GPX Blog

Most of you should have seen by now my ’Yellow Means OverDrive’ (9) feature which covers off all of Boss’s Yellow OverDrives, and more recently I did a piece on ’Boss’s High Gain and Metal Distortion Pedals’ (9) - so this article covers all those remaining Boss Drive and Distortion Pedals (13) (past and present) which exist between those two extremes.

This article is written with a view towards the forthcoming OD-200 Hybrid Drive Workstation which in...

Readers of this blog will know that I’m a big fan of high gain / metal distortion, and have a fair few pedals in that category - in fact I have 4 permanent slots in my pedal-chain which are dedicated to high gain (#24-#27). The two medium-sized slots (#25,#26) have pretty much been permanently occupied by the Empress Heavy and MI Effects Megalith Delta for the longest time now (even though I have great rotation alternatives here too) - while there is quite a lot of rotation on my 2 other ...

Electro-Harmonix has introduced a Nano version of its Operation Overlord Overdrive which manages to preserve most of that larger pedal’s functionality / feature set while there obviously have to be some compromises and concessions - and we loose the Stereo component of the original, as well as the Boost Level control and second Boost footswitch. I’m not sure why EHX hasn’t gotten onboard with the dual-footswitch compact enclosure style which is really fairly common nowadays - ...

When I did my recent Aleks K Production Range Overview I had obviously had my 2 favourite Aleks K pedals in the chain for a while - the Maple Leaf Royal Drive/Distortion and Red Scorpion 2 Mega Distortion. I noted how there was a sort of shared family tonal character between the pedals - with a pervasive smooth, long-sustaining musicality with a definite hint of compression.

I reaffirmed my choices as to which were my favourites and why, and indicated I would like to add the Honey Moon...

I spent the whole of yesterday at the Islington UK Guitar Show - which turned out to be quite a different experiences for me compared to last year’s somewhat haphazard inaugural event at Olympia - this was much better organised, and I really enjoyed attending the many breakout events at the show.

For Pedal fans it was really quite a simple show with relatively few Pedal purveyors - and with one stand having most of the action - i.e. the Audio Distribution Group - with 16 brands -...

My first exposure to Thorpy - way back when, was the then monikered Muffroom Cloud Fuzz - a fantastic sounding and really versatile take on the original Triangle version EXH Big Muff Pi. At the time though I was slightly put off by the somewhat over-sized enclosure - which was both significantly longer and wider than my preferred compact enclosure size - so I campaigned hard to have Thorpy bring the box down in size somewhat. This did not look like it was going to happen - and I eventually ...

We all knew that the OD-200 was going to be a killer Boost/OverDrive/Distortion pedal - but Boss has managed to surprise those of us who thought we had it figured out. We weren’t initially totally sure how the Parameters and Boost options were going to work - I already really love the versatility and adaptability of my Jackson Audio Broken Arrow - which encompasses 4 Drive Types alongside 4 Boost Types. Yet Boss ups the ante on that somewhat exponentially.

I thought the core of ...

This post is exactly inspired by Mike Hermans’ recent Comparison Demo video (below) which features these 3 self same pedals (almost!). I’ve always associated Cusack Music (sister brand to Mojo Hand FX) with its various tap-tempo ’Tap-A-...’ Pedals - Tap-A-Delay, Tap-A-Whirl, Tap-A-Fuzz etc.

While the range is comprised of some excellent utility pedals too - including several really cool diminutive mini Never-Off pedals. It was only back in March though that I ...

On my first coming across the brand new Belle Starr Overdrive - or signature pedal for Drew Shirley of Switchfoot, I immediately noticed the same Tone and Body controls from the Prism Boost, Buffer, EQ, Overdrive and PreAmp Pedal. The description then mentions the natural-sounding and amp-like tones of the MOSFET circuit - which kind of confirms its Prism-related DNA to me.

I’ve had the Prism Boost pretty much from launch, and it’s my always-on warming and dynamics-...

It’s been an interesting few weeks of late - where we’ve seen JHS Pedals encroach on Spaceman territory by launching pricey teaser-campaign limited edition $400 pedals. While Spaceman Effects is now extending its reach into the mass-market with an always-available Standard Edition pedal available at the relatively low price of $179 (Compared to other Spaceman pedals).

The Standard Edition pedal is the former baseline unpainted steel enclosure, and has the lowest cost ...