A super busy month - with plenty of highlights and heatwaves.

My house is finally cooling down as I write these last few observations - we’ve had around 10 days of oppressive heat now, and there’s another wave on the way at the end of this week - which makes for very difficult conditions to have sessions with said pedals.

We’re in the final consequence of global climate change now - with increasingly more extreme weather patterns occurring - alternately cold snaps, heatwaves, and torrential ...

This is another killer pedal from the recent Budding Bloom Series, not quite as much fun for me as the Leap - but still very decent. In fact the only one I would kind of question in terms of its ultimate utility is the South Zoo - all the others really deliver the goods for their intended audiences.

The Leap outguns the EHX Pico POG, and this Dive outguns its nearest competitor - the Digitech Drop. The Dive is mostly labelled as a Polyphonic Pitch-Shifter - which most woudl take that to ...

So this new H9 is essentially a fully-loaded Single Core variant of the H90. The larger H90 predecessor allows you to deploy 2 x Stereo Effects simultaneously - and hence is referred to as a Dual-Core Multi-Effects Processor. Where the new Gen 2 H9 has all the same key features and functions as the H90 - but can only deploy a single Stereo Effect at a time - hence Single-Core.

The original unit had a cool looking but pretty useless onboard interface - which was mostly saved by the Bluetooth...

New Pedals in the Class of 2025 Pedal-Chain Snapshot = 41

[OCTOBER]  = 9

[NOVEMBER] = 6

[MARCH] = 5

[SEPTEMBER] = 5

[AUGUST] = 4

[JANUARY] = 3

[FEBRUARY]  = 3

[APRIL] = 2

[JUNE] = 2

[MAY] = 1

[JULY] = 1

[A-Z by Brand]

1. Becos FX CompIQ Pro Yuna Soft Knee Blackmer VCA Studio Style Compressor [SEPTEMBER]
2. Blue Colander Grimrobe Dual Cascaded Super Rat [OCTOBER]
3. Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields Ultimate Modulated Fuzz [SEPTEMBER]
4. Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble Leslie / Rotary Speaker

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 - ...

Another super busy month - where the lack of a holiday is really starting to impact my wellbeing - as I’m about as shattered and burned out as is possible without going entirely into meltdown - I’m teetering on the edge!

Here follow the highlights of the month - which I normally try to limit to around 10 elements - but stand at 12 for September. No show or onside attendances this month - while plenty of other activities - and some killer releases of course!

• Jo Quail @ the Roland Store,

Over two years in the making, Boss has evolved pitch-shifting to a more pristine clear and precise glitch-free style of Polyphonic Pitch-Shifting. Most previous efforts deliver a somewhat ’effected’ signal - where unwanted artificial and additional artefacts are typically added into the mix. This new generation of XS Polyphonic Pitch-Shifters gives you the most precise pitch-shifting experience to-date.

These devices have very much been optimised for high-gain drop-tuning players - who have...

This is a really interesting new pitch-modulation circuit - a tiny bit reminiscent of EQD’s Rainbow Machine - but it’s significantly adjacent to that and very much its own thing! I also much prefer this slimmer form factor here  vs the Rainbow Machine. The Mirror House is really cleverly engineered - and calls on a Smart Control topology to shape its output.

It’s best to approach it from the control topology first :

Controls - Mix (Dry>Wet Mix), Amount (Degree of Shift / Pitch ...

So when I first covered the HammerOn - alongside the MonoNeon Whammy release, I hadn’t fully gotten to grips with what this pedal was overall about. I think that at my time of writing there were no demos out at that time - while a few brief NAMM snapshots have emerged since - particularly around the 2-5 Note Sequencer and Trill Auto Repeater functionalities.

As the proud owner of the HammerOn’s adjacent siblings - the Drop, and the Whammy Ricochet - I thought I would break it down in the ...