My friend Olivier asked me to do an updated rundown of my favourite choices for RangeMaster / Treble Booster - and I picked out 12 of the best viable candidates.

There’s a few honourable mentions for pedals that didn’t quite make the final 12 or have been discontinued since I last did this exercise.

These are still worth seeking out, while they are all discontinued :

• Bispell Tor (unspec. Si)
• JAM Pedals Rooster Ltd (CV7003 / OC44)
• Keeley Java Boost OC44 Edition
• KMA Machines

This has turned out to be the largest category for 2025 with 38 pedals in this selection. As I favour those pedals that I own first, and then the more pedalboard-friendly editions - inevitably there would be some casualties for the year. With the most significant of those being the larger format Meris Enzo X, and the Polyend MESS Multi-Effect Step Sequencer. I know there are some who favour each of those - but they just aren’t targets for me personally.

 I always talk about having a lane - ...

Catalinbread has made its 80ms-800ms Belle Epoch more potent and more versatile. It has an additional 3-way Program Toggle-switch, and you can now use the Footswitch for Tap Tempo - similar to the Boss way of doing that.

Catalinbread’s Belle Epoch is one of the best known compact takes of the Echoplex EP-3 and has long been an essential delay for many players - obviously with Mono output - so not as useful for my own rig - but fabulous for Mono rigs.

Old Controls - Echo Sustain, ...

It seems that of the larger pedal manufacturers only Boss really remains a hold-out for mini pedals - and likely will never embark on that diffusion - while I can imagine that Mini Versions of those Boss enclosures would be incredibly cute!

So here we have 2-knob Mini Versions of the Belle Epoch Buffer and Boost - with a significant saving on pedal footprint - and around $30 less for those Mini Enclosures - where both sets feature just 2 knobs. The compact varieties are typically $159, ...

Looks like Catalinbread are onto another winner here - delivering lush 80’s and 90’s Dream Pop sounds via a highly complementary 8-Voice Digital Chorus which provides a really lush accompaniment to your melodic playing - in tandem with a Sub-Octave.

Controls - Octave, Rate, Mix, Depth.

You have a really simple 4-knob control topology - entirely self-explanatory. You control the Mix, Depth, and Rate of Chorus alongside the degree of Sub-Octave - which you can of course dial out if you ...

So Catalinbread just launched its Airstrip CB-Range Discrete Console Preamp, and instead of covering that just on its own, I thought I should do some kind of group / genre overview.

I’m not sure whether my powers of detection are somewhat not fully up-to-speed for this exercise, for I was only able to uncover 5 suitable candidates for this selection - do let me know if you’re aware of others that fit this selection.

There seems to be some sort of a distinction distinction between ’...

There’s an incredibly rich mix here of no less than 38 killer Modulations, Utilities and Pitch-Shifters - no one does rundowns quite like me! I always dive in at the deep end of things - and give you maximum expansive scope!

There are several here that I don’t have yet, in fact some hat I’m somewhat unlikely to ever have - for reasons of rig compatibility, size and overall sensibilities, practicalities, and preferences!

These 19 are still to be acquired or eventually overlooked :

So the current Voxy & Plexi slots are #18 and #19, while the first formation occurred back at the start of 2018 - with the Bearfoot EGDM on slot #15, and the MI Effects Super Crunch Box V2 on slot #17 - we’ve obviously come a long way since then! That original pairing had a very decent 2 year innings. Which was actually a few month more than the enduringly popular Pettyjohn Electronics pairing. Of all of these - those 2 pairs have endured the longest, with the Menatone TBIAC + KOB duo putting ...

I last did this exercise around 4 years ago now, and in that time have advanced my Rat style pedal collection to 44 units, where 29 compact editions of those are featured in this listing of 32.

From the listing I don’t yet have the NRG Effects 2024 Edition Gnawer, Oneder Red Ryder Distortion, or Walrus Audio Iron Horse. The last mentioned of those is the easiest to acquire, but I’ve not 100% made my mind up on that yet - there may be other more extended range Rats out there that I’ve yet to...