GPX Blog

So I thought I would combine the Mini Pedal selection with the final overall category roundup featuring my current favourites and forthcoming/future acquisition targets. The above visual may be somewhat convoluted, but it well illustrates the trade off in footprint and practicality/utility you get across the different enclosure form factors.

I’ve stated before that I’ve largely moved away from the larger styles of enclosures in favour of more pedals of a more compact nature...

This is probably the penultimate article in this series for the year - actually I might do another with my own personal favourites from all of these selections. Next up will of course be compact enclosure variants, but here we are at the other end of the scale with the Big Boxes of Metal! A reader asked me why I had not included the Friedman BE-OD Deluxe in the previous category - Horizontal Medium Enclosure - and the fact is that it’s just a touch too large. I have my own system of pedal...

This article follows on from the recent Vertical aspect medium enclosure roundup where I indicated a number of potential acquisition targets. Here we have the same enclosure size but width-ways in orientation - with a key differentiator being the number of pedals here with dual footswitches - where all but two either have a second Channel or additional Boost option.

There are two permanent fixtures of my pedal-chain here - the Empress Heavy and MI Effects Megalith Delta which have ...

When I did my recent Aleks K Production Range Overview I had obviously had my 2 favourite Aleks K pedals in the chain for a while - the Maple Leaf Royal Drive/Distortion and Red Scorpion 2 Mega Distortion. I noted how there was a sort of shared family tonal character between the pedals - with a pervasive smooth, long-sustaining musicality with a definite hint of compression.

I reaffirmed my choices as to which were my favourites and why, and indicated I would like to add the Honey Moon...

We all knew that the OD-200 was going to be a killer Boost/OverDrive/Distortion pedal - but Boss has managed to surprise those of us who thought we had it figured out. We weren’t initially totally sure how the Parameters and Boost options were going to work - I already really love the versatility and adaptability of my Jackson Audio Broken Arrow - which encompasses 4 Drive Types alongside 4 Boost Types. Yet Boss ups the ante on that somewhat exponentially.

I thought the core of ...

I will start by reiterating once more how big a fan I am of Swedish circuit designer Björn Juhl / BJFE and his many associated brands - which use variations of his celebrated circuits - Mad Professor in Finland, Bearfoot FX in the USA and OneControl in Japan. I have several varieties from each of those brands - 15 or so all told, but my first connection with Björn was via Mad Professor.

Ironically the very first Mad Professor pedal I acquired was not derived from Björn ...

I was one of the first to latch onto the Hamstead Odyssey nearly 2 years ago, and have featured that a number of times on this blog. While the Subspace initially started off as a Bass Odyssey - or a derivation of that circuit which better preserved the low-end and low-mid frequencies - to be used very specifically as a Bass Overdrive.

Earlier prototypes of the pedal featured exactly the same controls and topology as the original Odyssey - with just the circuit tuned somewhat ...

Latest is not always greatest! Like many other pedal aficionados no doubt, I am quite particular about the function, aesthetics and format of each effect pedal I acquire. Many a pedal has been in production for numerous years and has seen all manner of iterations throughout its lifetime - not specifically special editions, just the core default pedal naturally changing and evolving over time - of course there are custom, limited and special editions too along the way but we’re focusing on...

My first encounter with Aleks K Production was courtesy of a Brett Kingman demo of the Maple Leaf Royal Overdrive around a year and a half ago. I’m a fan of Brett’s and he’s one of my regular favourite resources for new pedal demos alongside many other guitar luminaries. Once I had checked out his 2 demos of the Maple Leaf, I next viewed the Red Scorpion 2 Mega Distortion, then the Hot Ice Sweet Distortion, Honey Moon 2 Sweet Overdrive and Sun Beam Magic Drive.

After ...

I have covered off a number of my favourite Summer NAMM pedals already - including the Boss 200 range, RC-10R and SY-1, the Fulltone OCD Ge, the REVV G2, the Spaceman Effects Gemini IV, and Walrus Audio Kangra for instance. And there’s a couple more surprise ones I will be posting as dedicated features very soon - so stay alert for those! In the wake of one of the best ever Winter NAMM’s it was clear that the Summer NAMM could never match that degree of innovation - in fact most of ...