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 ...

JHS certainly have next level marketing panache - and this is another beautifully packaged project all-round.

A truly easy assembly solderless kit consisting of just 25 parts all told - plus a tube of goop, and an underside sticker. It’s your classic 3-knob Klon - with JHS Shamrock Mod - i.e. the -/+ switch which adds a +4dB Gain Boost.

The Circuit Board/s are fully pre-populated with all the essential components - while like an Airfix / Revell model kit you need to separate the 2 ...