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 the final category - where competition is extremely fierce this year. No doubt some of your favourites will have missed the cut here - but hopefully this selection is fully representative of the best of the year. Obvious I lean more towards immersive stereo effects - mono doesn’t really do it for me so much - while there is a smattering of mono pedals in here too. Price, format, versatility and practicality - everything counts!

Of the 23 featured in the selection - I own around ...

Readers will know that I’m a huge fan of Boss’s 200 series - particularly the SY-200 and DD-200 units. For the size and price - the DD-200 really is my go-to Delay - with the absolute perfect mix of Algorithms. And Boss has exactly repeated that magical formula for the RV-200 - delivering the perfect mix of algorithms, features and functions - with one really cool entirely new one - the Arpverb (Arpeggiated Reverb).

It’s probably best to jump right into the algorithms, where it initially ...

We all knew this was in the works - it was just a question as to when this inevitable follow-up to the Meris LVX Modular Delay would materialise - and that time is now evidently! This is another one of those supreme Sound Designer style pedals - and is somewhat reminiscent of Strymon’s NightSky ’Design-a-Reverb’ as I kind of referred to it at the time. Both have lots of hidden secondary features, parameters and functions - while the Meris Mercury X of course goes a few steps further in its ...

Walrus Audio certainly seem to be on an innovative roll these days with another cool experimental pedal based on the same template as its Lore Reverse Delay and Reverb.

You have the same number of controls but with somewhat different parameters and a new set of 5 smart Modes / Programs.

At its core there are Dual Analog Feedback Paths controlled in turn by the Feedback and Regen knobs, and then loaded with granular delay algorithms - which also combine Modulation, Pitch-Shifting and ...

^ 2022 Final Arrangement - December

So the time has come again to to the final reckoning of the layout and composition of this year’s ultimate pedal chain arrangement. I’ve introduced a new ’⚓’ symbol into the visual - which indicates those Slots / Pedals that are unchanged from last year’s Class of 2021 arrangement. That element really is testament to how much has changed between years. It’s also indicative of how much I love those particular pedals - and pretty much find them ...

So this is the first selection here where I only own a handful of the candidates - it’s easier to say what is in the reference collection than out :

• Boss RE-2 Space Echo Compact - $249
• Boss RE-202 Space Echo Deluxe - $399
• Chase Bliss Generation Loss MKII Stereo Magnetiser - $399
• Chase Bliss Habit The Echo Collector - $399
• Meris LVX True Stereo Modular Delay System - $599
• Old Blood Noise Endeavors Screen Violence Stereo Saturated Modulated Reverb Pedal - $279

Of those the Gen Loss II ...

My history with Empress Effects goes back to 2017 to the launch of the EchoSystem which was my very first Empress pedal, while the Reverb had been launched a year earlier. I had had a very long hiatus from all Guitar-related affairs, and only really got back into it in the wake of the passing of two of my ultimate music heroes - first Bowie at the start of the year 2016, and then Prince also by April.

At that juncture I had been a DJ for the best part of 20 years, and was heavily ...