2025 July Pedal-Chain Update - Episode VII - Epic Global Showcase!

We also had some fantastic key releases this month - including my all-time favourite Rotary Speaker Simulator - the brand new Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble! As below!

If you're the slightest bit interested in guitars you need to get yourself along to 118 Curtain Road in Shoreditch (EC2A 3AY) - for the finest Guitar Exhibition to date - 100 incredible instruments with captivating stories behind each. Yes these are photographs - but the guitars are in real size with Hyperreal attention to details - you can see every tiny surface blemish, dent and scratch - some of those encounters can be quite emotional - and you get to see the front and back of the guitar simultaneously - each a perfect encapsulation of the history of that instrument - across 2 levels! Beautifully staged too!

Another big month - with 23 new and newish pedals added - particularly big across Overdrive, Fuzzes and Modulations.

Boosts and Overdrives ruled the roost for July - with most of those going on the board too!

I added a number of longer-term EHX and EQD Pedal targets too, and a couple of Mad Professors!

The Spaceman Effects Red Team will need to wait until next month for an appearance!

• 9 x Boosts and Overdrives
• 1 x Distortion
• 6 x Fuzzes
• 7 x Modulations

So many killer overdrives here - and one killer boost. An exceptional selection - where most of these got an innings on the board - and some obviously more than others. Really strong group for this month!

• Audiostorm Tone Lord MKII Boost + EQ
• Drunk Beaver Trainer TS-15 Preamp - Maple Leaf Edition
• EarthQuaker Devices Talons High Gain Overdrive
• EHX Operation Overlord MK2 Overdrive
• Keeley Electronics Manis Klone Overdrive
• Mad Professor Custom Amber Overdrive Midas Touch Mod Edition
• Mad Professor Simble MK2 Dumble Drive
• MXR M294 Sugar Drive Mini
• RhPf Electronics Mosferatwo MOSFET Overdrive

Just the one distortion pedal for the month. A fairly unique entity in being a fairly tempered and more gentle Dual Rec take, Hello Sailor Joe has taken a lot of the noise out of the original circuit - which means less feedback and squeal - and a little less bite and presence too. Now everyone will be a fan necessarily as a 'mild-mannered' Dual Rec is something of an unusual quantity - but it's for sure a very classy sounding distortion - I would probably have preferred it with its fangs still fully sharp!

• Hello Sailor Effects Dr Boogie Dual Rec Distortion

Some great longer-term targets here - including the brace of EQD and MXR Fuzzes - which have long been on the wishilst. Also the Satisfaction Plus - while the HSE Vox-Bender is brand new, yet laden with primo vintage components including Newmarket CV7001 transistors (NKT275 MilSpec equivalents!).

In the final above visual - the only one of those that I'm missing is the Blue Box - I did toy with getting that - but it's not quite at the right price for me currently - in fact it's price point seems to have endured somewhat! I need it to drop a little to make it worthwhile for me - I could not find any well-priced ones of those at my last sweep!

• EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander Analog Octave Fuzz
• EarthQuaker Devices Rancho de la Luna Dirt Transmitter
• EHX Satisfaction Plus Fuzz
• Hello Sailor Effects NKT CV7001 Vox-Bender
• MXR CSP203 La Machina Octave Fuzz
• MXR M236 Super Badass Variac Fuzz

Super handy selection of Modulations too - including my all-time favourite Rotary Speaker type - the new Boss RT-2. I got the Vibronaut particularly cheap - and wanted to see how that performed as it seems to have very mixed reviews! It's not quite a classic Uni-Vibe sound - but I still like it - and the MXR Synth Bass is exceptional - while its tracking is not quite 100% up and down the fretboard. Too busy a month to accommodate all of these - the 2 Spacemen will go on the board next month for sure! Oh - and I'm really loving the Pico Attack Decay - it's not as capable as its bigger brother - but does everything I need it to for those Cello-like sounds!

• Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble
• EHX Attack Decay Pico Mini
• Lovepedal Vibronaut Photocell Vibe
• MXR M234 Analog Chorus
• MXR MB301 Bass Synth
• Spaceman Effects Delta II Harmonic Tremolo in Red
• Spaceman Effects Explorer 6 Stage Phaser

Not so many releases as last month, and likely there will be fewer still in August - before they pick up again in the Autumn no doubt! I really want the Bubbly KHDK Digital Bath one - while it's not quite at the Goldilocks price for me. I also like the 2 mid-size overdrives featured here - the Concrete Sound Lab Slab, and the WAT!? Ranges Preamp! Oh and I quite like the Hotone Verbera too - but am a little nervous about the 1000mA power draw - probably need to upgrade my power supplies further for that. (I'm still waiting for the NUX Zeus to come down in price a little - so I can swap out my 2 Friedman Power Grids!!).  I've already picked up the new ThorpyFX Peace2Keeper - albeit that arrives too late to be included in this month's intake. I also like he look of he new Walrus Xero Polylooper!

• Champion Leccy Kilter V2 Swing-Swanger Modulator
• Concrete Sound Lab Slab JFET Preamp & Boost
• Crazy Tube Circuits Mirage Dual Reverb Workstation
• Death By Audio Psychedelic Nightmare Light-Responsive Reverb & Tremolo
• Diamond Pedals F-Octave Fuzz
• EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening Analog Amp Simulator / Headphone Amp
• Fuzz Imp Furia Grinding Chainsaw Style Distortion
• Holy Island Audio Blast Radius Expression Controlled Oscillating Fuzz
• Hotone Verbera Hi-Fidelity Stereo Convolutions Reverb
• IK Multimedia Tonex One Brown Sound Red Edition
• JAM Pedals OC44 Fuzz Phrase
• KGR Harmony Arare Overdrive
• KHDK Digital Bath Bubbly Aquating Digital Filter and Delay
• Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay
• ThorpyFX Low Gain Germanium Diodes Peace2Keeper Harmonic Overdrive
• Walrus Audio Xero Polylooper Stereo Panning Creative Looper
• Wonderful Audio Technology Ranges Cascaded OpAmp JFET Gain Stages Preamp

17 Slots Updated this month, and I took out the Micro Tuner - as it was just getting in the way, and as I use my Roadie Tuner all the time anyway - it didn't really help having the Swiff Audio C20 in place - so that's gone now. Also I was a little disappointed with the Klowra Sprout Modulator - so I brought back the Walrus Mako II [M1].

So the 17 Slots updated were : Slot #2, #3, #4, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #15x, #25, #29, #30, #37, #38, #39, #42.

As mentioned - a lot of Fuzz choices, and particularly Overdrives this month - also 3 Modulation pedals - which is significant. Changes to every row here - bar the bottom one!

For the first time I've decided to break the pedals down by brands and origin countries - I wont't do this every month - but it kind of made sense to do it now!

Of course I swap around up to 20 slots a month  ±- so the overall makeup will vary vastly from month-to-month!

As in previous months - Green NEW entries are brand new, Yellow NEW entries are rather new to me, but not really brand new any more - some of those are even second-hand!

BRANDS (41) per COUNTRY

• 29 Pedals - USA
• Audiostorm - UK
• 2 x Boss - Japan - 2
• Brelliott - UK
• Butterfly Effects - Belgium
• CopperSound Pedal - USA
• Cosmic Loop FX - UK
• Crazy Tube Circuits - Greece
• Decibelics - Spain
• Drunk Beaver - Poland
• 2 x DryBell - Croatia - 2
• EHX - USA
• 2 x Empress Effects - Canada - 2
• Eventide - USA
• 2 x EQD - USA - 3
• Fjord Fuzz - Norway
• Flower Pedals - USA
• Fortin - USA
• Hamstead Soundworks - USA
• 3 x Hello Sailor Effects - UK - 3
• Jim Dunlop - USA
• Keeley Electronics - USA
• Keyztone - France
• 2 x Klowra - China - 2
• Life Is Unfair Audio - UK
• Lovepedal - USA
• 2 x Mad Professor - Finland - 2
• 2 x MXR - USA - 2
• OneControl - Japan
• Plutoneium - USA
• Poly Effects - Australia
• Polyend - Poland
• RhPf Electronics - Switzerland
• Sinvertek - China
• 2 x Sitek Guitar Electronics - Poland - 2
• Solar - Sweden
• 2 x Strymon - USA - 2
• TC Electronic - Denmark / Germany / China
• ThorpyFX - UK
• Tubesteader - Canada
• Walrus Audio - USA

BRAND MULTIPLES (8)

• EQD x 3
• HSE x 3
• Boss x 2
• DryBell x 2
• Empress Effects x 2
• Klowra x 2
• MXR x 2
• Strymon x 2

COUNTRY MULTIPLES (8)

• USA = 19
• UK = 8
• Poland = 4
• Canada = 3
• China = 3
• Japan = 3
• Croatia = 2
• Finland = 2

SINGLES (9)

• Australia
• Belgium
• Denmark
• France
• Greece
• Norway
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland

I've been super impressed by the MXR Bass Synth - while the tracking isn't quite perfect - and it could do with more volume output - probably I'm just overlooking a secondary setting. The 8 onboard presets are simply genius! Michael Jackson's Thriller, Stevie Wonder's Boogie on Reggae Woman, Herbie Hancock's Chameleon, Parliament's Flash Light, Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, Björk's Army of Me, Nine Inch Nails' Head Like a Hole, and Deadmau5's Ghosts N Stuff - all legendary baselines. There's a lot to get stuck into here! I see I need to add some more output gain!

The EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander Analog Octave Fuzz is more of a bass synth pedal for me really - at least for those settings I have landed on. For whatever reason - this one is rendering more Synthy than Fuzzy for me - but that's mostly probably just how I have it dialled in. I really like it, but have yet to feel the force of the fuzz here - as a synth bassline machine it works really great!

A really classy Hello Sailor Effets Leia Rebel-Rebel Vox-Bender with rare vintage parts - including those bigger styles of capacitor, and Newmarket CV7001 Germanium Transistors - which are MilSpec equivalent to NKT275's. A really well rounded 2-transistor fuzz!

The Audiostorm Tone Lord MK2 Solo Boost & Shaper really needs to be experienced first hand for how good it is! It's kind of the 'International Rescue' of boost pedals - where it can enhance and level up any and every pedal used in combination. It's so surgically precise with that the different modes, and the different push-buttons do - you get instant and potent impact - the perfect 'Fixer' and 'Tone Enhancer' Boost - really really smart!

The Mad Professor Custom Amber Overdrive - Midas Touch Mod - was acquired in the recent Mad Professor roundup - I had long intended to get this, and was fortunate one was still in stock at HotRox- when my main mission there was ordering in the new Simble MK2!

The RhPf Mosferatwo Harmonic MOSFET Overdrive is a wonderfully expressive touch-sensitive and dynamic overdrive - with the perfect complement of 7 controls - that allow you to elevate the output in all kinds of different directions. Great guitar volume gain cleanup too!

Of course I had to land the Keeley Electronics' Manis Modified Klon Klone - which is kinda sort of the 6th in that series / set! I really like the extra bass boost, but so far I'm not particularly feeling the Germanium Transistor as a Diode Mode - I tend to prefer the more traditional Diode. A pretty great new take on a Klone - but I remain to be convinced that it's top tier necessarily!

It was of course only a matter of time for me to land the Mad Professor Simble MK2 Dumble Drive. The original was.my first Dumble Drive - and the main one for the first 2 years of my journey. The new one is brighter, more cutting and with more headroom - and therefore more output volume. I still really like both takes - and on one day I prefer the original, and on another I prefer the MK2 - both are pretty great really, but with notable differences in output now!

The EarthQuaker Devices Dirt Transmitter - in fact V2 Compact edition has long been a target for me - and this was recently reissued in this beautiful Rancho de la Luna Studio livery - a little bit dia de los muertosin theme - and then I saw another custom edition of the original V2 designs - so a little like buses I guess - in that for a long time we had not viable options - but now we have a few! Great Fuzz-Driver / Fuzzy-Drive / Fuzz pedal - really potent - sounds great!

The Drunk Beaver Trainer TS-15 MK2 Preamp / Overdrive / Distortion is back with a couple of changes - but all that visceral punchy goodness intact. This is the ultimate garage punk sound - quite a bit noisier, more angular, and more muscular than your typical Fender amp! For me this is one of the very best Drunk Beaver pedals in a while - really exhilarating to deploy!

The EQD Talons High Gain Overdrive is another that has been on the cards for a while - it was briefly reissued earlier this year - in terms of 40 remaining circuit boards - but those were only for Americans. I had been meaning to grab this one for a while - and there was one brand new one left in the wild - in South Korea - which I managed to snap up! It's a real beautifully textured - kind of harmonic overdrive - with lots of range onboard courtesy of those 6 controls - delighted to have this one in the reference collection a last!

I've long loved the Mid-size origin Attack & Release - so as part of the EHX Brand roundup - it made sense to pick up the EHX Attack Release Pico / Mini too - and I got it for a really cool price. The smaller one is not quite as potent as the original - but it does everything you need - and is so much easier to fit in on the board!

The Hello Sailor Effects Dr. Boogie Dual Rec Distortion is a fascinating take on the MESA/Boogie Dual Rectifier - where Joe has smoother out its excesses - massively cutting back the noise floor and feedback squeals. It's a little muzzled in some way - and is smoother and softer than any equivalent Dual Rec - it won't appeal to the real metalheads out there - but I quite like this more mild mannered edition. It might have been preferable to have those modifications on a switch - so you could go fully nuclear, As it is - the bite is not quite so sharp - the 'teeth' have been filed!

The MXR Analog Chorus was the biggest bargain of this recent MXR Roundup - I managed to find one in excellent condition - pristine / near mint really - for just £57 - an absolute bargain. It;'s a chorus I've long wanted - really fully featured with stereo capable output and 5 handy controls. And I'm rather pleased with it all round - performs very well for me!

For the Lovepedal Vibronaut Photocell Vibe I had seen so many conflicting opinion some for, but many against too. And it's obviously not a conventional Uni-Vibe - so it doesn't have quite the same classic output as the best of those. But it still sounds pretty great to me. You have to be careful on the dial-in - which can be a little tricky - but perseverance and patience gets you there in the end. I picked up a near mint one for half price - and I'm glad that I did. Probably wont't stay on the board for particularly long - but it's nice to have that one on hand - it has quite a distinct output - with a lot of brightness!

As mentioned - I was quite blown away by Boss's new RT-2 Rotary Ensemble Leslie / Rotary Speaker Emulator - it's the one I've been seeking all these years. You need to fairly dime some of its elements - but it derives those full Hammond Barrel Organ sounds in a suitably syrupy fashion - sounds really perfect to me - and just what I was looking for in such a pedal.

As mentioned I did not really get on with the Klowra Sprout - so my Walrus Audio Mako Series II [M1] Compact Modulation Workstation is back on its throne. It will only be a short shift though - as it's about to be replace by the incoming Colortone VibroVerb Multi-Modulator!

This has been one of my most epic rundowns of all time - as an end of month write-up - the level and depth of detail here is like nothing else on the web - and yet there is still more to report on!

Besides having had the trauma of my pedal-chain being royally busted on my very own (metaphorical) 'Bloody Sunday' - carnage almost ensued - I was driven to the edge of wanting so smash everything up! But I guess Sunday Night exhaustion kind of rapidly deflated that pending action!

Another thing that irked me this month - in fact it's so becoming a pattern these days - where certain brands that I've enjoyed a decent rapport with and free-flowing communications for years - all of a sudden entirely dry up and in effect Ghost me. With no response to enquiries at all - or any other follow-ups as it were. And said individual announced in his launch video that he was happy to take questions from anyone and everyone - but for some reason not me! (He owes me answers to about half a dozen questions already!). I feel I've done some of my finest work for that brand - so I'm somewhat mystified by my sort of exile / displacement. I'm often told 'they don't mean anything by it' but they surely do if they keep ignoring and neglecting you!

I thought that the gentleman in question was a decent enough friend - we had collaborated for a number of years - while he entirely forgot about me for his previous release also - that Imperial one! Where I had to get details off a Japanese Dealer's site for the launch. Said gentleman said that he had totally forgotten about me - even though we had been in fairly regular contact - a comment here and there once or twice a month! Moreover - he never actually send through any details or references despite numerous requests.

After that one I was already feeling a little out of sorts - and it was likely to go bad if I received the same treatment a second time. This is a project I've been following since last September and the gentleman's last comment was to thank me for the article I did  on June 16th (the one he had neglected to provide me details for!).

I've been following up on this project for the best part of a year - but once again got wholly left out in the cold - no materials / manual / references were sent my way ahead of launch. No response as to how I could get my hand on such a device in time to have a proper review out for launch! - It may not be fully intended - but this is a major snub and major case of neglect - and the second one in a row. So I felt compelled to enact Newton's 3rd Law in response. and in these circumstances...

And instead of anything resembling an article - I just posted a cryptic visual - with the words 'Nucleo Fallout' containing the name of that pedal - and my residual negative experience of that launch - indeed as per the visual below. It caused alarm among some of my readership in Europe - what with the pervasive encroachment of war and various nuclear threats relating to those.

So I wanted to express my dissatisfaction with what was happening - but without being unduly negative. I always leave the door ajar for people to make amends with me, but relatively few of the serial offenders seem to want to take that opportunity. This is the only brands that I'm currently at odds with - and I will not support it any more for the foreseeable furture. If you sideline and neglect me - I will deny you the air of publicity. I refuse to promote brands which evidently no longer respect me. Which is a shame really - as I had prepared a marvellous visual for launch - per the second one below!

It's a beautiful pedal for sure - one of the best looking ones I've encountered to date! But I will not likely be fully promoting it  - and if I do get it - I will 'disguise' it with my own typical hybrid Rebel Alliance Jedi Insignia - indeed as I have already done!

It's such a shame really - as this could have been great for all concerned - but it seems like I have been well and truly exiled from Cornerstone - and have to respond in kind I have actually ordered the pedal from a Dutch Dealer - Definitive Guitar Store - who was one of the few that had some very imminently in stock - so this will be part of the collection now, but there will likelyl be minimal follow up - and few if any social media posts! You will typically only see it as part of the monthly pedal chain snapshot! Actually - like this very one!

I would like to give special props here to Dylan Banus @ the Definitive Guitar Store - who has provided me with stellar and over and above customer support to help me secure my Nucleo. I can be very hard to please on occasion. While Dylan has been the consummate professional here - and quite excellent on communications.

If you're thinking of getting a Cornerstone Nucleo - make sue you get it from the Definitive Guitar Store!

Their customer service is the best around!