This has turned out to be the largest category for 2025 with 38 pedals in this selection. As I favour those pedals that I own first, and then the more pedalboard-friendly editions - inevitably there would be some casualties for the year. With the most significant of those being the larger format Meris Enzo X, and the Polyend MESS Multi-Effect Step Sequencer. I know there are some who favour each of those - but they just aren’t targets for me personally.

 I always talk about having a lane - ...

This release came in very quick and hard! It’s happening more and more that pedal brands release limited special editions just for Black Friday. Originally those were just unique artwork variants - while latterly we’re getting entirely new and unique secret project circuits / pedals.

I love most everything Gamechanger does - while not every pedal necessarily fits in practically within my own usage requirements and preferences. Traditionally Gamechanger devices have all been rather oversized...

Another super busy month for me - particularly towards the end - with numerous large scale articles out this week. That also coincided with my busiest week of the year for my other day job. Meaning that I was up until 4-5 in the morning every day - just to keep up with my commitments.

I was already somewhat shattered and burned out before I even got to this super busy period - and it’s a relief that all that work has now been completed on schedule.

I’m especially proud of my work on the Bucket ...

The Mood is Chase Bliss’s most perennially popular and celebrated bestseller - by far and away the most sold Chase Bliss pedal to date.

It also happens to have had the most different special and limited edition artworks - and I’ve selected 4 each of those for the Mood I and Mood II - I’m sure I’ve probably overlooked 1 or 2 variants - while hopefully I’ve covered all he best looking ones!

Up until now the Light Bright edition was my favourite - while I feel that may have been pipped by the new ...

I personally find it sightly infuriating when demoers announce something as gamechanging which is anything but. In this sense TONEX is largely playing catch-up with the industry’s current leaders in that space - Boss, Fender and Nux.

Each of their solutions has compelling reasons for acquisition - but in truth it’s mostly about what core platform you’re mainly subcribed to. If you largely play though Boss Katana Amps like I do - then the Katana : GO is the natural extension for that ...

So when I first reviewed these two superb specimens from Colortone Pedals I advocated for Smarter Preset Switching - via a combined press on the two footswitches - as several pedals do - and AD has now programmed that to perfection - so you can scroll through the presets with the 2 footswitches - changing things up wholly on-the-fly - for a much more dynamic live performance.

I also noted that the output could at times be somewhat dense and intense - and could do with Lightening Up and ...

October was a super busy month - one of the busiest ever - with such a scope and scale and body of work covered - I’m quite shattered as a result!

We had of the penultimate Events of the year :

• The 2nd Woking Boutique Guitar Show
• Kempton Park London International Guitar Show

And around one dozen key posts  as below also :

• Letter from Dr.No
• Teaching Machines FuzzBillion Component Combinations Wheels Gain-Shaper
• Hangman fx DAGG’R Dynamic Auto-Gain/Gate Mighty Morphing Gain-Ramper

So I’ve had my eye on Ghost Note Audio for a while - where the main principal seems to be of Icelandic descent - his name - Valdemar Erlingsson is very Icelandic, and I see he’s been educated at the University of Iceland. Valdemar is usually written ’Valdimar’ but both are valid.

In any case - Valdemar has been delivering some killer pedals to-date - mostly of the larger preamp pedal variety - and all those are analog of course. I love how some of those sound - but consider them to be ...

So the latest Poly Effects Trails Pedal is a slight departure from the norm - part of the same series obviously as the Flat-V, Verbs and Ample - while those are larger collections of themed algorithms - grouped together in multiples of 8.

For the Trails - there are simply just 8 effects in total, with the 8th being an 8-Step Sequencer.

As before - I’ve tried to cram all the essentials into one infographic visual that explains it all - most of the pertinent details are on the visual - ...