OK - so I’ve been ruminating on this one for a long time. I’m certainly not a looper pro - but have some experience of TC Electronic Ditto, and Ditto X2 Loopers, and Boss RC-10R, and RC-600 Loop Stations.
Ed Sheeran’s history with the Boss RC-20XL is very well known - that is to say his Chewie Monsta / Chewie 2 modified version of that - aided and abetted by his Looper Technician Trevor Dawkins.
For the longest part of his career Ed has relied on some Boss underpinnings for his key ...
I was a touch critical about the HX One - possibly overly so - as it’s really decent for what it delivers and how. While I could not be more effusively positive about this new POD Express!
For anyone starting out in guitar effects - you get everything you need in one smart little box - with intuitive and mostly surfaced control (vs Noise Gate).
If I was thinking of buying in my very first guitar effect pedal - then I don’t think I could do better than this. It contains 7 Amp & Cab ...
The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!
The Modutility roundup combines Modulation, Utility and Pitch type pedals - it also includes Multi-FX and Multi-Modulation pedals of course. Some years this selection is relatively sparse - while this year it’s totally chock-a-block! In fact it was a struggle to whittle the Longlist down - and inevitably some pedals I wanted to feature did not make the cut - including the Endorphin.es Ghost Pedal Multi-FX and Subdecay Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter.
I still feel that this selection of 26 is...
So back in 2019 - Reverb.com coordinated Black Friday Limited Blacked Out Editions across 17 Brands and 19 Pedals - and by and large it was a resounding success - a lot of those sold out very quickly - and overall pretty much every special pedal maid was sold in fairly short order.
I always thought it a little surprising that this exercise wasn’t repeated more often as I kind of expected it to be an annual or biennial thing following on from the 2019 event. While we’ve had to wait 4 years ...
So Doug Tolley’s / Chase Bliss’s 2nd Witney Pedal Party took place yesterday on Guy Fawkes / Bonfire day - in Witney’s Corn Street Fat Lil’s Venue.
I attended the inaugural event at Witney’s Truck Music Store back on July 1st, and I will surely be at the 3rd one too - around spring of next year!
Thanks to Doug Tolley for organising this all again - on this occasion we had 7 participating brands (in order of stand arrangement - clockwise) :
I’m expecting this post to attract a lot of ’whataboutisms’ as many of my rundowns seem to do. While every single choice / selection here is well considered, pondered upon on and properly weighted up against pertinent criteria and then further rationalised, whittled and distilled down into a top 9 or 16 or 25 - as I always favour symmetrical grids.
If I find 18 or 19 suitable candidates - then only 16 can be featured on the grid etc. - you need to draw the line somewhere. And you can also ...
These are just different enclosure artwork editions where all else is the same as for the standard editions - just the graphics are different. Note that my background visual here is very apt gold confetti!
Both limited edition anniversary pedals retail for the same standard price of $399 and equivalent in your local currency. Of course available for order right now from the Chase Bliss Webstore. Generally there is a 10% Anniversary discount on most pedals on the site - while some exceptions...
I’m a big fan of both Mooer’s Micro / Mini and X2 series, while I think NUX has stolen a march with its Mini TRS Stereo pedals - that Mooer has yet to answer. Mooer is still though the archetypal Mini Pedals Brand - with so many great examples in that diminutive format - including fantastic gain, modulation and utility pedals - and the formidable Micro Preamp Series.
Here we see new generations of the Drummer Drum Machine and Looper Pedals - each featuring 7 ’Parts’ in the larger more ...
I loved the concept of the original Infinite Sample Sustainer - basically a significantly evolved version of that classic freeze / pad effect (a la EHX Freeze etc.) - which is essentially a short loop on continuous repeat. The Infinite Sample Sustainer has a smarter and fuller sounding algorithm which plays back the sample simultaneously forwards and reverse - to produce a wider and more enriched soundstage.
The 3 Main Controls are the same - Decay (Layer Sustain), Level (Output Level), ...