So a couple of years after the Valvenergy Series launch - Vox has 4 more NuTube candidates for your consideration, where the template has supposedly been somewhat refined and simplified. I believe the first 4 were originally priced at around £169 (c. $215), where currently they go for £119 / $129.

The original quartet consisted of VE-CD Copperhead Drive Distortion (Plexi), VE-CE Cutting Edge Distortion (Tight Metal), VE-ME Mystic Edge (AC30), and VE-SD Silk Drive (Fender Black Face). Of ...

So in my recent ’Guitar Elements’ series it’s finally come to Amps now - where I list out what I believe are the most historically significant and therefore Iconic amps. A lot of you are still conflating Iconic with Vintage, and discounting some of the more recent models - while Iconic does not necessarily infer a long term history and provenance - just that said item or element is a major marker or step forward in the evolution of that device - whatever it may be.

I’m not the first to do ...

I’ve long considered getting in one of these Tube-Powered overdrive / preamps - I’ve had a few Kingsley Amplifiers Pedals for instance on my wishlist over the years, and I’m well aware of all-tube brands like Effectrode - whose pedals sound amazing but are just too large for my preferences and not at all pedalboard friendly. With the current status being that I don’t have any kind of tube-powered pedal in the collection yet. I’m partly conflicted for Eco / Sustainability reasons too - as Tube ...

So following on from the Reticon Flanger - here are the 6 other pedals so far released in PastFX’s Spectrum Collection Buffalo FX Revival Range. These are all very much Gilmour inspired - with the Canberra (Carrera) being a more modern take on the TD-Y (TD-X).

These were released throughout the latter half of 2021 in the following rough order :

• TD-Y (TD-X) - based on the B.K. Butler Tube Driver
• Patriarch (Patriot) - based on the Civil War Big Muff and Pete Cornish P-2
• Power Booster (

I would like to start by thanking Matt Knight and Joe Branton of Guitar Nerds who made this all possible and put me in contact with Steve Mac - guitarist and original member of the Australian Pink Floyd. This all stems back to the Guitar Nerds’ podcast for Friday 3rd July - an interview with Steve Mac, and the accompanying social media pictures of Steve’s home studio pedalboard - or literally ’wall of sound’.

I’m a considerable Floyd and Gilmour fan and avidly follow Björn Riis’s Gilmourish...

Crazy Tube Circuits, or CTC as I like to refer to them, seem to be on a roll of late with lots of smart innovations and updates happening across their range. Following hot on the heels of the excellent Cyclone Phaser and Killer V Vibra-Drive which I recently featured, we now have majorly enhanced and updated version of the Space Charged and Splash Reverb pedals.

The Space Charged Real Tube Drive gets two extra knobs to go with a new second Boost Footswitch - Boost Volume and Boost Gain...

Australia and New Zealand together have a fair few brands of international repute, and I for one certainly have a number of pedals of Australian origin in my collection. Foremost amongst those is Michael Ibrahim’s eponymous MI Audio / MI Effects - from which range past and present - I have 7 to date - with a couple more on the ’nice-to-have’ wishlist. Of the ones I have 2 are permanent features in my pedal-chain - the Super Crunch Box V2 (my Brown Sound pedal of choice) and ...

This is the 11th in the Pedal Builders Country Series as such, although I’ve had to cast the net slightly wider as I currently don’t consider there to be enough top-tier / International-level builders in a single country here to satisfy the usual criteria. Brazil and Argentina come fairly close - with Brazil having significantly the most concentrated volume of builders of any Country in that part of the world. Generally Brazil, Argentina and Chile are particularly well represented.

I used 4...

I’m really enjoying researching French Pedal-Makers and discovering so many new brands, while figuring out also that a lot of French Pedal Brand lists are horribly out-of-date as many of those companies previously listed have ceased trading over the last 10 years or so. This follows on from the Best of British and Best of Canadian Pedal Builders and as I am really enjoying doing this sort of thing I will probably stretch the series out to 10 or so articles - as long as I can find enough ...