This has turned out to be the largest category for 2025 with 38 pedals in this selection. As I favour those pedals that I own first, and then the more pedalboard-friendly editions - inevitably there would be some casualties for the year. With the most significant of those being the larger format Meris Enzo X, and the Polyend MESS Multi-Effect Step Sequencer. I know there are some who favour each of those - but they just aren’t targets for me personally.

 I always talk about having a lane - ...

Another super busy month - where the lack of a holiday is really starting to impact my wellbeing - as I’m about as shattered and burned out as is possible without going entirely into meltdown - I’m teetering on the edge!

Here follow the highlights of the month - which I normally try to limit to around 10 elements - but stand at 12 for September. No show or onside attendances this month - while plenty of other activities - and some killer releases of course!

• Jo Quail @ the Roland Store,

Over two years in the making, Boss has evolved pitch-shifting to a more pristine clear and precise glitch-free style of Polyphonic Pitch-Shifting. Most previous efforts deliver a somewhat ’effected’ signal - where unwanted artificial and additional artefacts are typically added into the mix. This new generation of XS Polyphonic Pitch-Shifters gives you the most precise pitch-shifting experience to-date.

These devices have very much been optimised for high-gain drop-tuning players - who have...

This reminds me a little of Boss’s OC-5 - which has a similar feature where you can split off just the bottom strings for Octaver action - while the upper strings remain unaffected. The Dig Deep does a similar thing - with a few more parameters and features, and with 3 Presets onboard.

Controls - Dry [-1 Oct], Sub Mix [-2 Oct], Low Pass [High Pass], Ctrl 1 [Ctrl 2], Split (Split output across Out and Sub Out, [Ctrl III] / [Delete], Shift [Save], Wave (Wave Form) [Ctrl IV] [Scroll], Range [...

So Boss delivers its first compact Multi-FX pedal - with all those early classic Boss Pedals onboard. This is obviously fairly similar to TC Electronic’s Plethora X1 from the tail end of last year - which had 14 effects at launch but has added a few more since - compared to Boss’s 8+8 at launch - where 8 Effects are onboard by default - and once you register your pedal on the dedicated Effects Loader App - you can access 8 more in that App (which requires a Roland Cloud Account) - which App can...

It’s great news that Dr. No is reissuing its iconic Holy Wahcamoly Wah - here in 10th Anniversary Flocked Edition, Not just the pedal enclosure is fully flocked - but the red chicken-head knob is too! A really cool version of this pedal. And whenever I see the Wahcamoly I can’t but help call to mind the JAM Pedals Wahcko also - which is equally colourful and flavourful.

Those are two the very best full-flavour Wah pedals with the same degree of attention to detail - focused on the exterior ...

So - early this morning Chase Bliss announced 2 new pedals. I already have the Reverse Mode C Multi-Direction Stereo Delay in original edition, while I recognise that this newer second batch / edition has a slightly more attractive colourway than the original Chase Bliss always said it would release another batch of the Revers Mode C - and the new edition looks glorious! What a gorgeous colour combination!

At the same time we have the brand new Lost + Found Multi-Modulator / Multi-FX - ...

So for the Klowra Vein we actually have 16 Intervals (Up or Down), with the 17th Mode being Unity / Root. As described in the title its output is full Microtonal Stereo [MISO] - at a really high degree of fidelity - where this is the dearest of the Klowra pedals - with a $20 premium over the other 3, where the Vein is at $149 versus the $129 of the others. Which is a little odd for me - as overall within this collection - the Pitch-Shifter will likely have the least demand. I guess therefore ...

Electro-Harmonix is the only one of the big 3 for which I haven’t done a capsule collection rundown yet - so here it is! Obviously heavily dominated by Big Muffs and fuzzes - mostly JHS Modified, with the Violet Ram’s Head modified by Alchemy Audio - after JHS exited from that arena.

As for all of these reference projects - acquisitions are based on a mix of opportunity, timing, price and condition. And I periodically do sweeps to see if any of my targets can be acquired on beneficial terms...