I’ve just recently covered the phenomenal Tavysh HARM Multi-Gain pedal, and thought I should look at which similarly potent multi-gain pedals I had in the reference collection. In fact while doing the preliminary for this I realised I hadn’t yet acquired the All-Pedal Devil’s Triad Essentials - which landed around a fortnight ago. I had to go to Thomann, as there were none available in the UK at the time. I actually really like using Thomann - it takes a little longer to get packages from there...

Another strong month for sure! A little dominated by Keeley Electronics, but some solid releases over the month - with a crazy flurry towards the end - to coincide with Europe’s largest Guitar Gear Show - Mannheim’s Guitar Summit. It seems evident now that Guitar Summit is an event I should really be at - and I will make a concerted effort to be their next year.

As it was I attended just one guitar gear event this month - EarthQuaker Devices Showcase at GuitarGuitar in Camden - where I got ...

So I covered the larger original Devil’s Triad back in September of 2022 - which consisted of 4 sections - Drive, Boost, Reverb and Delay, with the Controls -  DRIVE } Level, Tone, Gain; BOOST } Boost; DELAY } Level, Feedback, Delay (Time); REVERB } Level, Tone, Decay, Drive Footswitch, Boost Footswitch, Reverb/Delay Footswitch.

This compact ’Essentials’ edition gives the Boost - Post and Pre Controls, and takes the Overdrive from a 3-knob type - to a full 3-Band EQ format.

Controls - ...

The Modutility roundup combines Modulation, Utility and Pitch type pedals - it also includes Multi-FX and Multi-Modulation pedals of course. Some years this selection is relatively sparse - while this year it’s totally chock-a-block! In fact it was a struggle to whittle the Longlist down - and inevitably some pedals I wanted to feature did not make the cut - including the Endorphin.es Ghost Pedal Multi-FX and Subdecay Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter.

I still feel that this selection of 26 is...

Wow what a wild ride of a month - one of the busiest to date - bookmarked with two superb events. You really need to read my event round-ups - they’re so full of little details - and of course personalities - the bigger friendship network and sort of family that makes up this magnificent sector in many ways. For sure everyone is in hard competition with each other for the same customer money - but there’s genuine warmth of spirit - a friendliness and willingness to cooperate and get along. Both...

I’m a big fan of the forerunner to this pedal - the marvellously colourful and potent Microdose Filter pedal - based on an evolution of Subdecay’s Prometheus DLX. And while this new one is a collaboration with Spaceman Effects - and evolved from its former Explorer Deluxe 6 Stage Optical Phaser - looks-wise in terms of overall format and topology is still looks to me closer to a Subdecay variant - especially in having those 2 larger lower dials.

The Explorer Deluxe was released back in ...

This article has been a long time coming - where I originally started this ahead of the Mini Edition - which went live on January 24th. I was waiting for a couple of new pedals to be released - while the article has been iterated around 20 times now with a number of recent additions.

And the pedal I was waiting to launch still hasn’t quite happened, while the builder has authorised me to tease it in advance of its official release. And if I were to do the same exercise tomorrow - no doubt ...

So it’s that time of year again when I trawl through the releases over these past 12 months or so and endeavour to extract the pedal highlights of the year. This exercise is all about drawing a line in the sand and figuring out which pedals deserve to be on the notable side of the line.

Of course everything I publish on Guitar Pedal X is highly curated - those are my own particular preferences and choices, and those are the pedals that I like the look of. So everything that appears on ...

This month’s sub-title comes from the fact that I’ve been spending a lot of times with loopers these days. Of course the Boss RC-600 is a massive ongoing project for me - where most of the early elements are falling into place nicely now - more of that later. While I’ve often had a mini ’Tweaker Looper’ right at the front of the chain - to use for when I’m dialling in new pedals. You can just record and play back a suitable riff - so that you can concentrate on getting the knobs and switches ...