So back in the 70’s EHX’s Mike Matthews commissioned both Howard Davis and Bob Myer to make the next generation of Big Muff - using the newly release OpAmps / IC’s rather than the individual quartet of Transistors. Each engineer came up with their own version - and Mike picked out the Howard Davis one for production - which then became the 1978 EHX OpAmp Big Muff.

Meanwhile Bob Myer’s version sat abandoned and forgotten in the mist of time - until Josh Scott and Daniel Danger came upon it ...

In many ways this is the most straightforward category with singular award nominees - GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE.

It’s the second smallest category after Distortions - and the one where I own the least number of pedals in proportion to the whole - just 10 out of these 26.

The order pretty much set itself - with the Cornerstone Nucleo being the clear winner from the start. I’m so impressed with every aspect of that pedal - it’s a perfect Trifecta of Design, Feaures and Playability - pretty ...

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 - ...

EHX’s latest Mini / Pico pedal is he fairly unique Atomic Cluster - which with Speed and Atoms knobs fully clockwise gives you a full resolution rendering of your Dry Signal - but lower the output resolution when you crank both this knobs counter clockwise. Essentially lowering the output frequency resolution!

The right-hand Atoms knobs breaks the signal frequencies down into lower resolution oscillations - where you get a fairly acute ’mangling’ counter clockwise - with the signal’s ...

A Bucket Brigade Device (BBD) is an analog electronic circuit (Integrated Circuit Chip) that delays an audio signal by using a series of capacitors to ’hold’ and ’pass’ tiny samples of the signal, much like a line of people passing buckets of water. The signal is moved from one capacitor to the next within each ’Clock Cycle’, and the speed of this transfer can be adjusted to change the Delay Time - typically regulated by a further ’Clock Chip’.

In accordance with this feature, the Max Delay...

October was a super busy month - one of the busiest ever - with such a scope and scale and body of work covered - I’m quite shattered as a result!

We had of the penultimate Events of the year :

• The 2nd Woking Boutique Guitar Show
• Kempton Park London International Guitar Show

And around one dozen key posts  as below also :

• Letter from Dr.No
• Teaching Machines FuzzBillion Component Combinations Wheels Gain-Shaper
• Hangman fx DAGG’R Dynamic Auto-Gain/Gate Mighty Morphing Gain-Ramper

I’m a huge fan of the TB MKIII circuit and have several varieties and takes already - from Basic Audio, Blammo, Earthquaker, Function F(x), JHS Pedals, Keeley, Menatone, MXR, PigDog, ProAnalog Devices, Red Noise, Tampco, ThorpyFX, and Tru-Fi - so it’s about time EHX threw its hat into that ring too.

And they’ve seemingly unleashed a massively extended range edition - with 6 knobs, a Fat Boost switch, and additional LED clipping option.

Controls : Fat : On / Off, Clip : Ge / LED, Volume,...

So hitherto I’ve used my full size and also pico format Attack Decay pedals - for delivering cello-like swells - albeit I believe the AD is monophonic - while this new sweller Swello - is fully polyphonic - and uses the Envelope Effect from the POG 2.

Generally you have a Slow Gear style note bloom / swell device - with some additional controls - and including a 3-position Low Pass Filter push-button.

Controls - 3-way Filter Button : GREEN is Disabled / AMBER is Low Resonance, RED is ...

My Klon/Klone journey started in December of 2016 with the Wampler Tumnus Mini - very near the start of my overall pedal journey - so very much in the first 50 pedals I acquired. That pedal had emerged a year earlier (2015) - and players were loving it for the extra bass / oomph it has in its low end. The Mini Tumnus is often selected as the favourite in Blind Tests - and has won a few of those Andertons rundowns.

It took me a while to run across my favourite Mini Klone - the Decibelics ...