It was about time I turned my attentions towards Boss’s excellent individual Modulations, and which of those I deem perennial classics which appeal to me the most.

Boss’s parent company Roland famously created the Chorus Effect back in 1975 for its then revolutionary solid state JC-120 Jazz Chorus Combo Amp. That same effect was then evolved to become a stand-alone stompbox - first in 1976’s Boss CE-1 Chorus (Chorus Ensemble). Later derivations included the Roland SDD...

April has been another pretty formidable month - and at last I have the CopperSound Triplegraph in my hands - which presented some challenges in being accommodated within the rig. I’ve had to significantly adjust and rejig various elements and areas - including of course the format of the above reference visual.

This indicates the physical position of the Triplegraph at position #14 in terms of physical pedal placement - where it sits just before the CBA Automatone Preamp, while ...

Beyond its most recent Mini Pedals, Pigtronix is another brand which seems to be floating somewhat under the radar today in most regards. They have a number of innovative and classic pedals - some of which alas have been discontinued fairly recently, but all are very worthy contenders in their respective genres / categories.

They’e one of the brands that has increasingly focused on Mini Pedals of late - which include some incredibly innovative and state-of-the-art pedals for that...

I’ve variously relayed on this site how I’ve been chasing this pedal since it first appeared in very limited circulation on September 28th last year. I initially held off acquiring the pedal from the US (Third Man Records) in the expectation that the pedal might appear eventually and soon enough in European distribution, and I would save myself some money on the delivery, customs and import fees. As it turns out I’m not sure any Triplegraph pedals have arrived for sale in ...

Sparked by a few recent acquisitions, this seems the perfect time to round up the best of Pitch-Shifter, Octaver and Harmonizer Pedals. I most recently secured a Boss PS-6, EHX Pitch Fork, and CopperSound Triplegraph.

The Triplegraph was acquired from Martel Music - I’m just waiting for CopperSound to hand-deliver stock there next week, which means I should get mine early April.

There’s two fairly recent arrivals here I have yet to snap up - the Pitch Fork+ and ...

The PITCH Card covers everything from standard Octaver, through POG, arpeggiation and classic twinkly shimmers - with all kinds of shades in-between. You can of course endeavour to make it sound as natural and subtle as possible, or you can get totally experimental with some otherworldly tones and textures.

Beware of slightly ice-picky upper pitch-shifted notes - meaning that judicious application of the Tone control is necessary - either on your guitar or on the actual device. I found...

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...

This article is in part inspired by my features on ’Mini Pedals State of the Art’, and those various ’12 Degrees’ posts I did at the tail-end of last year. Moreover I have had quite a few readers recently asking me for my preferred recommended mini pedals on various pedal-chain slots.

I last did this sort of exercise 4 years ago - where TC Electronic was kind of the dominant player - covering 8 of those 20 recommendations, with Mooer fairly close with 6 entries...

Free The Tone’s Brand New Motion Loop Pitch Shiftable Short Looper reminds me of a sort of cross between a DigiTech Whammy Ricochet and Chase Bliss Audio Mood. At its core this seems to be very much a Micro-Looper style of pedal with extended Parameter control.

Essentially the pedal can sample up to 4 Seconds of sound - which you then manipulate in various ways. There are 4 main effects sections as such - Pitch, Loop Signal, Waveform and Delay.

The Pitch shifter gives ...

Dune fans will undoubtedly appreciate this theme a little more than most. And in fact the Atreides is based on Electro-Harmonix’s now vintage 1980’s Mini Synthesizer.

What we have here is a perfect complementary amalgamation of different modulations with a hearty Fuzz and Sub-Octave element. There are 7 lit-up sliders for which in the above visual I have highlighted in red text how they group / break down.

Essentially we have Output Volume, then Sensitivity and ...