and have a particularly liking for super potent firecracker mini pedals with huge sounds! - for which this Paddy Whacker Distortion certainly seems to fit the bill. The distortion circuit is designed by Ryan and Neil at Dr Scientist Sounds. The Enclosures are individually hand painted and assembled by Patrick, in-house, at Leprechaun FX in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

I love those ’Landgraff’ style swirly paint jobs - while Leprechaun note that ...

Following in the wake of the very well received Noble Screamer (ODR-1 + TS808), and Muse Driver (AT / RK Modded BD-2), we now get 3 more in the same series - all at once.

The Blues Order covers Marshall Blues Breaker and Fulltone OCD voicings, the Angry Orange has EHX Civil War Muff and Boss DS-1 Distortion flavours, and the Super Rodent mixes up the Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive with ProCo Rat Distortion.

As before you get to mix or match the Tone Stack and Clipping Character of each ...

I was a touch critical about the HX One - possibly overly so - as it’s really decent for what it delivers and how. While I could not be more effusively positive about this new POD Express!

For anyone starting out in guitar effects - you get everything you need in one smart little box - with intuitive and mostly surfaced control (vs Noise Gate).

If I was thinking of buying in my very first guitar effect pedal - then I don’t think I could do better than this. It contains 7 Amp & Cab ...

With the left switch on ’+’, and the right switch on MKII this wonderfully richly textured Distortion sits somewhere between a Keeley-modded DS-1, a Rat, and a Big Muff. It reminds me a little of the long discontinued Boss PW-2 Power Driver - which was the closest that Boss ever got to a Muff distortion. The Onederbolt has a little more edge and bite than all of those and a very unique breakup texture.

I talk about 4 gears of operation in the title - which means that with the left switch on...