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I’ve actually been meaning to do this post for a while now - I’ve had several requests over the years to do a ’best of’ feature for Catalinbread - with some even wanting one specifically on delays - which actually only number 6 and therefore don’t quite merit a solo outing - although we’ll see. So this at last is that post - taking in the best of new and established, innovative and unique - across the 4 sub-categories - Foundation Overdrives | Delays and ...

I can’t recall exactly what the catalyst was to this article, but I’ve been considering versatile medium enclosure Big Muff style fuzzes a lot of late. I have 3 of the best of these already in constant rotation (Update 4 now actually!) - i.e. one momentarily replacing the other on the #19 slot of my pedal-chain - and alternating a whole lot with the PLL style fuzzes right at this moment.

In any case during the process of cycling the Demon Pedals Parvati, Toneczar Vault and ...

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 ...

OK so let’s set the record straight right away - these are not vintage pedals - but rather vintage circuit replicas housed in modern compact enclosures which have in turn been deliberately aged and relicked! So these are really mixed media concoctions of sorts but very successful executions all round actually.

The Breakdown is based on the much larger 1968 wah/rocker style Univox UD50 Uni-Drive pedal which had two knobs - Pedal Range and Input Level to go with the variable gain ...

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’ve always liked the Bixonic Expandora sound and its versatility - as most famously popularised by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. There have been 3 versions to date, alongside a fantastic JHS clone called the Kilt - which in turn has had two versions of its own so far. There are also a number of rather more one-off custom clones out there, but surprisingly, apart from JHS, no other mainstream builder has seen fit to make their own version of this pedal type - at least not yet.

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This is one of those moments that I feel that my celebrated Pedal-Chain has reached another milestone of ’peak performance’. There are a number of new releases here - and probably all the big ones I was expecting this year - bar the Chase Bliss Audio / Benson Amps Automatone MKII PreAmp - which is due in the Autumn now - and still pending final pricing, but will probably take up the top spot on Slot #14 eventually. Also - my long-awaited Beetronics Swarm Harmonizing PLL Style Fuzz ...

The original Sunn Model T amp was developed by the Sundholm brothers of the band The Kingsmen from Portland, Oregon - where bassist Norm Sundholm felt that the amps available at the time were ill-equipped for providing the oomph they needed for their live shows. The early, initially bass-focused amps evolved into the Model T by the end of the 60’s and the amp became popular for purveyors of stoner rock in particular - for both guitar and bass use.

The Model T consisted of 2 ...

The celebrated InterFax HP-1 Harmonic Percolator which became a major part of Shellac Guitarist Steve Albini’s signature sound had somewhat obscure origins in the early 1970’s at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin electronics repair shop run by one Ed Giese. The Harmonic Percolator makes use of rather unique circuitry utilising a combination of very obscure Germanium PNP and Silicon NPN Transistors (2N404A/1N695 + 2N3565) which pass through even order harmonics while suppressing odd order ...