Readers should know by now that I really like this small but perfectly formed Japanese brand. Details are scant on who exactly is involved, and there’s no website - just some tweets really - while whoever it is makes some exceptionally fine gain pedals!

You will have seen me wax lyrical about the ’Huge’ Fuzz a lot on this site - which is one of my all time favourites - in fact I so like it - that I determined I should get my hands on as many from this brand as I could. I don’t think very ...

So these 14 are some of the pedals that continue to evade capture for me. Most of these are discontinued and were only made in  very limited numbers. Some of these are small batch productions - like the GNI Octa Fuzz and Iron Ether FrantaBit. And some are also impossible to get outside their country of manufacture. Some of these I’ve been chasing for nearly a decade so far.

Many of you will be familiar with my quest for the Blakemore Effects Deus Ex Machina OpAmp Muff - where I tracked down...

Another article nudged into being by Anderton’s Doom Fuzz feature. I’m obviously still a little fixated on the Mini pedal format currently - and so need to follow that trail unto that curiosity is finally satisfied.

When I did the recent follow-up feature on the Tone City Matcha Cream, I got to thinking about the Mooer Triangle Buff also - which I had long intended to acquire, but never got around to. I hadn’t realised that said Triangle Buff had already been discontinued for a while and ...

A reader asked me to pick out some of my all-time favourite fuzzes - which are legion actually - just far too many to include in a single rundown. So we settled on doing somewhat less well known favourite fuzzes - under the guise of ’Secret Weapon Fuzzes’. These are mostly somewhat under the radar classics - several of which are discontinued, but all of which deliver distinct superior tones.

Beyond these being Secret Weapon Fuzzes there was no other specific theme - so we get a variety of ...

This article was originally suggested by my now good friend Henry Kaiser - leading guitar and guitar effects experimentalist and prolific producer and recording artist. He’s been a long-term friend of Toshihiko Tanabe - of Tanabe.TV fame and thought I should do one of my pedal roundups on Japanese Boutique Pedal Builders.

I had long intended to do a feature on Japanese Pedal Makers - but could not decide on the context or format - as there are so many notable brands. Upon Henry’s suggestion...

So it’s about time for another round of ’12 Degrees of Saturation’ - featuring an updated selection and including most of the more recently released notable Mini Gain Pedals. Please note that as before - this is something of a Grey Science with simply approximated best fit positioning - as all those pedals have slightly different gain ranges, and certain ones within each selection / category can have vastly more extended range than others - and often cover more than one of the categories.

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This month’s sub-title comes from the fact that I’ve been spending a lot of times with loopers these days. Of course the Boss RC-600 is a massive ongoing project for me - where most of the early elements are falling into place nicely now - more of that later. While I’ve often had a mini ’Tweaker Looper’ right at the front of the chain - to use for when I’m dialling in new pedals. You can just record and play back a suitable riff - so that you can concentrate on getting the knobs and switches ...

Much like with the recent 32 of the Best Compact Overdrive Selection I now own all these Mini Fuzz Pedals featured here. Actually where the Decibelics The Reverend (Mini Expandora) has yet to be officially released - I should be receiveing the latest prototype any day now, and judging by Guillem Vilademunt’s previous Mini Masterpieces we have every reason to look forward to that one.

Other than that - everything is now in the collection - while this larger quest is nowhere near complete yet...

After a slow start to the year, everything sort of came to a crescendo in March - where I took delivery of a pedal for each day of the month. Of course some of these were embargoed from earlier months - while that volume of pedals for testing and pedalboard accommodation can be a little relentless.

There were also a number of key launches this month which can stress me out a touch - I obviously want to do well for those brands I support and pinpoint launches are always a little messy as you...