Former Marshall, Darkglass Electronics and Hughes & Kettner Technical and Brand Directors launch new Citadel Electronics Pedal Brand at the Guitar Summit

So we have Santiago Alvarez (ex Marshall), Tommi Otsavara (ex Darkglass Electronics), and Torsten Woelle (ex Hughes & Kettner) in a very formidable new partnership - with an excellent mid-priced full-range offering! Quite a pedigree really in terms of the principals involved.

According to Andertons these are mostly at the £169 mark, with two of the compacts being just £149, and then the Tube Preamp / Tube Driver going for £269 - all announced, but not yet in stock. Actually GuitarGuitar got their newsletter out quicker - but there were broken links involved! And Andertons did it better, and with slightly keener prices! For Thomann the price points ae €169, €179, €189, and €299 for the tube preamp. I can’t find any USA Dealers currently - and no equivalent USA pricing therefore as yet!

This is a Euro brand - but headquartered in Hong Kong - which surely relates to the place of manufacture.

The range launches with 7 well-priced / mid-priced Pedals (alphabetical) :

• Bus Driver VCA Compressor (SSL Bus Compressor) - £169
• Dynazero Noise Gate - £169
• Overture 12AX7 Tube Preamp (BK Butler Tube Driver) - £269
• Particle Drive High Gain Overdrive - £169
• Planetary Phase 6-Stage VCA Phase Shifter - £169
• Plutonium Phat / Bass Overdrive (Total Bass Annihilator) - £149
• Vector Octave Fuzz (Super-Fuzz) - £149

It’s handy that the two I best like the look of - the Plutonium and Vector have the keenest pricing! Those are the two I would most likely target from this batch. Actually - I like the look of the Particle Drive too - so I would target those 3.

The Tube Preamp is actually a BK Butler Tube Driver take - which surely competes with the much neater CTC Venus that came out earlier this year.

All the candidates here seem well thought out and worthy - with slightly extended range and additional smarts - particularly visible on the Compressor - which one’s overall look and feel is very reminiscent of some of the Darkglass pedals - while that is much less obvious on the others in the range.

This is a well appointed range for sure - and considering the personnel involved should be of very high sonic quality. The look is clean and modern while also a little bland as far as distinct markers go. If you’re going with the plain clean looks - then you kind of need more specialist knobs to stand out - or else risk looking rather generic!

I quite like the look of these pedals - while I wouldn’t say they were particularly striking or memorable. It’s all very decent, but very mainstream also. Pricing puts these up against the typical big 3 - with their core offerings - Boss / EHX / Jim Dunlop.

As mentioned these are pretty well appointed pedals - and I like each of the control topologies here. I typically lean more into Gain pedals - I have other preferences for Compressors, Noise Gates and Phasers, and the Tube Preamp is a little large for my liking - but still pretty formidable sounding. I think it’s likely that I will pick up 2 or 3 of these eventually - I still need to decide on the priority and timing - and I don’t think anything will happen in October - as there are too many other ongoing projects that need resolving first.

All things considered - I’m tolerably impressed here - I would have preferred for these to have been a little more distinct on the the Trade Dress side though!

You can read up more on the Citdal Electronics Website.