Another super busy month for me - particularly towards the end - with numerous large scale articles out this week. That also coincided with my busiest week of the year for my other day job. Meaning that I was up until 4-5 in the morning every day - just to keep up with my commitments.

I was already somewhat shattered and burned out before I even got to this super busy period - and it’s a relief that all that work has now been completed on schedule.

I’m especially proud of my work on the Bucket ...

My close association with Thorpy started back in late September of 2018 - at the now defunct Olympia UK Guitar Show. He was the first pedal maker I reached out to, and the first I connected with.

Since then ThorpyFX Pedals have become my 3rd most populous selection after Boss and Drunk Beaver. Those 3 brands alone contribute over 200 pedals to my reference collection!

The fact that I’m now at 31 ThorpyFX Pedals is a major milestone - and features every mainline MKII pedal Thorpy has made. ...

When Thorpy first sent me the picture of ’The J’ - I briefly thought ’Do we really need another Tweed Preamp?’ Thorpy promised me it was special - and special it really is!

It has the most exquisite breakup texture I have ever heard for a Tweed type - it’s suffused with beautiful harmonics and exceptional balance - for a supremely high quality of warm and lively output.

The control topology is arranged so you can either smooth out or further accentuate the pedal’s output character. For ...

It seems a long while since I first met the new owners of Mad Professor the Iconic Finnish Pedal Brands - Jussa and Mikko - at the London Synth and Pedal Expo back in March - where they announced their new MK2 Simble. They were sort of queuing up the pre-sales for that pedal - which started a week or two later, but it took quite the while for it to be officially launched and in stock.

I’ve been a big fan of Mad Professor pretty much from the start - especially as it’s somewhat connected to ...

Following last week’s Distortion-ology I obviously had to do the same exercise for Boss’s OverDrives.

This one was a little trickier to figure out an ideal arrangement - where I finally decided to group all the yellow ones together - and then sort of book-end those with the different colour variants.

This arrangement is based on Boss’s own definitions of ’OverDrives’ - and thus includes the Power Driver also - which I would rather classify as a Fuzz / Distortion - being that it’s Big ...

The month started off strong with the unique ThorpyFX and Origin Effects Thorigin Folked Up Fuzz April Fool’s - but genuine product collaboration. The NAMM teased DigiTech HammerOn finally landed, and we saw the release of the stunning ThorpyFX Purple Edition The Dane Drive + Boost.

I introduced the Butterfly Effects Dobbo Granular Playground - whose second batch should be out be the ned of next month - that is a major target for me!

I also visited Reeves Electro on the 10th - while ...

This is quite a different device to the original point-to-point £490 ($649) Leo Dual Channel Tweed Drive - where that is all about the granularity of its gain output and structure. Where the new Leo : Twelve introduces a fully variable Tone control into the mix.

Controls - Volume, Tone (< More Bass | Less Bass > maintains top end throughout), Gain.

There’s plenty of range on every dial - and all is fairly self-explanatory besides the very unique Tone Control. Said Tone Control loads in ...

So January 2025 sees a momentous milestone - where we have the peak possible number of pedals in the chain - which now numbers no less than 52 Pedals. It’s an incredibly tight squeeze - and all the available space is now fully used up.

I’ve re-flowed the main visual - where I used to try to have a fixed format arrangement - but now have re-numbered the slots entirely corresponding to the number and order of those pedals. Last January I noted that I was going to switch out my 2 Friedman ...

In my recent 16 Iconic Amps and Pedal Equivalents article - I chose the Eggnog as my favourite Tweed take to date - while there were always question marks as to whether I would prefer the Deluxe 55 when that landed - just a few days ago.

I’ve compared those two quite extensively over the last few days, and I find it very difficult to pick an out-and-out winner. These are obviously both Extended Range varieties - and they render slightly differently - the Deluxe 55 is slightly denser with ...