A collaboration between AC Noises and Andrea Degli Esposti from BunkerNoise using a powerful modular synth DSP for AC Noises’ first ever stereo pedal.

This is a unique confection of conventional reverb with diffused and reflected grains - essentially adding further texture and dimension to the Reverb ambience.

The clear knobs are the conventional reverb, and the mini black ones control various aspects of the Grains. That mini-knob row is then  followed by 3 switches - which set further ...

I’ve followed tkog / The King of Gear for many years now - and have had the Mini Glitch in the reference collection for quite a while - a really cool and relatively simple but impactful Micro-Sampler. I believe that first materialised properly in 2018 - where I’m aware there were a few earlier sort of prototype versions before then - while I think the final design occurred some time in and around 2018.

Around a year later, tkog then introduced its Oxford Drive - which I understand is an ...

The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!

These are just different enclosure artwork editions where all else is the same as for the standard editions - just the graphics are different. Note that my background visual here is very apt gold confetti!

Both limited edition anniversary pedals retail for the same standard price of $399 and equivalent in your local currency. Of course available for order right now from the Chase Bliss Webstore. Generally there is a 10% Anniversary discount on most pedals on the site - while some exceptions...

This article was originally suggested by my now good friend Henry Kaiser - leading guitar and guitar effects experimentalist and prolific producer and recording artist. He’s been a long-term friend of Toshihiko Tanabe - of Tanabe.TV fame and thought I should do one of my pedal roundups on Japanese Boutique Pedal Builders.

I had long intended to do a feature on Japanese Pedal Makers - but could not decide on the context or format - as there are so many notable brands. Upon Henry’s suggestion...

Since the Mood is Chase Bliss’s all-time bestseller as far as I’m aware - it makes perfect sense that they would do the same kitchen-sink exercise on this device as was fairly recently done for the Generation Loss MKII.

Superficially - at least facia-wise everything seems to look largely the same bar the major colour-change - with still the same labels present on the pedal’s front :

Controls - Time, Mix (Ramp), Length, Modify (Spatial / Wet), Clock : 2K-64K, Modify (Looper), Modifiers (...

What a magnificent start to the year -  I don’t think I’ve ever had such a strong January selection - I could almost stick a pin in it and take the rest of the year off! Several of these slots won’t see much change between now and the end of the year - and so impressive is this latest batch of additions - that I can’t really see what might be improved in order to replace most of those.

I was not expecting to add the Eventide H90 quite so quickly - while the Hologram Microcosm has always ...

As contemporary mainstream music output becomes ever more polished there is a growing trend towards dissonance and imperfections at the same time. We’ve seen a number of recent pedals with White Noise features and/or scramble type filters - that somewhat deliberately ’mess up’ your sound!

The recent Beautiful Noises Exploder is just one such example, and Fairfield Circuitry have somewhat carried that sort of thing forward with AM / FM Radio Frequency / RFI Modulation on their new Roger That...

Another healthy selection - Modutility covering Modulation, Pitch and Utility pedal categories - for one of the strongest selection to date. Some of the pedals here are truly stellar, and I have a little over half here already in the collection.

I’m unlikely to ever get all the pedals featured here, but there are several already earmarked for acquisition in 2023 - with the Eventide H90 at the top of that list.

The ones I don’t yet own, or may never own even - include :

• Chase Bliss