Following in the wake of the very well received Noble Screamer (ODR-1 + TS808), and Muse Driver (AT / RK Modded BD-2), we now get 3 more in the same series - all at once.
The Blues Order covers Marshall Blues Breaker and Fulltone OCD voicings, the Angry Orange has EHX Civil War Muff and Boss DS-1 Distortion flavours, and the Super Rodent mixes up the Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive with ProCo Rat Distortion.
As before you get to mix or match the Tone Stack and Clipping Character of each ...
I was a touch critical about the HX One - possibly overly so - as it’s really decent for what it delivers and how. While I could not be more effusively positive about this new POD Express!
For anyone starting out in guitar effects - you get everything you need in one smart little box - with intuitive and mostly surfaced control (vs Noise Gate).
If I was thinking of buying in my very first guitar effect pedal - then I don’t think I could do better than this. It contains 7 Amp & Cab ...
With the left switch on ’+’, and the right switch on MKII this wonderfully richly textured Distortion sits somewhere between a Keeley-modded DS-1, a Rat, and a Big Muff. It reminds me a little of the long discontinued Boss PW-2 Power Driver - which was the closest that Boss ever got to a Muff distortion. The Onederbolt has a little more edge and bite than all of those and a very unique breakup texture.
I talk about 4 gears of operation in the title - which means that with the left switch on...
I believe the first version of this was initially launched back in 2009 or thereabouts - 3 control knobs and a single footswitch. This new V2 Edition of Octave Clang has an additional ’Octave’ Footswitch - so that you can play with or without the ring modulation style Octave effect.
"The OCTAVE CLANG V2 is a pseudo-ring/distortion/noise/octave pedal that creates its unique sound from a specially sourced transformer and precision-matched diodes. This generates extremely rich harmonics and ...
Wow, The Guitar Show was certainly a rollercoaster of an event with the busiest crowd I’ve witnessed to-date. At times it was quite a struggle to make your way through the packed waves of attendees, which did though start to peter out just a little after 3 o’c. For me it was fast and furious from the start - and I found it a little awkward navigating around the hall - as the stand layout seemed to have all kinds of little nooks and crannies - which made some booths incredibly easy to overlook ...
February can often seem a rather odd month after the hustle and bustle of NAMM Show January - where a lot of new stuff always gets announced - while increasingly outside the NAMM schedule - but certainly in and around it! Projects delayed from the previous year often get released in January, but this year those kind of seem to be more spaced out - with some not feted to happen until March / April. February always seems slow compared to January, and that sometimes extends into March too before ...
It seems a long while ago now since I reviewed the V1 The Jack and The Kraken - respectively November 14th, and 21st of 2022. I had intended to tackle the remaining 3 Victory V1 pedals - The Copper, The Sheriff and The Duchess - not too long after that - but all kinds of other happenstances and priorities got in the way. So it seems a timely exercise to revisit the Victory V1 Series - which was / is a close collaboration between my good friend Adrian Thorpe and Victory Amps’ Martin Kidd.
It...
I’m a huge fan of the Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal Circuit - and its classic all-knobs-dimed output - somewhat harsh and searing Swedish Death Metal / Buzzsaw / Chainsaw / Twin Peaks Extreme Distortion tonality. While actually this Homework Series Metal pedal is not really that - you don’t ever fully get up to those levels of harshness - so this is not the pedal for those that want to exactly replicate those more extreme classic metal sounds.
Rather - what we have here is more of an Extended Range...
I’ve long been a fan of Mad Professor’s gain pedals - which of course mostly owe a lot to Björn Juhl - bar the Simble Overdrive (Dumble) by Lassi Ukkonen. Which by coincidence happened to be my very first Mad Professor pedal several years ago - and in fact my very first Dumble style overdrive - of which I have several now.
So the Simble was my first Mad Professor - and the Custom Stone Grey Distortion the most recent - alongside the 20th Anniversary Royal Blue Overdrive. The Royal Blue came...
This is the first time I’m covering a God City Instruments pedal - I’ve come close before as there are other intriguing pedals on its roster - but this is surely its most intriguing one. Supposedly this Brutalist has been 10 years in the making - and there have been previous iterations of this family of effects - including the most recent BJR Compact.
The Brutalist as it says in the title - is beautifully textured throaty distortion with 2-Band Baxandall EQ on the main Bypass footswitch - ...