Set up by 2 former Gamechanger Audio alumni - Toms Lazdovskis and Matiss Tazans - with a Team steeped in Darkglass Electronics / Neural DSP and Marshall.

The pedigree and provenance is pretty clear here, and Menha.Works have understandably come up with an ulra modern killer aesthetic for heir very unique new Monk Echo + Reverb. The Monk Echo is inspired by  Baltic Choirs and Mystical Spiritual Spaces.

Apart from the gorgeous design here, the Monk Echo has a unique Human Formant Voicing ...

At its core this is a PT2399 modulated delay - which is operating well beyond its core abilities - and thus delivering those cool quirky flavours at the edges of its normal output. Empty Head’s Nic has really pushed the envelope here to create a unique character delay with a deformed downward pitch effect - which sounds like you’ve been gripped by gravity - for that falling feeling.

Nic has described tis pedal as "A study in using the dynamics of your input / pick attack to self modulate ...

A number of Analog and Analog style Delays have recently crossed my path - so there’s evidently a trend happening! I featured the HSE SeaWolf back in March, the Colortone ZeroSum in August, and then the Black Mountain Roto Echo, Anasounds Utopia MK2, Tru-Fi Aqua Echo, PastFX Echo 600, and now this Beetronics Bee Bee Dee all in September!

Beetronics’ Filipe always does things slightly differently, and his Bee Bee Dee Delay is very distinct - with a little bit of Chase Bliss style magic ...

I’ve seen these Empty Head pedals doing the rounds quite bit of late - and it was these pedals’ style of knobs - in particular on the ’Big Talker’ - which first drew my attention. Empty Head Effects’ Nik would seem to be a Brit abroad, being based in Mainz, Germany - he certainly sounds like a Brit!

He’s carved out a very unique slightly quirky brand identity which would seem to occupy a philosophically adjacent plane to David Rainger’s Rainger FX. Mixing up a unique aesthetic with very ...

EarthQuaker is in trouble and needs our help. The business has been badly hit by Trump’s Tariffs and is in danger of going under supposedly. And no - it’s not so much politics - as economics rather!

So if you were thinking of buying a pedal within the next week or so - make it an EQD one!

For that purpose I’ve done a sort of A-Z of EQD Pedals - a curated selection which includes most of my favourites - both newer and more classic varieties currently available - these are the types I ...

Interestingly EQD was the first to issue a $99 Budget Boutique pedal - with its Plumes Overdrive, while Josh Scott and friends were the first to deliver a whole line of Budget Boutique Pedals. Overall I think JHS probably did it best, and their range now has the most variety of all those - with 16 pedals to its roster.

I only have one of these to date - the Harmonic Trem - where ironically the Standard Trem mode / option is the more impressive. My favourite Harmonic Trem to date is the JAM ...

I obviously just recently won me an AC Noises Ricorda Retro Series Reverb as a Chase Bliss Mystery Box Bonus Pedal - so the first iteration I had to make on this article was to update the standard Blue Ricorda image to the limited colourway edition that I was gifted by my Mystery Box. This selection is typically the one where I own the least proportion of pedals featured, in fact in this case it’s easier to list the few that I own here :

• AC Noices Ricorda Stereo Granular Reverb + Freeze /

These Hangman fx pedals have been doing the rounds somewhat of late - both Emily Hopkins and the Superfunawesomehappytime chaps received bumper care package of these fairly recently. And Intheblue’s Shane Diiorio and Mike Hermans have at least one apiece.

I do hope Guitar Pedal X can be more involved at the front of these sorts of brand launch events. I mustn’t grumble really - I do get included in many a release schedule, and plenty gets sent my way - but weirdly I still feel like I’m ...

So I’ve been meaning to do this article for a while, but kept putting it off - in the hope that we might see more brands materialising from this country. That has not been the case though - so now seems as good a time as any to focus on the small but mighty trifecta of Croatian brands - Dawner Prince Electronics, DryBell Musical Electronic Laboratory and Polarbear Effects.

I typically have a grid of a 9 for this style of article - so here I’ve selected my favourite 3 choices from each brand...