I’m not sure any of us were really expecting the return of the Condor. A lot of us are rather waiting for a stereo Dark World, the assumption was that the Condor was largely obsoleted by the Automatone Preamp MKII.
Yet here we have a new and improved version of that well loved format - and whether this is exciting news depends largely on how you mostly use this pedal.
If you mainly use the EQ and Filter elements - then the newer lower noise, smoother breakup and higher headroom HiFi ...
This is the first time I’m covering a God City Instruments pedal - I’ve come close before as there are other intriguing pedals on its roster - but this is surely its most intriguing one. Supposedly this Brutalist has been 10 years in the making - and there have been previous iterations of this family of effects - including the most recent BJR Compact.
The Brutalist as it says in the title - is beautifully textured throaty distortion with 2-Band Baxandall EQ on the main Bypass footswitch - ...
So 2024 is off to a pretty spirted start! I treaded myself to 2 pedals right at the tail end of the year - the Poly VERBS puts in an appearance in this month’s selection - while the Reeves Electro BHS-D is running a touch late and will be part of the February selection instead.
This time of the year has to be mostly about NAMM - while I feel that a lot of builders kind of took away from NAMM and launched / showcased their new release in advance!
I’ve still to make it to NAMM - timing’s ...
I do love interestingly textured and smartly shapable fuzzes - and this is one of the very best of its kind - beautifully calibrated, and smartly combining a square wave gated fuzz with 70’s synthesizer style variable bands resonant filter, an envelope follower, and FX Send and Return Loop.
The rather unusual name ’19 42’ is not a reference to a year or date, but rather signifies the immaculate interaction of two highly complementary elements - I suppose a reference to the principal Fuzz ...
I’ve followed tkog / The King of Gear for many years now - and have had the Mini Glitch in the reference collection for quite a while - a really cool and relatively simple but impactful Micro-Sampler. I believe that first materialised properly in 2018 - where I’m aware there were a few earlier sort of prototype versions before then - while I think the final design occurred some time in and around 2018.
Around a year later, tkog then introduced its Oxford Drive - which I understand is an ...
The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!
Here follows an in-depth look at the ALABS Audio Adam Adventures Series NovaDrift 9-Mode Modulator.
A pretty decent mix of algorithms - Vibe (Uni-Vibe), Chorus, Multi-Chorus, Phaser, Filter, Rotary, Flanger, Tremolo and Ring.
In my opinion really only missing the Roland/Boss Dimensions Chorus and Harmonic Tremol for a full house!
Generally I cite the Wampler Terraform as the Modulator which has the most perfect mix of Algorithms for my preferences - Auto-Wah, Envelope Filter, ...
I’m really proud to be supporting a small fledgling audio products brand based in Singapore - which has only been around for a couple of years or so, and was originally known for making studio quality Microphones, Wooden Earcup Headphones and Mixing Consoles. ALABS Audio’s Jinbo Hui reached out to me back in September - to ask if I would want to support the launch of their new Adam Adventures Series pedal range - and I of course said I needed to be properly impressed by those pedals for me to ...
I’m a huge fan of richly textured gain pedals - and here with the astute use of resonant filters, clipping diodes and powerful tone-shaping we get one of the ultimate ’noise-boxes’. I always identify myself as a noisemaker first and foremost - and I love generating those otherworldly wall of sound earth-shaking tones - whether sludgy, doomy or all-round speaker-shredding.
And while I’m sure you could tone down the output of this machine - it’s really all about making glorious noise in ...
Joel obviously dropped a number of clues as to what Chase Bliss’s new pedal would be - and most guessed it was some kind of Lo-Fi / Fidelity Reducing - Filter / Compressor / Bitcrusher type of thing. While typically ’Bitcrushing’ is associated with the extreme 8bit style of effect which typically creates harder, harsher and more brittle artefacts - while the Lossy is a much more expansive, refined and nuanced affair.
Goodhertz describe their own source Lossy Plugin as the "infinitely ...