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 ...
So this has been on the cards for a long while - I’ve had Lastgasp Art Laboratories on the list for a roundup for a really long time now. I had been intending to acquire a few of its pedals for a while - but they’ve never been particularly easily accessible from within the UK.
There are currently just 2 dealers worldwide who have most of the range in stock - Perfect Circuit in the USA, and my friend Andy Ebsen’s Effekt Boutique in Germany - where indeed I acquired my first two Lastgasp ...
This article was actually inspired by the recent Fjord Fuzz SOL Fuzz-Vibe feature - where I got to thinking about extended range Fuzz Face style pedals. To my memory there is only the Carl Martin Purple Moon and Fjord Fuzz SOL in that compact Fuzz-Vibe format. I then recalled the Keeley Electronics Monterey - but realised there weren’t a whole lot of pedals in the extended format category - for Fuzz-Vibes - so I expanded the remit to cover ’Fuzz Face+’ pedals - essentially expanded feature set ...
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 ...
I’ve had my Rise & Shine for about a week - and it’s very evident that Luke Hilton and his team have pulled out every stop with this very unique Octave / Trem Fuzz. It’s most certainly full-fat-flavour on both the core Fuzz Voicing and Upper Octave Effect. And then it does some even more clever things in how it can further modulate that octave effect [Octapulse].
I’m going to start off with some of the trickier aspects of the pedal - not that anything here is particularly tricky - you ...
So 2024 is off to a pretty spirted start! I treaded myself to 2 pedals right at the tail end of the year - the Poly VERBS puts in an appearance in this month’s selection - while the Reeves Electro BHS-D is running a touch late and will be part of the February selection instead.
This time of the year has to be mostly about NAMM - while I feel that a lot of builders kind of took away from NAMM and launched / showcased their new release in advance!
I’ve still to make it to NAMM - timing’s ...
The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!
So we featured 120 pedals across the 5 Genre categories this year - as you’ve witnessed over the last 5 days, and those have been whittled and distilled down to these 27 Magnificent and Exceedingly Flavoursome candidates.
Picking out the very best of those is obviously a slightly subjective exercise while based on a series of exacting criteria - including innovation, versatility, practicality, variability, playability, quality of manufacture, quality of output and sheer enjoyment.
Here ...
And so to what is often my favourite category - the many wonderful flavours of fuzz - and we have some hugely innovative pedals in the selection this year - one of these may even be my pedal of the year!
So there are 24 in this year’s selection - where I’m just missing the Collision Devices TARS, Fender Shields Blender, JAM Pedals Octaurus, KMA Machines Mandrake, Reeves Electro Facet IZ, and Unsound Circuitry Kato Glitch Fuzz - where I will attempt to add most of those to the reference ...
So the new Rise & Shine is quite the departure for Stone Deaf FX - and based on an entirely new compact platform - 3 years in the making - with Multi-Mode switches and special functions. Every aspect of this pedal is custom - from the hand in-filled recessed enamel facia, sand-blasted anodised custom aluminium enclosure, custom milled aluminium knobs, and custom optical + magnetic footswitches - with innovations in every area!
Owner Luke Hilton describes how much innovation went into ...