GFI never does anything by half measures - and so we have the most feature-rich and innovative Signal Blender pedal currently on the market - they’ve definitely thrown the kitchen sink at this project.

Up until this time TheGigRig Wetter Box was my favourite parallel blender - certainly more pedalboard-friendly in its compact dimension - but it doesn’t quite come close enough to the expansive feature set of the Duophony - even though the Wetter Box is very compelling in its own right.

...

It was about time I did my roundup of favourite and preferred Mid-Size enclosure pedals. This means we’re covering Medium-Slim, Medium-Tall and Medium-Square enclosures - depending on my prevailing mindset - the Horizontal / Medium-Stout types I often group with ’Large’. For my Pedal-Chain in particular - space is very tight - and I really cannot accommodate anything beyond Medium-Square on those slots.

The thought process is deciding between Compact and Medium box solutions involves your ...

And so to the final pedal category roundup - ’Time-Based Effects’ - before I reveal the Best of the Best New Pedals for the year. This category is not quite as congested as the others - and while last year was for sure the year of the reverb - we did see a few more prime examples during the year. I guess this year was also to a tiny degree the year of the Analog Delay - with some great new contenders there too!

For my own preferences - I am almost entirely a Stereo Workstations guy when it ...

Since we have had 5 cool new and formidable Stereo Reverb pedals this year - it seems opportune to review the category and figure out which are the standout options and alternatives - past and present.

My own journey into Reverb started with the Strymon BigSky - which was my mainstay for a while, then Source Audio announced its new Dual-Channel Ventris and I was very keen on that - but that edition was very slow to materialise, and so I moved instead to Boss’s excellent RV-500 next.

The...

I actually only got to know ’Axe and You Shall Receive’ Owner / Founder Scott Hager relatively recently - while I first bought a pedal from his store (courtesy of Reverb.com) back in 2017 - my much loved ’Gold Bar’ edition of Dr Scientist’s The Elements Preamp / Drive which readers will have seen heavily featured on this site.

Earlier this year - back in March in fact - Scott and I bonded over Big Tone Music Brewery’s (BTMB) EQ’d Vintage Series...

I’m a little late to get stuck into GFI System’s New Slimline Medium Enclosure Series - which was launched with the Orca Delay and Skylar Reverb back in May of this year. That new format of pedals borrows a mix of features and functionality from GFI’s now former Compact Horizontal Series - i.e. Clockwork Delay and Specular Reverb, as well as its flagship Synesthesia Dual-Channel Multi-Modulator.

In fact it looks like the Orca and Skylar are actually replacements for ...

The 3 Pedal Challenge was in constant circulation last year on a variety of discussion groups, and I’ve kind of been biding my time in the hope I would have more options to choose from by now, but there has been no significant addition this year to unseat any of my established selections.

There are various ways to go about the 3 Pedal Challenge - where some individuals simply just select their 3 favourite pedals - without any particular rhyme or reason. While for me it’s a ...

This is obviously a follow-up from the Josh Scott / JHS January 1st YouTube video as below. Where Josh carried out an exercise where he compiled the best pedals released over the last two decades - in 6 specific categories - Best Overdrive / Distortion, Best Fuzz, Best Time-Based Effect, Best Modulation, Best Compressor, and Best Weird / Other - all must have been release January 1st 2000 or later.

Along with his own take, he solicited opinions from Jamie Stillman of EQD, Matthew Farrow of ...

July has largely been a very decent month for me and culminated with the arrival of my twin new Expresso FX Dual Custom Fuzzes and my annual white whale as such - the Chase Bliss Audio Automatone Preamp MKII on this occasion.

It looks like 4 pedals failed to get over the line within the appointed time period - the longest-ranging of which is my Evil Pumpkin Modded DS-1 - which has been en-route from Kiev since June 12th and which I surely hoped should have landed by now.

My JDM Pedals ...