Back in 2019 I coined the term ’Turbo Dane’ - meaning using the just then released Heavy Water in combination with The Peacekeeper Overdrive. As I detailed in last week’s Heavy Water Origin Story, the Peacekeeper circuit was involved right at the start of The Dane development project, but where that latterly headed off in its own distinct direction. The Dane (MKI and MKII) is obviously Pete Honoré’s signature Drive + Boost pedal - specifically designed to bring out the very best in Pete’s ...

So this project was first announced right on April 1st - in the middle of all the April Fool stuff - and  part of me still isn’t 100% sure this is entirely real - even though the pedal is in wide dealer distribution by now.

It seems a little vanilla to be a full-fat Beetronics style pedal - but there are several smart touches here which make it worthy.

Controls - KLONE } Honey (Gain), Taste (Tone), Volume, Mode : 1 No Clean Blend / 2 Medium Blend / 3 Full Blend, Klone Footswitch; ...

I’ve long been a fan of Mad Professor’s gain pedals - which of course mostly owe a lot to Björn Juhl - bar the Simble Overdrive (Dumble) by Lassi Ukkonen. Which by coincidence happened to be my very first Mad Professor pedal several years ago - and in fact my very first Dumble style overdrive - of which I have several now.

So the Simble was my first Mad Professor - and the Custom Stone Grey Distortion the most recent - alongside the 20th Anniversary Royal Blue Overdrive. The Royal Blue came...

This is a project that has been going on for a while. I was just missing the Soma ’63 Vintage Preamp and the Sucker Punch High Gain Distortion - both of which I managed to source recently at relatively reasonable prices.

Out of this collection of 9 - quite a number are now discontinued - the Supa Cobra Overdrive and the entire bottom row - Hammer Distortion, Little Samson Overdrive / Distortion, and Sucker Punch High Gain Distortion.

I’ve always considered Nick Greer to be the King of ...

Wow - what can I say! The original N5 MGAT-1 was already my favourite distortion of all time - so I initially thought that this was going to be a sort of sideways step from that with more specificity to reach certain key classic era Marshall tones more easily and more precisely - and it certainly does that. While Mr Wu has kind of blown me away again - as this is incredibly a further improvement over the already exceptional MGAT-1.

The MGAT-1 Golden Era seems a little bit more poised and ...

I’ve waxed lyrical for a long time about the potency of the Daily Driver - where I originally acquired it based on how close it came to the tone and timbre of the Pete Cornish CC-1. The CC-1 can replicate / reproduce the tones of the TS808, Timmy, Klon and Blues Breaker with ease - and this new Boost addition makes it even more versatile.

The original had those 4 key corner knobs - and a single toggle switch for More Hi-Cut / None / Some Hi-Cut. Those 5 controls gave the pedal an incredible...

The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!

And so to my roundup of the best gear of the year - apologies of course if I’ve overlooked one of your favourites - and note again that this year I’ve split out Boost & Overdrive - and Distortion separately - as there are so many new pedals that it’s tough to fit them all into a single summary overview. Some of these pedals are incredibly extended range - and if I’ve used them more on the distortion side - you will find those listed in the very next Distortion Rundown article - like say the...

So right at the end of last month Rob Chapman posted up a YouTube video of a rundown of his all-time favourite guitar pedals. He initially states he’s going to name his 10 most favoured ones - but goes on to mention 20 - which I’ve fully included here.

Rob has a great ear for tone - as countless of his own and Anderton’s videos have proven time and time again. And I really love his everyman approach to guitar gear. I’ve encountered him in person 2 or 3 times now over the years - and he’s ...