Similar to its recent and utterly superb Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter which I have and love - Subdecay now takes the same kitchen-sink approach to its Tremcoder Pattern Tremolo and Sequencer. You can see that its control topology is almost identical to its predecessor Prometheus sibling - with 6 main control knobs, a 3-way Mode toggle-switch, and dual footswitches.

However Sudecay seem to have gone a step further forward with the newer pedal in that each of the 4 Parameter knobs now has ...

So this was truly a full-throttle month - with so much activity this month and a really busy NAMM release schedule. We also had a couple of JHS Faux Hist this month - some real and some not so much.

The month saw my most popular article ever on Instagram - the Iconic Pickup one - with currently 17.6K likes - still growing as the number of followers surpassed 8,000. It’s been a really grad graft slowly making my way up that slope - but some of the recent Guitar Elements posts have really ...

^ 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 ...

As I’ve just done all the category overviews / best of genre rundowns - you can refer to those for all the individual pedal details - most have full reviews on this site too - here I will simply lay down the longlist - and explain why I picked those top 3 here - so just the details for the 3 overall winners!

I normally try to single out around 40 each year in the final overview - but it also depends on how many can fit the ’jigsaw’ of the visual.

There were 4 pedals in the full longlist...

Another healthy selection - Modutility covering Modulation, Pitch and Utility pedal categories - for one of the strongest selection to date. Some of the pedals here are truly stellar, and I have a little over half here already in the collection.

I’m unlikely to ever get all the pedals featured here, but there are several already earmarked for acquisition in 2023 - with the Eventide H90 at the top of that list.

The ones I don’t yet own, or may never own even - include :

• Chase Bliss

I’m the proud owner of the previous version of this - the Passive V1 Edition with simple Polarity Switch. I was a touch surprised when the original Telegraph was discontinued - but I understand why that happened now.

Coppersound have taken all the engineering R&D and learning from their massive Tripplegraph success and incorporated that in their Telegraph pedal - which is much more robust now.

Those engineering improvements alone were considered insufficient for a new launch - so ...

This month’s sub-title comes from the fact that I’ve been spending a lot of times with loopers these days. Of course the Boss RC-600 is a massive ongoing project for me - where most of the early elements are falling into place nicely now - more of that later. While I’ve often had a mini ’Tweaker Looper’ right at the front of the chain - to use for when I’m dialling in new pedals. You can just record and play back a suitable riff - so that you can concentrate on getting the knobs and switches ...

This one was a really big surprise for me - as while I predicted that the 20-Series SL-20 Slicer would return to duty at some stage - I though it more likely to be in the 200 series format.

But much like Boss first did with the RE-20 - where it introduced a full-featured diminutive RE-2 Compact Edition as well as the larger and more Deluxe RE-202 - Boss has stuck again with the same treatment for the Slicer.

I feel it important to quickly recap on the original - to see just how ...

And here is the turn of the combined Modulation, Pitch and Utility category - which I affectionately label ’Modutility’. Obviously as frequently mentioned -  2021 was ’Year of the Phaser’ - so 8 favourites of those here, alongside 4 choruses, 3 flangers and a couple of stand-out Amp and Cab sims. 

Some genuinely innovative pedals here - and particularly handy new expression controllers in the guise of the Chase Bliss Audio Expression Roller, and Cooper FX Expression Generator. Free the Tone...