2025 June Pedal-Chain Update - Episode VI - Brit Infusion & Lo-Fi

June was also a month where I picked up 3 somewhat longer-term targets - some of which were part of somewhat longer campaigns spanning a couple of months or so. These were, in order of when they landed - the MGAT-5 Sinvetek Real Amp Abstraction of the Soldano SLO-100, then the iconic Midnattssol from Fjord Fuzz, and finally Butterfly Effects' Dobbo Granular Playground  - wihich just about made the cut - but with which I haven't had a lot of time yet. The Dobbo will take the longest to fully get to grips with - so expect a deep-dive review in about a couple of weeks, each of those is featured here below :

And finally I landed the full complement of newly minted brand Klowra - namely the Vein Ptich-Shiffter, Sprout Multi-Modulator, Everlast Multi-Delay, and Limbo Multi-Reverb. As per the below visual - with deep-dive reviews coming up soon! :

25 Pedals added to the Reference Collection in June!

Obviously a big splash for Fuzzes - which all featured on the board at some stage - with the usual winner stays on mechanic happening to a degree - but also in part later and more personal arrivals.

Strong showing for Distortions and Modulations too - including a brace of Lo-Fi Modulators from Lichtlaerm and EAE x Pile.

This was the busiest month by far this year, and could have been bigger if everything had shown up as attended. Some of those releases got pushed back to July, but some were also just delayed arrivals to the UK, or specifically to Andertons - where I was acquiring those pedals from! :

• 2 x Overdrives
• 4 x Distortions
• 10 x Fuzzes
• 4 x Modulations
• 3 x Spatial Effects
• 2 x Utilities

So this exercise turned out to be a complete disaster from the start. I wanted to swap in some colour-appropriate Marconi Winged Knobs, but Love My Switches sent the the wrong colour blue, what's more the pots on the AP-II have a fairly shallow stalk / stem - so the Marconi knobs just wont's fit - the retaining screws are too far up!!. So the Love My Switches order was kind of moot - and I paid for 3 day express delivery - and the wrong knobs took a week to arrive - bloody UPS at fault again - officially the worst courier in the world! Fortunately I had some lighter blue knobs in my cache - so I was able to update the colourway of the pedal - which I much prefer to the default! I then had all kinds of issues with colour selection in Photoshop - which took me over an hour to figure out the remedy. So from start to finish - the exercise to swap knobs has resulted in one calamity after the other. At least I attained a satisfactory result in the very end - but WTF is happening to my life these days - I seem to be going through an unlucky streak!

I landed two absolutely exceptional and iconic Overdrives this month - both future classics - they both sound immense!

• Hudson Electronics [Ariel Posen] AP-II Broadcast Dual Germanium & Silicon Preamp
• SoundLad Liverpool Scran Britpop Overdrive

A killer showing for Distortion pedals also - each of these is a bonafide classic - some really heavy hitters here - all superb!

• Emmergy FX Slowdriver Shoegaze Fuzz Distortion
• Lastgasp Art Laboratories Devil Tail Deathtortion
• Sinvertek MGAT-5 SRAA : Soldano SLO
• This Heavy Earth Flesh Rot V2 High Gain Death Metal Distortion (+Diezel Herbert)

Of course June is the month of Fuzz - so many great flavours here current and future classics - everyone here is killer - it was tough for me this month to fit these all in - all got a decent innings on the board, but some of these really stood out!

• Drunk Beaver Bucha Square Wave Fuzz (Univox Square Wave)
• Fjord Fuzz Midnattssol Multi-Fuzz & Vibe
• Fredric Effects Demon Fuzz (EHX One Knob Muff Fuzz)
• Funny Little Boxes Caught By The Fuzz
• Hello Sailor Effects Brian May style Treble Booster
• Hello Sailor Effects Jordan Boss Tone Fuzz
• HiWatt Compact Filter Fuzz
• Lastgasp Art Laboratories Lluna Oscillo Fuzz Drive and Voltage Dropper
• Rainger FX Razor Fuzz withVirtual Pick Overtone Artefacts
• SoundLad Liverpool Hungry Beaver Muff

2 pairs here really - first Lo-Fi, then Multi-Modulators / Pitch Shifters. In fact 2 of these are pitch-related. All 4 really interesting and all 4 feature on the board this month!   

• EAE x Pile Mirror House V2 Pitch Modulator
• Klowra Sprout Modulation
• Klowra Vein Pitch-Shifter
• Lichtlaerm Audio Nostalgia Lo-Fi Chorus & Vibrato

I decided in the end that the Dobbo sits best in the Spatial category - and is well accompanied here by the excellent Klowra Everlast 9-Mode Delay, and Limbo 9-Mode Reverb. : 

• Butterfly Effects Dobbo Granular Playground
• Klowra Everlast Delay
• Klowra Limbo Reverb

I don't really use a pedalboard tuner - as I mostly use my Roadie 2 for tuning purposes - while this Swiff Audo C20 is so cute that I could not resist giving it its own spot. My experience with the Forced Smiles was a little less conclusive - it's obviously quite fussy as to which pedals it works with, also I'm principally a floor-based stompbox guy - while this device is more intended for table-top use - so it's been limited overall utility for me - but surely will be perfect for some. Operates on a similar mechanic to Rainger FX's Igor Pressure Expression Pad - which is though honed for floor-usage and so the more suitable for me of those two solutions!

• Emmergy FX Forced Smiles Expression Touch Pad
• Swiff Audio C120 Micro Tuner Pedal

Such a busy month - obviously still a few Leeds -related stragglers, and my piece on supremely affordably UK Boutique Pedals. Matt from Blind Panic Devices said he would do me a Reactor - while he's just recently returned from hospitalisation - and of course needs to get back to full strength.

There are quite a number here which are sort of on the priority list - those include a number of killer fuzzes - including particularly the Shift-Line Termofuzz 2. A couple from Tom at Glowfly Pedals, the Intensive Care Death Muff (running late), and probably the Supercool Triniphase Multi-Stage Phaser!

• ABL Pedals Toor OpAmp Muff, and Szczur Distortion
• Automat Audio Devices Rara Avis Fuzz, and Triplegänger Fuzz
• Barber Electronics BUSS High Gain, Direct Drive, Exacta Fuzz, and Plus Overdrive
• Blind Panic Devices Reactor Nuclear Power Station Fuzz
• Browne Amplification Ethane Dual-Overdrive Screamer-Breaker
• Cornerstone Imperivm Daje Drive Dual-Overdrive Dumble-Screamer
• Cosmodio Glitch Witch Analog Auto-Modulated Logic Fuzz
• Custom Tones Ethos 60's Harmonic Bias Trem
• Dr. No Sarah Lipstate signature Moon Canyon Drive, Loop, Reverb, and Delay Pedal
• EarthQuaker Devices Rancho de la Luna Dirt Transmitter [late landing, carried over!]
• Emmergy FX Blake Driver 2, Blown a Wish Fuzz, Empty Skies, and Rainbow Robot
• Empty Head Effects Big Talker Double Tremolo, The Internal / External Modulator, Falling Man Gravity Delay, and The Lover 2-Transistor Overdrive
• Glowfly Pedals Flow Decoder, and Pyroglyphs Multi-FX
• Gojira FX Mr Sparkles Simpsons inspired Screamer
• Goliath FX Stealth Big Muff, and D-05 Distortion
• Holy Island Audio Angel Teeth DOD250 style Distortion
• Hudson Electronics Motorcycle Higher Gain Screamer style Overdrive
• Intensive Care Audio Death Muff
• Keeley Manis Klone [Ordered / Delayed!]
• Lastgasp Art Laboratories Tone Axe Fuzz, and Toxic Plant Distortion
• Raygun FX Super Fuzz Boy
• Palmer Custom FX Solarist SE GeSi Fuzz Face + RangeMaster
• Reeves Electro BlackHatSound Alpha One Knob Fuzz
• Roadie 4 Automated Tuning Peg Guitar Tuner [ordered on Kickstarter - due in September]
• Shift-Line Termofuzz 2 Multi-Fuzz
• Spaceman Effecs Atlas 4 Harmonics Enhancing Preamp Booster
• SoundLad Liverpool Private Beaver Fuzz, and Sketchy Etch-a-Sketch Waveform Generator Tremolo
• Supercool Triniphase Multi-Stage Phaser

18 Slots Updated his month, 1 small one sort of added! - Slots #1b [New], #2, #3, #4, #10, #11, #13, #14, #15, #19, #25, #30, #33, #37, #38, #42, #43, #47, #48.

This month was significantly impacted by the Klowra quartet which features on the board, also a number of potent pairs - by Hello Sailor Effects, Hangman fx, SoundLad Liverpool, and at one stage - Lastgasp Audio Arts - but that Lluna Oscillo Fuzz was later knocked out by Hello Sailor - all those are excellent fuzzes.

It's a really strong board this month - and we have several fuzz flavours  in reserve for the month - defiantly a significant update to the board. - with the Midnattssol on slot #19, the Sinvertek MGAT-5 on slot #33, and the Dobbo on slot .#48 - destined to be long-termers in particular!

I could not resist the temptation of the world's smallest tuner pedal - the Swiff Audio C20 Micro Tuner. Note that there is also the similar looking RockStock Nano - but the Swiff looks like a slightly more refined product - which is why I went with that. As mentioned, I don't really use pedalboard tuners much - preferring to make use of the Roadie Guitar Tuning Peg Automatic Tuner - which is the quickest and most efficient way for me to tune up!

I'm still just scratching the surface with this Klowra Vein 9-Mode Pitch-Shifter - while I'm currently having fun with the Tom Morello-esque 2-Octave Slide / Gide - there will be a deep dive of this one coming up in a few weeks - it will be the last of the Klowra pedals that I review - where I'm starting with the Limbo, then Everlast.

Both Hello Sailor Effects Fuzzes I landed during my visit to HSE HQ - are superb - and this Boss Tone style Fuzz is one of the most vibrant ones I have expirenced - really lively and full of flavour - and exceptional build in every way!

Readers should know that I have a real affinity for Brian May's top boosted sound - and this Hello Sailor Effects Brian May style Treble Booster plus my Tubesteader Roy now delivers my perfect Brian May tones - utterly brilliant  every which way - while the Sixpence isn't period correct - as Brian favours pre 1950\s King George V examples - particularly his birthday year of 1947. I bought some QE Sixpences, but also have some 1947 ones on order which are ground into a pick shape - really cools!

The Funny Little Boxes Caught By The Fuzz is an everyday every way exceptional multi-voice fuzz - which delivers Overdrive, Fuzzy Drive, and Full-on Searing Fuzz tones. Just 2 controls for one of the simplest dial-ins of all time!

What a triumph the SoundLad Liverpool Scran 2 Britpop & Indie Sleaze Overdrive is - another exceptional pedal from SoundLad - such a cleverly engineered overdrive - with so many different tones onboard. I didn't even mentioned the 4th sort of fuzzy voicing you get with Thick maxed out - a really fantastic multi-voice versatile overdrive!

Emmergy FX's Slowdriver Shoegaze Fuzz Distortion is a superb evolution of Tone Bender and Rat combined - with an exceptionally richly textured output and plenty of range on tap - a proper secret weapon of. Fuzzstortion - sounds really immerse!

Both of my SoundLad Liverpool pedals are superb multi-voice devices with deliver a wider range of output than almost every equivalent. The Hungry Beaver Multi-Muff is for sure one of my favourite compact Muffs - it's so good in fact that I'm leaning on Marc to make me a copy of the discontinued Private Beaver variant - which is a lot more tricky to engineer and build - hopefully I will have one of those eventually to complete my set! While understandably Marc is not too keen on the project as he recalls all the challenges all too easily!

I was so impressed by my recent pair of Lastgasp Art Laboratories pedals - both searing and immense - each in its own way - dominating Fuzz and Distortion categories respectively. This Devil Tail has a concealed 3-Band EQ on the rear - where I've cranked the Bass / Lows to Max to give me an absolutely thumping high gain distortion flavour - Lastgasp pedals are alas all too overlooked and underrated - while I have 7 - which are all supreme!

Fjord Fuzz's Midnattssol Multi-Fuzz & Vibe is a future design classic - which will be featured in design museums as well as in the pedal hall of fame. A superb Multi-Voice Fuzz combined with a massively tweakable Vibe side too. Absolutely immense in every way!

David Rainger also can do no wrong - his pedals are always unique and in a category of their own. Slightly quirky but mostly brilliantly musical too - and that's definitely the case with this recent Rainger FX Razor Fuzz with Virtual Pick Overtone Artefacts!

I was very impressed by This Heavy Earth's Flesh Rot 2 Death Metal Distortion - which also carries the flavour of the Diezel Herber amp superbly - per the signature sound of one of my Axe Heroes Ian Crichton of Canadian band SAGA! This is incredibly lively and searing - I feel my friend Henry Kaiser would probably like this one too - as it does that sort of laser-focused searing high gain thing that he so loves. This one exactly hit the spot!

And what more can I say about Mr Wu! Every follow-up pedals somehow manages to sound better than his already staggeringly brilliant forebear. This is for all those nay-sayers who say you can't get proper amp sounds out of a solid-state pedal - I  beg to differ! And obviously those have not tried Mr Wu's latest too - the MGAT-1 GE which is the best Marshall Distortion out there by far - and now he completes a similar exercise for the Soldano SLO-100 too. Those are both full Amp replacements - and will match the output to a 99.9% degrees of authenticity - this is pedal engineering nirvana!

Essentially Lichtlaerm's new and improved take on its formerly named Trugbild Lo-Fi Modulator - now called the Nostalgia Lo-Fi Modulator / Chorus - with a much expanded featured set. Really cool chorusy smeary warbly lo-fi modulator - it can also do vanilla chorusing and vibrato should you desire that!

This EAE x Pile collaboration is the 2nd iteration of the Mirror House Slippery Pitch-Shifter Modulator - which needs to be very carefully dialled in - as otherwise it really leans into exaggerated de-tuned and atonal sounds. A really cool an unusual pedal - but can be a little sensitive on the dial-in - and not every output is usably musical. It totally does that it is prescribed to do in any case - a very unique effect for sure - and not really that adjacent to the EQD Rainbow Machine - which is also a Pitch-Modulator - this Mirror House seems to go a lot weirder - if you let it!

Klowra Sprout 9-Mode Modulator delivers a competent modulation workstation - but still missing 2 of my favourite flavours - Harmonic Tremolo and Dimension Chorus - the other flavours seem to have improved though - with more 3D dimensionality now - and of course we have a Multi-Chorus voicing here too - which works great. Delivers all those flavours really with - with the additional output tweaking courtesy of its unique Texture control!

The business end of the Klowra Effects Pedals are its superb Delay and Reverb - with this Everlast 9-Mode Delay being incredibly capable. Full deep-dive review coming up in a week or two.

The Klowra Limbo 9-Mode Reverb is odds-on favourite to be the most impressive of the Klowra Quartet - and yes it has those superb floaty cloudy and swishy shore-wash algorithms - here called Hazy and Tide - this are likely worth the admission price alone - as the most distinct algorithms on this pedal!

The Butterfly Effects Dobbo Granular Playground has literally just arrived - so I don't have too much to say about it yet. It obviously replaces my Hologram Microcosm on that slot - with more granularity around those effects that I like the most. This device is much smaller than the Microcosm - but seemingly just as potent from my first impressions. It's going to take me a couple of weeks to  get properly into that pedal - in particularly with the current Heat Dome Heat Wave - that's frazzling every in Europe!

I just want to cover off a few delayed pedals - both in terms of production delays, but also in terms of builders 'forgetting' to send me pedals that they had previously committed to. Those kinds of things mostly get sorted eventually - but often mean I miss out on a launch - where it was important for me to get some hands-on expirence on said pedal so I could write it up appropriately. You can see hoo much more meaningful and impactful my articles are when they touch on real-world experience. That's what makes me different to most everyone else - in that I check out most of what I feature on this site - and a healthy proportion of that goes into the Reference Collection. I do not sell pedals on - ever - I keep them so I can contrast and compare them for posterity - as I do so many comparative rundowns - both contemporary and historic.

So there were a few pedals that were supposed to land this month - which have been variously pushed back to next month, or with no set launch date.

I've been chasing my good friend Emilio at Cornerson for 9 months now on the status of the forthcoming Paul Davids Nucleo Atomic Reverb - which has been long since signed off by engineering - while perfectionist Paul is still wanting to fine-tune it further to his preferences. Most don't really how complcated those collaborations can be - Emilio still won't give me a set date for that, and at the same time  he entirely forgot to tell me about or send references (of any kind) for the just launched Phase 3 Imperivm Daje Drive - where I had to get my references from a Japanese site which has fortunately listed the pedal a listle ahead of time. I talk to so many builders so regulary - yet they frequently forget to include me - very strange!

So the Nucleo is indefinitely delayed, as are seemingly the Bixonic Axentrix II Multi-Drive and Sugar Blues Auto-Wah, and supposedly the forthcoming Hangman fx DAGG'R - I'm sill awaiting final dates for all of those!

The Audiostorm Tone Lord MKII is being launched tomorrow, and the Intensive Care Death Muff should supposedly be launched in the first half of July. There's a significant Boss release on July 12th which I totally love - and it's my all-time favourite of that type - all will be revealed!

As mentioned above - there are still some Leeds Pedal Show stragglers and connected pedals that I'm looking to land imminently - those things are always a little more random than they should be - but for sure it's a bit herding cats and times!

I had so many pedals in for June - at one stage it was looking to be well over 30 - but a number of those were waylaid and delayed, and I pushed some of the recently arrived ones into next month too - as I had already long since run out of spaces on the board to accommodate all those pedals. Some of course would go in on the same slot - meaning that several decisions need to be made as to what goes into the final snapshot!

Onto the Brighton Guitar Show and FX Expo then! :