In the wake of the quite superb recent Olbia Super-Klone - which is my favourite Drunk Beaver Overdrive to-date as well as by far and away my favourite evolved Klon sound. I thought I should do a roundup / overview of my other favourite Drunk Beaver Overdrives too.

This listing and visual is roughly in order of my preferences - where fortunately - the first 5 pedals listed are mostly on general release. Vitalii has made 26 Overdrives so far by my count. Actually there’s a couple of earlier ...

Readers will recall that Vitalii made a somewhat evolved Lviv Liontaur Klone back in May of 2024 - which split out Dry and Distorted Signals to separate Level Controls, and made use of killer Soviet NOS D2 GE Diodes. While the Olbia is a whole other level above that - sort of in a category of its own!

For me the Olbia embodies the essence of classic and killer rock and roll sound - in that compact enclosure. And similar to how Thorpy’s ’The J’ delivers the ultimate enhanced-texture for a ...

In something of a departure from the norm - where these Pedal Drops are typically based on classic circuit derivations and deviations - this time around Vitalii rolls out one of his very own highly original designs.

Controls - Volume, Treble, Bass, Voicing : Smooth / Hard, Drive.

The Mykolaiv Broadcast Attack is a completely original design that moves away from traditional diode clipping to explore the gritty texture of magnetic saturation. 

At its heart lies an obsolete KA334 dual ...

What we have here is a Dual-Voice Boost / Overdrive derived from the Ibanez TS808. The toggle switch selects the two voicings - where the Upper ’Smereka’ Mode is a classic TS808 style Tube Screamer. Flip the switch Down to ’BUK’ MOSFET clipping Mode for a grittier, louder, thicker, bassier and punchier voicing.

The classic Smerek voicing is pretty much exactly as you would expect - and you have the classic 3 x screamer controls - Level, Tone, and Drive.

For me the ’Buk’ Mode is a ...

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

Probably the strongest selection of the year - each one of these is amazing and sounds killer. But then agin similar was true of the Overdrives. I’m very much a fuzz fanatic - so his selection has to take the edge - what a selection!

This selection includes 3 from EarthQuaker Devices, 2 from Drunk Beaver, 2 from Fjord Fuzz, and 2 from ThorpyFX.

It also includes the likely pedal of the year - within a selection of 10 award winners here - these are so good - I could have labelled even ...

And so onto the Distortions of the year - the smallest group stage this year! There’s no particular logic as to why there are just 20 Disortions this year. There were a further couple of acquisitions that I was disappointed with - and I deliberately left out of this selection. It’s mostly a case of what appeals each year - and evidently there weren’t that many appealing ones beyond those I acquired. I’m not aware of any particular ones that are still in the wind. The last one in was the ...

36 outstanding Boost and Overdrive pedals  featured here in various sizes - 35 of which are already in the reference collection - with the Superlunar SR-01 the last remaining straggler!

The rules of the game are that I can only finally recommend pedals that I own and have lived with, while I can also feature a few other intended targets in the overview which I fully intend to acquire (like the Superlunar SR-01) - but those can’t feature in the final rankings. So there is only one remaining ...

Another super busy month for me - particularly towards the end - with numerous large scale articles out this week. That also coincided with my busiest week of the year for my other day job. Meaning that I was up until 4-5 in the morning every day - just to keep up with my commitments.

I was already somewhat shattered and burned out before I even got to this super busy period - and it’s a relief that all that work has now been completed on schedule.

I’m especially proud of my work on the Bucket ...