So this is the culmination of my first ever ’Boss Month’ concerted focus on everything Boss! I do hope you enjoyed the broad sweep of all those articles - and had some fun with my speculative projections and suggestions. The natural end to all of that is of course to set out the pedal-chain as a Peak Boss implementation - using what I have within my extensive Boss collection. I of course had to add a few more units - but only a handful really. I’m guessing some who don’t...

Where once there were around 12 Boss 20-Series Double Pedals (per second visual below) - now if you scan through Boss.Info - you will find only a couple still on the books as it were. And I feel that the days of the RE-20 Space Echo and VE-20 Voice Performer are likely numbered too - which is why I’ve done a suggested mockup of what the RE-20 in particular might look like in 200-Series format.

As a long-term Boss and Roland flagship effect - I feel we will certainly see it being ...

Readers will know that I’m a huge fan of Marshall-voiced pedals and have quite the number of those in the collection - particularly in compact enclosure editions. I have a real fondness for dual-footswitches and extended feature topologies - and love that this pedal has no less than 8 external controls including 4-Band EQ, alongside a single internal trim-pot to set the Boost Level.

I’m not sure of the exact reasoning behind the Room #40 moniker except for the fact that it ...

May turned out to be another pretty busy month as far as new releases and the overall collection is concerned. I personally acquired around 20 or so new pedals - with some further acquisitions not having landed yet.

Obviously a fair amount of new Overdrives and Phasers in particular - while May covered most of the key pedal categories in one way or another. And most of the pedal-chain additions for the month have been reviewed or touched on in some way previously - with the exception ...

I’ve had the original primary-coloured Red, Yellow and Blue 112+ on my wishlist for quite a while, and first featured that version on this site nearly one year ago. I am delighted though to have picked up this more subtle Coral-accented colourway with tinted aluminium knobs and somewhat more elegant feel.

Controls - Drive, Voice : Modern/Vintage/Fat, Level, Bass, Mids, Treble.

The starting point for the 112+ was the Fender Princeton 112 Plus - the original plan had been ...

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 ...

Reader Charles H requested that I do a roundup of Clean Blend Overdrives - which resulted in the following selection. Most Bass Overdrives have Clean-Blend by default - while all the ones I have selected here are more specifically Guitar Overdrives. I personally don’t find myself needing to use Clean Blend so much - but I can totally understand why so many players find this functionality useful or even essential. The Blend knob is variously labelled Blend, Clean, Dry and Mix. I’ve ...

I am a little late to the Animalizzer - which Ricardo ’Rikk’ Cabecas officially launched in May of last year. Readers will know I’m a big fan of extended-functionality and extended-range pedals in particular. And the Animalizzer is pretty much definitely the most shapable of all the different Muff types out there in the wild - certainly at this size of enclosure.

In fact so shapable is the Animalizzer that it can be used as a sort Boost, Overdrive and Distortion in ...

This article really speaks to my own personal preferences in pedal-acquisitions, and how I’m always somewhat more drawn towards extended-range - and typically enhanced and evolved editions over and above the stock originals.

In many cases those more versatile editions are even rarer than the classic vintage originals. Meaning I always try to secure those more difficult-to-find examples first. On this occasion I still intend to grab a LM741 opamp early grey or yellow variety ...

It was only natural that the Compact Format Preferred Versions feature should follow the Mini examples. Again largely inspired by the recent ’12 Degrees’ projects.

Once more I’ve had a change of mind on some of the candidates and the preferred examples are slightly different to those previous references. Obviously new pedals have arisen, and priorities and preferences can shift fairly regularly based on prevailing mood.

That said, most of these are long-term...