Readers should know by now how highly I rate Cioks Power Supplies - where we’ve recently seen 2 new additions to the range - the 5-outlet SOL, and the 2,700mA single-outlet Crux. Of the 2 the Crux is the far more exciting proposition with me as its single outlet delivers 2,700mA @ 9V, and 2,000mA @ 12V - which is just the right amount for powering a Quad Cortex. By contrast the SOL is a highly stripped down and stand-alone edition of the DC-7 - where it has 2 less ports, and no outward daisy-...

As you will see in my forthcoming end of the month Pedal Chain Update - I acquired an Eventide H90 Harmonizer over the Christmas period - before that - my various Power Supplies / Outlets were already at Maximum capacity / use - with all outlets already assigned.

This means that I inevitably had to add one more Power Supply into the mix - where the only suitable candidates really came from Cioks - as the H90 requires at least 1,200 mA of current - where you need to use a Cioks Parallel ...

I’ve followed Rabea Massaad for quite a few years now - and while I’ve not attended any of his Toska, Dorje or Frog Leap gigs yet - I’ve been to a number of his impressive Guitar Clinics - including at the last Birmingham Guitar Show most recently.

I’ve obviously grown up with Rabea mostly courtesy of his association with Rob Chapman and Lee Anderton / Andertons - having watched most of his output on those channels - including in particular ’Sounds Like’ alongside Matt Hornby - and a number...

I have long been a fan of the highly convivial Paul Gilbert - with his Racer X Scarified fretboard workout being a particular favourite of mine. Paul is one of the most naturally gifted players out there and can pretty much play anything in any style. He’s a big fan of the Beatles and can play near enough their whole back catalog off the cuff.

There’s certainly plenty to admire about Paul - a lifetime Ibanez Artist with a few signature guitars and pedals to his name. What I particularly ...

This post was triggered by two related events - the pending arrival of my new Boss GT-1000 CORE Guitar Effects Processor unit, and Henning Pauly’s (EytschPi42) recent feature on the very same above trio of ingenious interconnected power supplies - the Cioks DC7 main unit, and ’4’, and ’8’ Switch-Mode Power Expanders / Extenders. What is unique about these devices is their super slim profile (perfectly adapted to Pedal Train pedalboards), and that each power outlet ...

So I seem to have fallen into something of a Josh Smith ToneQuest phase of late. I’ve always been a fan of his core signature tone/s while not necessarily the biggest fan of his musical output per se. His first influence on me was his signature Eventide H9 Rotary preset - which settings I share in this post. I have somewhat fallen into using my own H9 mostly in Josh’s Rotary mode - with a few choice reverbs and delays too, but modulations generally coming from other parts of my pedal-chain.

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I previously highlighted a wider selection of pedal power supplies in my feature ’The Importance of Clean Pedal Power’ which included all the key power supply brands - big and small in a broader category overview, while this time around I’m specifically dealing with larger pedalboards and their power requirements.

Most of you will know by now how important isolated power supply per pedal is for whisper-quiet operation. For my own pedal-chain in which there are ...

Poland was both trickier and yet eventually easier to rationalise than originally perceived. I have scanned through many a country now, and Poland seems to be the last of those with sufficient numbers of high calibre pedal builders to warrant a dedicated feature*. As noted before - these sorts of article take quite a lot of work to complete - and so this is the last of these I will be doing for a while.

* Note that USA and Japan are the leading pedal builders of the world still and too ...

Denmark is a country which is known for punching above its weight - particularly in the field of exports - with a number of globally renown brands in several categories - including Bang and Olufsen, Ecco shoes, Georg Jensen jewellery, LEGO, The Republic of Fritz Hansen furniture (Arne Jacobsen etc.) and Stelton homewares. So it’s no surprise really that so many of its pedal brands are well-known too - particularly of course TC Electronic - which is one of the overall Big 4 along with Boss, ...