2025 October Pedal-Chain Updated - Episode X - Big Thrills and Overspills

The Overdrives have it!

October's intake was particularly strong this year - well befitting my Birthday Celebrations!

Every category was fairly stuffed with Thrills - so many exceptional pedals - including several that will feature in the end of year rundown - and I dare say on overall champion already!

• 7 x Overdrives
• 4 x Distortions
• 5 x Fuzzes
• 5 x Modulations
• 1 x Spatial Effect
• 1 x Utility

So many great additions to the Drive Section - the 2 Hangman's and the Dr. No Power Driver are especially good!

• Blammo Electronics TNYDÜMBLË DLX Dumble Drive + Boost
• Dr. No Power Driver & Booster
• Drunk Beaver Okhtyrka Honey Bee Overdrive
• Gigahearts January Overdrive (Jan Ray / Timmy)
• Hangman fx DAGG'R
• Hangman fx Tyrannosaur Mega Driver
• Hello Sailor Effects Dual RangeMaster NKT CV7001 + TI 2N4060

A solid Distoriton quotient - with a distinct mix of different categories - each of these is really special in its own way!

• Blue Colander Grimrobe Double Rat!
• Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker Full Stack Marshall style Preamp with Enhanced Boost
• Empty Head Effects King Alex II Obliteration Distortion
• Tubesteader Gainlord Plexi + JCM800 Tube Preamp

All of these are killer - and excellent mix of old and new - with a wholly killer selection - including both Gemini III's - and especially Best Pedal of the year - The FuzzBillion!

• Coriolis Effects Grissom Young Dual Fuzz II (Spaceman Gemini III)
• EarthQuaker Devices Barrows Fuzz Attacker
• Electro-Harmonix Bender Royale TB MKII Fuzz
• Spaceman Effects Gemini III Dual Fuzz Generator
• Teaching Machines FuzzBillion Combination Distortion Shaper

A slightly unusual selection - some Raingers hat I scooped up - plus some unique killer modulations - not quite as strong as the Fuzzes - but some interesting candidates here - especially the Gamechanger Electro-Mechanical Motor Synth Pedal!

• Chase Bliss Lost + Found Multi-Modulator / Multi-FX
• Electro-Harmonix Pico Swello Attack Envelope
• Gamechanger Audio Motor Pedal
• Rainger FX Air Space Invader 2
• Rainger FX Deep Star Pulsar Sidechain / Ducking Device

The missing piece of my Rainger's X-Series Mini Collection - finally landed!

• Rainger FX Echo-X Gated Delay

A Mono Single Parallel FX Loop Blender from my friend Wub - useful for mono boards - while I have more potent varieties in the collection already - like the Great Eastern's XO Variable Crossover Blender, The GigRig Wetter Box, and my current superb Cosmic Loop FX Parallelarator. I really need Stereo compatibility for my own rig. While each of those solutions have their own strengths and specific price point!

• Ritual Devices Cauldron Palallel Blender

I have actually relatively few Must-Have Priorities for November - as 2025 has been a little too fast and furious for me - particularly the last 4 or 5 months - so I'm trying to slow down into the Christmas period!

A couple of these are already arranged, while there will of course likely be a few more before the November reckoning is due.

This year I've areadly had near 200 in - which is normally what I aim for!

I would imagine as many as 10 of these would be absorbed over the next few months!

MUST HAVE PRIORITY

• Electronic Audio Experiments Glaive Opamp Ocave Fuzz
• Hungry Robot The Wallflower Ultimate All-in-one Shoegazer
• Poly Effects Trails Unfamiliar Effects That Sustain + Grow
• Spaceman Effects Sputnik I Silicon Fuzz

MUST HAVE

• Coffee Shop Pedals Portafilter Dual Chanel Programmable Overdrive
• Color Audio Casette Preamp (Tascam Porta Two)
• Drunk Beaver Irpin Bee Baa Fuzz (Roland)
• Gehirn Enterprises Noise Wasp Distortion, Pitch Druid Delay, and Zerstörer Distortion
• Ghost Note Audio Daedalus Series 3-Bit Fuzz, Adverb, and Swirls Multi-FX
• Greer Amps Mizuki Ble Dual JFET Gain Stage
• Moth Electric M. Stellatarum 32-Combination Multi-Mode Optical Analog Tremolo
• Supercool The Outback DOD250 + 80's Australian Surf Culture Inspired Overdrive
• Reeves Electro IZZrite Fuzzrite Take
• SHOKR Pedals KRUSH Fuzz-Verb Shoegazer

NICE TO HAVE

• Catalinbread Epoch Boost Mini, and Fuzzrite Mini
• Coppersound Pedals Foxcathcer V2 Compact BluesBreaker
• Diamond Effects Memory Lane STM32 Edition
• Discomfort Design Riemann's Grave Multi-Mode Stereo Modulated Filter & 3-Way Distortion
• Glou-Glu Pilule PLL Fuzz Harmonizer
• Keeley Electronics Oaxa Dual True Stereo Phaser
• Kinotone Ghosts 6-Voice Polyphonic Chordal Resonator with onboard Touch Pad and Contact Mic etc.
• LPD Supernode Dual Overdrive
• Nobels MOD-mini Tremolo, Phaser and Uni-Vibe
• Old Blood Noise Endeavors Sunlight Stereo Modulated Reverb
• Olinthus Earwig Dinky Muff Fuzz
• Pettyjohn Electronics PreDrive³
• Polarbear Effects Gardelyn Dual Parallel Delay with 3 independent tremolo points
• Roland TR-100 Hybrid Analog & Digital Rhythm Creator Drum Machine
• Strymon Olivera Vintage Oil Can Echo
• ThorpyFX x 2000AD Rogue Trooper, Deathbringer, Lawbringer
• Wampler Ego 76 Compressor Mini
• Warm Audio Throne of Tones Dual Channel BluesBreaker, and WA-TS TubeSquealer

22 Slots updated for October : Slots #1, #2, #3, #4, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #17, #18, #19, #20, #22, #24, #25, #29, #31, #37, #38, #40.

A significant Tetris exercise for this month's board - with a number of larger format pedals - which have pushed out some of the slots. We had 55 pedals on last month's board, and for October we're 3 pedals down - to 52. There are a number of pedals here which will be in high rotation - all Thrills really - in fact Big Thrills and Overspills as in the title. 

October's board is phenomenally good!

For October only - we have the Hello Sailor Effects Bee Motif Dual Hybrid RangeMaster on the #1 Slot - that seemed the most logical place to position it - in a very congested month. Great sounding Dual Silicon and Germanium Treble Boosted - where both channels combined deliver a sort of subtle cool proto-fuzz voicing.

After a  near 10 year chase I have finally managed to capture a Spaceman Effects Geminin III at a relatively reasonable price. Where I now have two - with the second (first arriving) being the Coriolis Grissom Young Dual Fuzz II. Both sound superb!

The Coriolis Effects Grissom Young Dual Fuzz II (Spaceman Gemini III) sounds identical to the original - featuring the exact same parts, while the Grissom Young also benefits from fully granular gain controls, and top-mounted jacks. So it sounds almost exactly the same as the original - but in at least a couple of ways is the better pedal - also I think I prefer the Coriolis enclosure too!

Electro-Harmonix's very tasty Bender Royale TB MKIII Fuzz - with vast expanded range courtesy of 6 knobs and 2 x 2-way switches. Not quite in the same Tier as the PigDog JuJu which is still the reigning champion by some distance! There are a few that run close to it - while the Bender Royale is a Tier below!

Hangman fx's DAGG'R Dynamic Auto-Gain/Gate is an amazing Dynamic Mighty Morphing Gain Ramper - making use of Overdrive and Fuzz voicings, a superb Tone Stack and myriad output-shaping options all enhanced by that envelope follower which triggers the higher gain stage - and exceptional dynamic gain-ramping / blooming / searing / sustaining pedal - one of the very best!

The excellent Gigahearts January Overdrive (Jan Ray / Timmy) - which sounds particularly good for Single Coil guitars - adding more body and sustain to those tones.

Blammo Electronics; TNYDÜMBLË DLX Dumble Drive + Boost is better than the original JHS one (marginally!), wihile still far away from the Tanabe Zenkduo, Demon Kondo Shifuku, and Custom Tones Ethos Clean Fusion II!

This one has been teased a few times already - but dozensn't go fully live until November 4th. I picked up at he last woking show and have therefore had it for a couple of weeks or so.The Empty Head Effects Kiing Alex II Obliteration Distortion  - which delivers superb broken tones - which choke out at higher gain values. You need to be fairly sensitive on the dial-in. Too much volume or gain chokes and lowers the output. Get it just right - and you end up with a superbly textured distortion!

Dr. No gifted me one of his very best - from his own archive collection! A fantastic sounding - richly textured Harmonic Overdrive + Boost - particularly with the Asymettrcial Clipping applied - a wonderful sounding drive!

Gamechanger Audio's Motor Pedal Electro-Mechanical Synth is an instant classic. A little unruly in some places - but cable of some incredible sounds. A really brilliant concept all round - with extensive feature set!

EarthQuaker Devices retired its MKIII Park Sound Fuzz - and unleashed this Mini MKII wonder instead - the EarthQuaker Devices Barrows Fuzz Attacker! Great sounding Germanium MKII Edition - which can be placed relatively freely!

The Teaching Machines FuzzBillion Combination Gain-Shaper - is simply my pedal of the year! A magnificent technical and engineering accomplishment! Such a very smart pedal - and a quite superb Sound Design and Gain Generator Device!

My good friend Olly Balan delivers the goods again with the exeptional Tubesteader Gainlord Plexi + JCM800 Tube Preamp - one of the very best sounding Marshall Preamps!

The recent Gainlord arrival pushed out the Roy  - and so I decided to bring back in the Tanabe May Queen for a rotation or too - one of my favourite Top Boosted Vox pedals - and particularly great for Brian May's searing solos!

My first Blue Colander - is one of my favourite ever searing Rat Pedals - this is Double-Down version with even more searing sounds - including an excellent Octave Fuzz voicing - a fantastic expressive distortion!

I finally have the superb Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker Full Stack Marshall style Preamp with Enhanced Boost - which like the Tubesteader Gainlord and Fortin Kali also - delivers excellent Marshall Plexi and JCM800 Voicings.

The Hangman fx DAGG'R has taken up most of my attention this week - where I'm due to proper deep-dive review the Tyrannosaur Mega Driver next week. This one's an interesting 3-Gain-Stage Multi-Drive - with very distinct Gated Boost.

The Mini Electro-Harmonix Pico Swello Attack Envelope - is my replacement for the Mini Attack Decay - while I can't help feeling that it could have been even better than it is. The Swello is the best Mini for Cello Tones - while I feel that it's not quite at the peak of its prowess.

The excellent Fortin Natas High Gain Distortion is back on the board for another rotation - I felt it would be nice to have all 3 Fortin's on the board - in the run up to next month's 2025 chapter of Full Metal Racket!

The Gallstone is Verlie's superb extended range take on the EHX Small Stone V2 - a great sounding phase shifter - with warm vintage modulation! One of three PastFX pedals I had in recently - I've still to cover the Echo 600 - I struggled to fit that on the board this month! So it's going on in November!

The second of my PasFX modulation pairing is the super lush Deluxe Elastic Mattress - a little denser and more expressive than the core Elastic Mattress - and not quite as light and shimmery bright as the original variant!

The Chase Bliss Lost & Found Multi-FX arrived fairly early this month - but I've not had too much time with it yet - mostly been playing around with the Slow-Verb and Sympathic Resonator - from my last Doug Tolley session! I'm hoping what when I drop by the 4th Witney Pedal Party on the 16th of next month - that he will have a few more things to show me by then!The Chase Bliss Lost & Found Multi-FX arrived fairly early this month - but I've not had too much time with it yet - mostly been playing around with the Slow-Verb and Sympathic Resonator - from my last Doug Tolley session! I'm hoping what when I drop by the 4th Witney Pedal Party on the 16th of next month - that he will have a few more things to show me by then!

This has seriously been one of the busiest months to date - with no less than 55 posts in total - I've largely been getting by with just 3 hours sleep for some of these nights - there's just been way too much going on!

I'm going to start winding down towards Christmas - as I'm already somewhat burned out - and need to nurse myself over the line - before a well-deserved break around Christmas!

There's only one Guitar Event remaining this year - the 4h Witney Pedal Party on November 16h - the last hurrah for 2025! :