Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
The King of Gear introduces another cool somewhat glitchy wobbly pitch-shifter pedal - the Pitch Magpie
Key Points
tkog offers Mini Glitch, Oxford Drive and Pitch Magpie. As of 2026-07-13, the price was £200.
Mini Glitch — Micro-Sampler: Sample Size (marked/offset/marked max [1000ms]); Modes Random/Threshold/Shwitched; Analog Dry Gate Dry Mute/Dry Pass; used by Jonny Greenwood.
Oxford Drive — High Gain Distortion (Marshall ShredMaster): Bass, Contour, Treble, Gain, Volume; Led Clipping Off/On.
Pitch Magpie — digital delay-based polyphonic pitch-shifter: Param (Rate/Cutoff/Depth); Modes Glissando/Resonant Filter/Vibrato; Pitch P15 P8 M6 P5 P4 m3 m2 || m2 m3 P4 P5 M6 P8 P12; Overtone; Mix.
All three are made in small batches and available from the tkog webstore when in stock.
I’ve followed tkog / The King of Gear for many years now - and have had the Mini Glitch in the reference collection for quite a while - a really cool and relatively simple but impactful Micro-Sampler. I believe that first materialised properly in 2018 - where I’m aware there were a few earlier sort of prototype versions before then - while I think the final design occurred some time in and around 2018.
Around a year later, tkog then introduced its Oxford Drive - which I understand is an evolved take on the Marshall ShredMaster. That’s been on my radar for a while - and I’ve considered it a few times for the collection, but not yet pulled the trigger. The fact that the Sinvertek N5 MGAT-1 and MGAT-1-GE are so stellar - means that most every other Marshall style Distortion kind of pales in comparison.
And finally - and with quite a gap on the release schedule - we now have another very obviously tkog device - the Pitch Magpie - which offers lots of versatility around polyphonic pitch-shifting - courtesy of 4 control knobs, and 3 Modes of playback.
I’m always fascinated by which devices end up in the reference collection and which don’t - it’s a mixture of timing, opportunism, and needs must really. I often acquire a number of pedals when I focus on a particular topic area - with a view to doing an overview of that genre - and so I tend to end up with a few more varieties than I would otherwise normally have need of! Once in the reference collection though - the pedal stays in the collection!
I really like each pedal in this trifecta - and depending on pricing and availability, and prevailing priorities of course - I might very well end up with all 3 eventually. While I’m largely very mood- and thematically driven - so in terms of what happens and when has both a structured approach - and some happenstance about it.
All 3 pedals are still in production - but produced in relatively small batches, so not always available, and they often tend to get snapped up pretty quickly in any case.
All 3 are priced at $200 - and the Mini Glitch, Oxford Drive and Pitch Magpie are available from the tkog webstore - when in stock obviously!
It will be interesting to see if and when I pick up the remaining two here!
Here follow the further details on each pedal :
Mini Glitch Micro-Sampler - $200
Controls - Sample Size (md marked / offset / marked max [1000ms]), Mode : Random / Threshold / Shwitched, Analog Dry Gate : Dry Mute / Dry Pass.
Still the quintessential tkog pedal - a very simple but effective Micro-Sampler pedal beloved by a variety of quitar luminaries - including Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. Incredibly simple to use and highly impactful in a really cool way.
Oxford Drive High Gain Distortion (ShredMaster) - $200
Controls - Bass, Contour, Treble, Gain, Volume, Led Clipping : Off/On.
An evolved take on the Marshall ShredMaster as far as I understand - very much High Gain Marshall style tones. A great sounding distortion pedal - while it obviously has a lot of competition out there - I'm still tempted though!
Pitch Magpie - Digital Delay-based Pitch-Shifter with integrated effects - $200
Controls - Param (Rate / Cutoff / Depth), Mode : Glissando (Rate) / Resonant Filter (Cutoff) / Vibrato (Depth), Pitch : P15 / P8 / M6 / P5 / P4 / m3 / m2 || m2 / m3 / P4 / P5 / M6 / P8 / P12, Overtone, Mix.
A cool delay-based polyphonic pitch shiver with 3 Modes - Glissando, Resonant Filter, and Vibrato - with 14 intervals and different Param (Rate, Cutoff, Depth) per each of the Modes.
