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I had encountered Demon Pedals several times in passing - I have certainly been aware of them for a number of years now but am still not sure where I first clocked them, yet they were one of the first brands that came to mind when I did my ’German Pedal Builders’ feature - while back then I had not wholly been won over - I needed some additional spark to get fully onboard. Turns out that spark was their newest pedal - the Kondo Shifuku D-Style Overdrive - which captivated me on ...

For this particular selection I tried to get in as diverse number of types, along with all the usual favourites - every year I have readers asking me why I left this one or that one out - so this year is the time for including Menatone in the selection. Obviously between years some pedals rise in prominence while others fall - my intentions are always to provide as broad a selection as possible while still covering all my own personal favourites.

There are a few new entrants since 2018...

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 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 ...

I’ve featured BYOC’s Crown Jewel Multidrive on this site several times previously but only superficially really. It is the kind of Swiss Army Knife of drive pedals that will put some off by virtue of its sheer range and versatility (so many dials and switches) - so I’ve tried to break things down here in a more manageable fashion, while providing everything you need to get the most out of this pedal. I am generally a huge fan of Keith Vonderhulls - Mr BYOC himself - and if and...

Marshall takes up a lot of bandwidth on the pedal overdrive and distortion spectrum, and I have a lot of articles dedicated to said genres including several recent ones. So this one covers those pedals which are of a somewhat rarer and different kind. I have chosen not to do specific PreAmp-style pedals or dedicated Amp and Channel pedals by the amp-makers themselves, but rather to feature more generic pedals which distinctly give you the flavour of the amp/s they intend to simulate.

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So OneControl is sort of 1 corner of the Björn Juhl empire as such - as he designs pedals for his own BJF line, Bearfoot FX in the USA, Mad Professor in Finland, and largely mini pedals for Japan’s OneControl - although a couple of compact pedals have also been released now.

Many of you will know OneControl through its excellent utility and loop-switching pedals - like the Crocodile Tail. I though know them entirely through their Björn-Juhl-designed drive pedals. In ...

After doing the recent Mooer Micro PreAmp pedals overview I thought I should check in on its original range of Overdrives, Fuzzes and Distortions to see how well those still stand up. In fact I have 3 of these pedals that I use every now and again - and the Blues Mood is one of my favourite mini pedals of all time, it was even one of my favourite overdrives for a good couple of years.

Most of you will be familiar with most of these as they can pretty much be found everywhere, and are ...