GPX Blog

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 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 ...

This post was sparked off by the recent launch of the Magnetic Effects Zig Zag Dual Stage Overdrive, my relatively recent acquisition of the Aleks K Production Maple Leaf Royal Drive and ThorpyFX Heavy Water Dual Boost pedals, and the hopefully fairly imminent arrival of my on-order Loophole Pedals Grey Matter Overdrive. They got me thinking about other pedals of this type which allow you to blend 2 separate circuits together essentially for more versatility and more complex and richer tones. ...

My first encounter with Aleks K Production was courtesy of a Brett Kingman demo of the Maple Leaf Royal Overdrive around a year and a half ago. I’m a fan of Brett’s and he’s one of my regular favourite resources for new pedal demos alongside many other guitar luminaries. Once I had checked out his 2 demos of the Maple Leaf, I next viewed the Red Scorpion 2 Mega Distortion, then the Hot Ice Sweet Distortion, Honey Moon 2 Sweet Overdrive and Sun Beam Magic Drive.

After ...

I have covered off a number of my favourite Summer NAMM pedals already - including the Boss 200 range, RC-10R and SY-1, the Fulltone OCD Ge, the REVV G2, the Spaceman Effects Gemini IV, and Walrus Audio Kangra for instance. And there’s a couple more surprise ones I will be posting as dedicated features very soon - so stay alert for those! In the wake of one of the best ever Winter NAMM’s it was clear that the Summer NAMM could never match that degree of innovation - in fact most of ...

Readers of this blog will already know how much a fan I am of BYOC’s Crown Jewel Multidrive pedal - with its multitude of dials and switches - 4 gain stages in effect and clean blend circuit. I’ve said that this is not only likely the most versatile drive pedal out there currently, but also an essential educational tool for understating how different degrees of voltage, clipping, tone-shaping and Q-control impact on the output signal.

I wasn’t really that much ...

Australia and New Zealand together have a fair few brands of international repute, and I for one certainly have a number of pedals of Australian origin in my collection. Foremost amongst those is Michael Ibrahim’s eponymous MI Audio / MI Effects - from which range past and present - I have 7 to date - with a couple more on the ’nice-to-have’ wishlist. Of the ones I have 2 are permanent features in my pedal-chain - the Super Crunch Box V2 (my Brown Sound pedal of choice) and ...

In line with its ongoing enclosure format innovations and taking significant influence from the recent 500 series - Boss replaces the dual latching-plate format of its 20 Series Twin Pedal line with a much more compact and sleeker medium vertical enclosure 200 Series Design - with 4 pedals due to launch in September, and all priced at £219 as of the moment:

• DD-200 12 Mode Digital Delay Stereo Workstation - £219
• EQ-200 10 Band Dual Channel Stereo Graphic Equalizer - £219

This is the 11th in the Pedal Builders Country Series as such, although I’ve had to cast the net slightly wider as I currently don’t consider there to be enough top-tier / International-level builders in a single country here to satisfy the usual criteria. Brazil and Argentina come fairly close - with Brazil having significantly the most concentrated volume of builders of any Country in that part of the world. Generally Brazil, Argentina and Chile are particularly well represented. ...

I consider it my civic duty to bring the public’s attention back to Brian Mena and his excellent Menatone Pedals - as they seem to have slipped a touch under the radar of late. Part of the problem is that Menatone has only 3 dealers - Truetone Music in the USA, Deluxe Guitars in Australia and LEP International in Japan. Of those, only Deluxe seems to maintain a decent inventory - and they refuse to ship abroad - which is no good for us Brits! There’s also just a fairly meagre ...