GPX Blog

I’ve already largely decided what new pedals I will be targeting this year (that I know of!) - following on from the various reveals and announcements made over the last week, and other projects I’m aware of and various themes I will be pursuing in 2020.

First of all to explain the above visual - this features and extrapolation of my current pedal-chain - with the NAMM legend in front of various new / newish pedals - Green means already acquired - or at least already ...

So despite the perilous state of the world, the first NAMM of the new decade actually turned out to be pretty stellar. I had thought that last year’s exceptional show might end up as the all-time high water mark - but this one turned out just as many pleasant surprises.

Slightly different to last year there were a more significant number of pedals announced and launched in advance of the show - while a lot of pedals at the show had very little by way of collateral and some are ...

I’m delighted that Brian Mena has finally seen fit to release a Vertical edition of his flagship Fish Factory Combination pedal - which brings together his two legendary overdrive - the Red Snapper and Blue Collar.

New in this version also is the series direction toggle-switch so you place each of the overdrives first in the sequence. I personally have never been a fan of the horizontal compact enclosure pedals - so beloved by Zvex Effects in particular - so I was always going to...

Contrary to my original analysis - all 3 pedals are actually pretty well rounded and ready to go - while Jackson Audio want to give each a chance to reach their intended audience - meaning a staggered release - with the first to be made available being Joey Landreth’s signature Golden Boy Overdrive ($299) - pre-orders will be up any day soon with shipping due to start in February. The pedal gets its name from a statue which sits atop the Manitoba Legislative Building in Joey’s home ...

I caught some early preview snaps of these on Instagram - and have been waiting for a while for better resources to appear yet to no avail. In the end I had to make my own composites from the best reference I could find online as it does not appear Jackson Audio will be releasing proper details during the show. I was able to do decent facsimiles of the Modular Fuzz and Golden Boy - and will do the El Guapo Distortion image/overview separately / additionally later - as and when better references...

Following on from my campaign for more dual-stacking drive pedals there seem to be quite a number appearing this year - including this smart combination of Rat and Tube Screamer - with standard Volume, Tone and Gain controls for each - which can be plaid independently and together.

Christian Livingstone explains it best:

"The TS style drive has been modded for asymmetrical clipping for more even order harmonics and a touch less compression. Along with a simple signal path for a touch ...

We had seen teaser images of both pedals prior to NAMM and for the RevivalDRIVE I wasn’t sure if it was just a different colourway, but it was pretty obvious that the smaller of the new pedals was most likely some sort of Tremolo variant - and we now of course have confirmation that it’s actually based on a 1962 Fender Deluxe Brownface combo amp.

I was of course a big fan of the RevivalDRIVE when it first came out and was one of the first to snap it up and write a fairly ...

Each year I like to do a comparison of where my current thinking is ahead of the Winter NAMM Show versus shortly after I have witnessed all the new innovations for the year and I have finalised my annual target list. The Chain already features several pedals that will be properly featured at NAMM for the first time - and I’m still waiting for Pete Thorne’s demo video of the Sinvertek N5+ Drive so I can publish my findings on that excellent pedal.

My most recent new arrival ...

When the original Life Pedal (pictured in background above) was launched around 6 months ago I rather liked the concept of the pedal - which is really a kind of souped up Rat-style distortion with extra bells and whistles. Yet I somewhat balked at the size, format and price of the device at around $429. The Life Pedal was originally launched by Sunn O))) as a package deal with their latest -’Life Metal’ album and was part of a 1,000 unit limited run. Since then we’ve had a run...

I’ve long mentioned that we’re living through the second golden age of effects pedals (some say ’Diamond Age’’), and as good as things have been - 2019 took it all to an entirely new level of excellence. I don’t recall any previous year where we’ve had quite the same degree of innovation and so many ingeniously appealing pedals - this year has been so fast and furious - it’s been difficult to keep up at times.

I noted in my End of Year ...