I always get pangs of sorrow when a pedal brand retires for one reason or another. Late last year Luca Romanelli announced that he was pulling the plug on his Mastro Valvola pedal brand - which at times I have referred to as ’The Strymon of Italy’.

There are so many complications and complexities with pedal-building in general - chip sets and key components increasingly harder to source, and numerous challenges with logistics and red tape. It’s a wonder more of these don’t go to the wire. ...

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 ...

Joe Halliday’s latest ShipWreck FuzzStortion has been through quite the development journey. Initially based on the request of a friend to make a Higher Gain HSE pedal. It combines a JFET preamp section with some beautifully amp- and fuzz-like dynamics and characteristics - and produces rather exceptional long singing sustain.

It’s basically a discrete transistor style distortion - with an initial JFET preamp section to deliver more organic feel under the fingers. Then it hits something ...

This new hybrid fuzz pedal is in a similar format to Subdecay’s recent PixelWave Phase Distortion Synth. It has the same 11 Mode (0-10) Mode Selector and overall 5 knobs + 3-way Toggle Edit Mode switch. Obviously quite different parameters and output - but same in layout and similar in function.

Controls -  GAIN / Pre-Comp, TONE / Pre-HPF, OFFSET (Bias)| MIX / Pre-LPF, VOLUME, EDIT MODE : PRE / ANALOG / Shaper, FUZZ TYPE : 1-11 / Chorus & Flange, Hold Footswith to Save Preset.

This ...

In my recent review of the Kernom Moho Magmatic Fuzz - I already lauded it to the high rafters as the greatest Multi-Fuzz pedal ever created. It’s the perfect tool for proper fuzz fans - and in particular for those who have fully mastered the relatively tricky Zvex Fuzz Factory and similar - all those should get along with the Moho fabulously. Newbie fuzz fans may find the device a little tricky to dial in - as every knob impacts the texture and tonality of the output - so pretty much all 6 ...

I’m a little late with this as I had to wait for mine to arrive - and all of batch 1 was sold out before mine landed! So the plan was for this article to go live when batch 2 was ready - and you should grab one while you can - these will go really fast - they’re priced to be snapped up very quickly ($150).

The Hoverla is a little similar to the 10th Pedal Drop Sumy - which was Germanium also, while the Hoverla has a different Pickup Simulator Transformer (with hotter 2.5H inductance), and ...

I’m delighted to report that my friend and yours Vitalii Bobrov - of Drunk Beaver fame - at last has a proper website / webstore for his pedals - DRUNK-BEAVER.ROCKS - where his full current range of 19 pedals can be purchased - of course when in stock.

All these pedals are made in relatively small batches (20 or so at a time) and when there is high demand as there often is - then stock clears out very quickly and then there is typically a wait of around 3-4 weeks before more stock is ready ...

JAM Pedals takes its Eureka Ducky Fuzz to its logical evolution with a 3D-Printing masterclass. The Eureka Fuzz of course combines Fuzz Face and Big Muff voicings in a single circuit - aided by a smart 3-way Bass Boost Switch.

Controls - Level, Tone, Gain, Bass Boost Switch : +1 / 0 / +2.

JAM Pedals is of course very well known for its artistry and artisan approach to pedal making - where all of its pedals are hand-painted. While their limited edition EureQuack edition of the Eureka ...

I’ve been a huge fan of the Zander Circuitry Compact Series - since the Siclone Silicon Chaos Initiator Fuzz first appeared in late 2020. Zander’s Alex Millar has long intended to further refine and iterate those pedals - and that’s what he’s been working on over the last year or so - where the newly revised range launched on the 1st of this month.

There used to be 9 pedals in the range - where I have 8 of those - or all bar the Sono Bass Fuzz & Preamp. In fact the Sono, Siclone Fuzz, ...