GPX Blog

I don’t typically feature coverage of simply 2nd iteration limited edition artwork or colourway pedals - unless there is some sort of significant underlying change. While on this occasion I would kind of like to raise the issue of ’First Mover Disadvantage’!

By which I mean getting in on the first round release of a pedal - where soon after you acquire one - you kind of regret not holding out slightly longer - as an even better version materialises later on. This ...

Readers of this blog will know that I’ve been waiting for my trio of Menatone vertical dual-footswitch pedals to arrive for quite some time now. For a considerable period these were presumed lost, as they dropped off the tracking radar for nearly six weeks. In any case - good things come to those who wait - and this has all been well worth waiting for.

It all started back on January 24th when I got in touch with Brian about his then very recent Vertical Fish Factory release. I ...

It turns out that I’m quite the fan of Zach Broyles and his many circuit confections. And despite having only been officially properly in business for a handful of years now, Zach’s output is really rather prolific and a number of his classic circuits are already discontinued. Most of you will know his story of how he started dabbling with pedals while working at celebrated guitar hangout Carter Vintage. He got to a stage where he had established enough contacts with clients and ...

This article was triggered by a question from Ryan C who wanted my take on the Boss OD-200 vs the Strymon Sunset - and why the latter was a more permanent part of my own pedal-chain versus the seemingly more capable and full-featured OD-200 - which I will endeavour to answer here as best I can.

I decided to widen the selection as far as possible and get in a few more alternatives for sake of comparison - while that task proved a lot tricker than I had foreseen. The key criteria were to...

This post was triggered by the eventuality that my long-serving Emerald Green Distortion Machine - my Boosted Vox style pedal of choice - will soon be yielding its sport for a while to the incoming new Menatone Vertical Top-Boost-in-a-Can.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Bearfoot FX pedals and was somewhat ignorantly collection Bearfoot, Mad Professor and OneControl pedals before being aware of the Björn Juhl BJFE connection. It has to be said that Björn is one of the ...

So a lot has changed during the month of April - we’ve had some thoroughly exciting and invigorating new product launches, while three of my American acquisitions are seemingly lost by USPS - hopefully they will materialise some day, but for one of them there have been no tracking updates for over a month now - which is somewhat alarming. As the eternal optimist, I can only hope that things right themselves eventually. I had already determined that my pedal-acquisition would go on semi-...

So today’s big Strymon announcement sees the re-introduction of their Compressor + Boost pedal not long after the announced retirement of the now discontinued ’OB.1’. Admittedly there is significantly more to the added bells and whistles of the Compadre. You have a classic Analog VCA Compressor and Analog JFET input stage for the boost, with a digital control layer to save presets for MIDI and switching pedal purposes. The Compressor gets a Dry / Parallel Compression Mix and ...

I must confess I am quite the Jackson Audio fan and have been since they first launched the Prism Boost + EQ + PreAmp + Buffer. I added the Bloom Compressor + EQ + Blooming Boost as soon as that materialised and the Broken Arrow Programmable Overdrive + Boost has been one of my all-time favourite overdrives since that landed. This trifecta has been an unshakeable part of my pedal-chain since launch, and only now is that hegemony being challenged by another!

I, same as Joey Landreth ...

I started this post quite a while ago, but am glad I left it to mature for a while as so much has happened / changed in the interim. Obviously we are right in the middle of a Pandemic and some people have a lot more time on their hands these days, while ironically I have rarely been busier.

The above pictured selection has changed markedly in just a few months as there are more and more mainstream brands seemingly getting involved with pedal kits of their own. It makes a lot of sense ...

I’m not sure I’ve properly communicated before how much of a fan of Reinhold Bogner’s pedals I am - another essential part really of the Boutique Amps Distribution Family. I have acquired 6 or these to date - the Burnley Bubinga Distortion, Ecstasy Blue Mini Overdrive, Ecstasy Red Distortion, Harlow Bubinga Boost & Bloom, Oxford Bubinga Fuzz and Wessex Bubinga Overdrive. While the La Grange is down for a definite acquisition on the wishlist, and the Lyndhurst Bubinga ...