GPX Blog

This is probably the penultimate article in this series for the year - actually I might do another with my own personal favourites from all of these selections. Next up will of course be compact enclosure variants, but here we are at the other end of the scale with the Big Boxes of Metal! A reader asked me why I had not included the Friedman BE-OD Deluxe in the previous category - Horizontal Medium Enclosure - and the fact is that it’s just a touch too large. I have my own system of pedal...

Most of you should have seen by now my ’Yellow Means OverDrive’ (9) feature which covers off all of Boss’s Yellow OverDrives, and more recently I did a piece on ’Boss’s High Gain and Metal Distortion Pedals’ (9) - so this article covers all those remaining Boss Drive and Distortion Pedals (13) (past and present) which exist between those two extremes.

This article is written with a view towards the forthcoming OD-200 Hybrid Drive Workstation which in...

Readers of this blog will know that I’m a big fan of high gain / metal distortion, and have a fair few pedals in that category - in fact I have 4 permanent slots in my pedal-chain which are dedicated to high gain (#24-#27). The two medium-sized slots (#25,#26) have pretty much been permanently occupied by the Empress Heavy and MI Effects Megalith Delta for the longest time now (even though I have great rotation alternatives here too) - while there is quite a lot of rotation on my 2 other ...

When I did my recent Aleks K Production Range Overview I had obviously had my 2 favourite Aleks K pedals in the chain for a while - the Maple Leaf Royal Drive/Distortion and Red Scorpion 2 Mega Distortion. I noted how there was a sort of shared family tonal character between the pedals - with a pervasive smooth, long-sustaining musicality with a definite hint of compression.

I reaffirmed my choices as to which were my favourites and why, and indicated I would like to add the Honey Moon...

Keeley are getting to be rather good at these limited special editions as I’ve commented on several times previously. Once again they’ve drawn in painter Phillip Ortiz for this cool space-themed diorama / panorama. I actually noted in my recent Walrus Audio Best of Range Overview that they should do some sort of Space panorama as that’s where much of their pedal artwork sits. If you muted these tones a little or rather duo-toned this, then this is exactly the kind of design ...

My first exposure to Thorpy - way back when, was the then monikered Muffroom Cloud Fuzz - a fantastic sounding and really versatile take on the original Triangle version EXH Big Muff Pi. At the time though I was slightly put off by the somewhat over-sized enclosure - which was both significantly longer and wider than my preferred compact enclosure size - so I campaigned hard to have Thorpy bring the box down in size somewhat. This did not look like it was going to happen - and I eventually ...

We all knew that the OD-200 was going to be a killer Boost/OverDrive/Distortion pedal - but Boss has managed to surprise those of us who thought we had it figured out. We weren’t initially totally sure how the Parameters and Boost options were going to work - I already really love the versatility and adaptability of my Jackson Audio Broken Arrow - which encompasses 4 Drive Types alongside 4 Boost Types. Yet Boss ups the ante on that somewhat exponentially.

I thought the core of ...

I’m a touch late to the party with this feature - as it’s been quite a while since Zvex announced and sold out of the very first Fuzz Factory edition of this new limited-run line of pedals. They are pretty much identical in content, components and format to the original classic horizontal compact pedals - bar for the use of fully transparent / see-through Lexan enclosures. Lexan is actually a super hard plastic compound or version of Polycarbonate - a thermoplastic polymer - often ...

This is a direct follow-up to my Pedal Primary Colour Wheel article where I noted the direct correlation between the colour Red and Marshall-style Drive and Distortion pedals. I named 6 that fitted the bill then, and I’ve found a few more to complete an elegant colour-matched grouping. The post was triggered by the original article, but also my recent acquisition of the Sitek Wuffy Distortion.

Note that these pedals vary between Plexi and JCM-800 styles of drive - some cover more...

I will start by reiterating once more how big a fan I am of Swedish circuit designer Björn Juhl / BJFE and his many associated brands - which use variations of his celebrated circuits - Mad Professor in Finland, Bearfoot FX in the USA and OneControl in Japan. I have several varieties from each of those brands - 15 or so all told, but my first connection with Björn was via Mad Professor.

Ironically the very first Mad Professor pedal I acquired was not derived from Björn ...