GPX Blog

This post was suggested by a reader - a friend of the person whom I acquired the ProAnalog Devices MKIV Modern from near the tail-end of last year and via Reverb.com. Instead of covering just the ProAnalog pair though, I decided I should cover 4 matched sets of mine which have some underlying similarities in many ways. In each instance I had acquired just one of each of these pairs, but so liked that one pedal that I decided later to get the matching pair. The largest gap in pair completion was...

Usually I limit these roundups to the 9 best from each brand - but I felt that the visual for that was a little gappy because of the different enclosure sizes! So in an effort to balance out the visual better I upped the limit to 11 - which allowed my to do a couple more interesting things with the listing.

These listings are based on a mix of my own personal favourites and more widely considered best pedal ambassadors for those ranges. For a lot of selections here there was an either ...

For me, this turned out to be the best The Guitar Show yet - where I pretty much managed to round off all my pre-show goals - in terms of seeing what and whom I wanted to / needed - as per the following highlights. I caught 2 great lunchtime showcases - first by Mikey Demus of Skindred / Redbeard Effects fame and then Rabea Massaad of Andertons, Chapman, Dorje, Toska, etc. fame - and D’Addario as it turned out - albeit people were really just there to see Bea play.

I must have ...

My first introduction to Lichtlaerm Audio was courtesy of Henning Pauly - where I caught him talking about Daniel Ringl’s Berlin-made pedals way before Henning’s demo videos were released. There’s actually 4 pedals to the range - including an input-triggered Noise Gate called The Key and The Gate - working somewhat similarly to Fortin’s Zuul, but relying on a loop rather than single input trigger. I’m very well covered in the area of Noise Gates so that is not my ...

A couple of provisos right from the start here - this is obviously not a definitive selection per se - it’s grounded to my own preferences - and secondly, as I’ve noted several times before - I’ve come rather late to EarthQuaker Devices and don’t have as many of those pedals in the collection as I probably should. I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions about the idiosyncrasies of how we are exposed to different gear. What each player is into is the result of quite ...

I originally got into SolidGoldFX (SGFX) pedals way back when I was researching Octave Fuzz pedals, and the SGFX 76 Fuzz (Hybrid Germanium/Silicon Super Fuzz) came out as my sort of surprise favourite in that selection. I did not particularly like the original banana yellow colourway and so went for the Custom Shop Weathered Rust edition instead - as pictured.

The next one that piqued my interest was the Copper Edition Germanium version of the Rosie Fuzz (Tone Bender MKIII), and then a...

This is probably one of my last of the 2020 NAMM-specific roundups as it does not look like details are forthcoming imminently for the other more prototype category of pedals featured at NAMM - including the Friedman Smallbox Pedal, Hamstead Soundworks Zenith, and various leaked Electro-Harmonix varieties - I only usually post when we have significant details and demos / soundfiles.

I always thought the core-line Way Huge pedals were somewhat unnecessarily over-sized in their original ...

I’ve already largely decided what new pedals I will be targeting this year (that I know of!) - following on from the various reveals and announcements made over the last week, and other projects I’m aware of and various themes I will be pursuing in 2020.

First of all to explain the above visual - this features and extrapolation of my current pedal-chain - with the NAMM legend in front of various new / newish pedals - Green means already acquired - or at least already ...

So despite the perilous state of the world, the first NAMM of the new decade actually turned out to be pretty stellar. I had thought that last year’s exceptional show might end up as the all-time high water mark - but this one turned out just as many pleasant surprises.

Slightly different to last year there were a more significant number of pedals announced and launched in advance of the show - while a lot of pedals at the show had very little by way of collateral and some are ...

Contrary to my original analysis - all 3 pedals are actually pretty well rounded and ready to go - while Jackson Audio want to give each a chance to reach their intended audience - meaning a staggered release - with the first to be made available being Joey Landreth’s signature Golden Boy Overdrive ($299) - pre-orders will be up any day soon with shipping due to start in February. The pedal gets its name from a statue which sits atop the Manitoba Legislative Building in Joey’s home ...