This project has been a long time in the making - I actually started off this compilation properly last autumn, and then have iterated the final selection a number of times since then - before reaching this final format. I apologise to anyone whom I’ve inadvertently left out - I still have a number of Octave Fuzzes to require - that task is never ending!

I own around 80 octave fuzzes so far - and this is near enough half of those - where I’ve mostly leant into compact editions - and ...

February is always something of a lull - particularly after the hyper busy NAMM-inflected January. This month is the doldrums of the calendar where not much gets releases. I did though manage to land a decent selection of a dozen pedals - obviously some from the previous year. With the Sinvertek MGAT-1 EVO being the standout pedal landed - where the Klowra Gnash and Wampler Golden Jubilee were pretty spectacular too. 3 x Klowra pedals on the board this month - all excellent!

Of course there...

In many ways this is the most straightforward category with singular award nominees - GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE.

It’s the second smallest category after Distortions - and the one where I own the least number of pedals in proportion to the whole - just 10 out of these 26.

The order pretty much set itself - with the Cornerstone Nucleo being the clear winner from the start. I’m so impressed with every aspect of that pedal - it’s a perfect Trifecta of Design, Feaures and Playability - pretty ...

So this is very much still a BBD-style Delay, but now loaded with a superior fidelity STM32 Arm Processor.

Superficially it looks identical to is predecessor - while it has a Burgundy rather than Black accent colour.

Looks like the exact same control topology :

Controls - Mix, Feedback, Delay (up to 2400ms), Modulation, Tap [Mode] : Memory Lane JR / Vintage / Galloping 2-Head / Ambient 3-Head, On/Off Footswitch, Tap / Double Footswitch.

The original of this revival phase had 3 ...

I had noted that the 2017 F-Octave editions were fetching quite high prices on Reverb.com - relatively speaking of course . So Diamond in their wisdom have decided to reissue this well loved upper octave fuzz.

The original version had 3 knobs and the Octave toggle switch - while this new 2025 edition has one additional control by way of an extra Low Pass Filter Control (Soft Highs Roll-off). With the original’s Level, Fuzz and Tone controls retained. The earliest of those were released in ...

One of my favourite control topologies / Tone Stacks is a 2-controls : Tilt EQ + Mids Sweep - that is surprisingly potent for Overdrive Pedals in particular. The eagle-eyed among you will have noted that the relatively recent Comp / EQ has a near identical main variable control topology - Level, Comp, Mids, Tilt. Where on this ’Boost / EQ’ we have Level, Gain, Mids and Tilt.

In fact this pedal is very much based on the Gain engine / circuit from the Comp / EQ - minus the compressions ...

It’s been a while since I did one of these colour roundups - per the below visual - all the way back in 2020 in fact. I’ve done quite a few of these over the years and there’s a whole Section dedicated to ’Colours’ on the ’Highlights’ Tab of this site.

Every time I do this exercise I try to be more thorough and expansive. Last time I identified 12 primaries, while this time around we have no less than 26 pedals across 20 categories - and I hint at several more - which means there are 6 ...

So this is the big one - all the top performers from the year in one selection.

We’ve already covered :

• 35 Boost & Overdrive Pedal Finalists
• 34 Distortion Pedal Finalists
• 32 Fuzz Pedal Finalists
• 38 Modutility Pedal Finalists
• 25 Delay and Reverb Pedal Finalists

Total Overall Finalist Selection of 164 Pedals!

Distilled down to the final favourites selection, where I own 27 of them, and will try to secure the final missing ones next year :

• Coffee Shop Pedals London Fog Tape Delay -

I obviously just recently won me an AC Noises Ricorda Retro Series Reverb as a Chase Bliss Mystery Box Bonus Pedal - so the first iteration I had to make on this article was to update the standard Blue Ricorda image to the limited colourway edition that I was gifted by my Mystery Box. This selection is typically the one where I own the least proportion of pedals featured, in fact in this case it’s easier to list the few that I own here :

• AC Noices Ricorda Stereo Granular Reverb + Freeze /