GPX Blog

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 ...

I have long been a fan of Alexander’s slightly quirky NEO Series of pedals - with 4 onboard presets, up to 6 modes and secondary / alt functions on every knob - all in handy dual-footswitch compact enclosures. To-date I have only acquired overdrives and the La Calavera Phaser - but there are many more Alexander Pedals on my wishlist and likely at least a couple more candidates here.

The big release is the Superball Kinetic Modulator - a sort of modulated delay - which for one of ...

Catalinbread’s new pedals for NAMM are a highly versatile / tweakable fuzz and sort of mini version of the Belle Epoch Pre. The Giygas Fuzz benefits from Tilt EQ, Mids, Dry Blend, Loud (Volume) and Fuzz Settings - where the EQ and Mids dials are both centre-detented on 900Hz for suitable strident and cutting / aggressive fuzz. The Blend control helps temper the Fuzz and bring in some of the Dry signal for ambience or damping impact - all in all a great-sounding extended-range fuzz. The ...

Mythos’s two new pedals are pretty distinctive and are very much rooted in close collaboration with the artists they were made for. The first pictured (upper) is RJ’s ’Susmaryosep!’ Which is essentially an Herculean V2 Overdrive (808) variety in the centre flanked by single-slider controlled Echo and Boost - each of which has its own footswitch - so you can use simple Boost, Drive and Slap Echo in any combination - the pedal colourway also sort of matches RJ’s new ...

I caught some early preview snaps of these on Instagram - and have been waiting for a while for better resources to appear yet to no avail. In the end I had to make my own composites from the best reference I could find online as it does not appear Jackson Audio will be releasing proper details during the show. I was able to do decent facsimiles of the Modular Fuzz and Golden Boy - and will do the El Guapo Distortion image/overview separately / additionally later - as and when better references...

We have to offer up thanks to the gear gods for a genius with quite such limitless fertile imagination. I can imagine Gamechanger Audio’s take on this would be quite different and more complex, but David is definitely not afraid of the stranger side of things - with none of his effects pedals being even remotely vanilla. And even though there are some practicality issues with the Minibar in its current format - it is nonetheless ingenious and effective in what it does.

David&...

Following on from my campaign for more dual-stacking drive pedals there seem to be quite a number appearing this year - including this smart combination of Rat and Tube Screamer - with standard Volume, Tone and Gain controls for each - which can be plaid independently and together.

Christian Livingstone explains it best:

"The TS style drive has been modded for asymmetrical clipping for more even order harmonics and a touch less compression. Along with a simple signal path for a touch ...

We had seen teaser images of both pedals prior to NAMM and for the RevivalDRIVE I wasn’t sure if it was just a different colourway, but it was pretty obvious that the smaller of the new pedals was most likely some sort of Tremolo variant - and we now of course have confirmation that it’s actually based on a 1962 Fender Deluxe Brownface combo amp.

I was of course a big fan of the RevivalDRIVE when it first came out and was one of the first to snap it up and write a fairly ...

Crazy Tube Circuits, or CTC as I like to refer to them, seem to be on a roll of late with lots of smart innovations and updates happening across their range. Following hot on the heels of the excellent Cyclone Phaser and Killer V Vibra-Drive which I recently featured, we now have majorly enhanced and updated version of the Space Charged and Splash Reverb pedals.

The Space Charged Real Tube Drive gets two extra knobs to go with a new second Boost Footswitch - Boost Volume and Boost Gain...

I of course am a fan of transparent overdrive pedals and have numerous examples of those in my collection including a proper compact original Timmy - funnily enough in the same patterned / mottled purple as featured in Andy Martin’s below video.

The new MXR variety supposedly matches the original entirely in function and tone, albeit some concessions must surely have been made to the circuit in the miniaturisation process - and considering that MXR makes mostly SMT-style circuits...