Readers of this blog will be familiar with my quest to find and collect the very best of HM-2 style twin-peak distortion pedals. The Grindstein is fairly unique in having two complementary channels which you can blend to your own preferences. It’s a unique collaboration between Carsten Pinkle of Klirrton Manufaktur and Metal Producer Kristian Kohle of Kohlkeller Studio fame.

The pedal is best approached via 3 distinct sections / rows :

CHAINSAW CHANNEL

Controls ...

Even though the Metal Zone is seen as something of a Marmite pedal by many - it is nevertheless Boss’s second most popular pedal of all-time - and endlessly enduring - in fact only beaten in Boss’s best seller stakes by the venerable DS-1 Distortion.

Lots of modern players make great use of the Metal Zone - and probably none more than Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro fame :

Most are aware that the updated and revived Boss HM-2W Heavy Metal is due for imminent release - I believe sometime around June. In order to celebrate that momentous occasion I’ve been building up a sort of capsule collection of some of the very best HM-2 style distortions - specifically in that Black and Orange colourway. Note that I’ve taken liberties with the Klirtonn Grindstein visualisation which is actually currently Black and Red, while I’m going to try to persuade ...

March seems to have been unusually busy on all sides really, particularly with the day-job’s annual keynote event. Generally this year has been off to quite a moderate start, but that seems to have accelerated somewhat during this month.

It’s been a mixture of January NAMM pedals materialising and spring-time special offers, all of which contributed to a somewhat bumper month - with a record-breaking for me 29 acquisitions, prior to that the record stood at 26, while that ...

Readers of this blog will know that I’ve long wanted the Blackhawk Amplifiers Balrog V3 Distortion pedal - in fact I’ve kind of been chasing it for a couple of years. I loved it right from first encounter - but these proved rather elusive to me for a while until I managed to secure one via the Blackhawk store on Reverb.com.

I’ve featured this as both a Metal and Doom/Sludge Pedal, and its triple cascaded TL072 Opamps produce the most appealing brutal and thick ...

I would like to start by apologising to those builders who didn’t get a pedal featured in Wednesday’s final 32 Key Guitar Effects Pedal Types article. Know that I hold you all in the highest of esteem - and that said overview is/was simply a somewhat temporary and fleeting snapshot of my current preferences on that day - with a particular emphasis towards versatility and variety delivered by a single pedal. So some pedals are typically more narrowly focused and specialist, while ...

Carsten Pinkle’s Klirrton Manufaktur is thus far best known for its Killer Grindstein HM-2 style Death Metal Buzzsaw Pedal - which also incidentally remains high on my wishlist and has featured several times already on this site. That pedal contains 2 blendable circuits / voicings - the core HM-2 Grind, and a bass-heavy ’BottomShaker’ preamp.

So many players in fact loved the ’BottomShaker’ preamp element, that Carsten, after much consideration and some ...

DigiTech’s latter sister brand DOD has delivered a number of pedal greats over the years, and since its foundation in 1973 by David Oreste Di Francesco. A lot of people focus on the early editions / 200 Series - while I’ve taken a slightly broader overview here - with the one concession really being the original 250 Overdrive/Preamp. Elsewhere I’ve gone for pretty much the latest viable editions - including the Blue reissue of the 201 Phasor - which also had Grey and Yellow ...

I’ve been peripherally aware of Alessandro Barretta’s pedals for a while now, known as ’Ale’ to his friends! He builds these fantastic proper boutique pedals - one at a time - at his studio in Pisa, Italy. This is a passion project first and foremost, and as it’s all made-to-order, he typically does not ship more than a couple or so pedals each month.

He currently has 2 pedals in production - both are high gain really - and the ’Drive and Boost&rsquo...

And so it begins again! This time punctuated by Virtual NAMM / Believe in Music Week and some certain JA incident.

I will include a mini NAMM roundup here of what some of my favourites were. In the past I’ve done a separate highlights article on the subject - but there really weren’t that many releases this time around to warrant such - in fact I would estimate only around 10% of the volume released in 2020 and 2019.

I will also indicate where I think I’m ...