And here we have the GRAND FINAL- with all 36 Award Winners from the Group Stages - across all 5 categories!

The first two places have kind of been obvious for a while, where the 3rd / BRONZE position was actually the hardest to decide on - it was between the eventual recipient - the Tubesteader Gainlord, Boss’s XS-100 Poly Shifter, Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields and Gamechanger’s Motor Synth - all of whom would have been worthy runners-up - while in the end I went for the one that overall ...

In many ways this is the most straightforward category with singular award nominees - GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE.

It’s the second smallest category after Distortions - and the one where I own the least number of pedals in proportion to the whole - just 10 out of these 26.

The order pretty much set itself - with the Cornerstone Nucleo being the clear winner from the start. I’m so impressed with every aspect of that pedal - it’s a perfect Trifecta of Design, Feaures and Playability - pretty ...

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 - ...

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 ...

This is quite the superb recreation for several reasons. The 1981 Electro-Harmonix Echo 600 (Denoting the Delay Time) turns out to be super rare - I could not find a single example for sale in any condition. The Echo 600 was essentially a slider-style expansion on the Deluxe Memory Man. And evidently not many were made!

I’ve always wanted a Memory Man Delay for myself - but in a more convenient / pedalboard-friendly unit - and that is exactly what this Pastfx Echo 600 is. So this is very ...

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

Verlie does it again! This is the 4th of her vintage inspired phasers - and each subsequent one seems even better than the excellent ones that came before - I really love all of Verlie’s modulations - which are typified by a warm and lush output profile.

Verlie always tends to use premium vintage / NOS components - and her modulations definitely have that high fidelity sound in common.

I think the Gallstone may be my favourite of the PastFX Phasers - where the Kurt’s Cologne is still my...

The original EHX Electric Mistress was first released in 1976, and two years later we had a more touring-friendly and slightly more practical and consistent sort of ’modern’ Deluxe Electric Mistress - which was actually produced in parallel with the original circuit for a number of years through to the 90’s I think - in that particular circuit format.

The original Deluxe had a Reticon SAD1024 BBD onboard - which Verlie has replaced in her unit with a beautiful sounding original NOS ...

The purpose of this article is just a quick overview of the 3 new PastFX pedals - where I will review each one in full individually - one per week over the following weeks - in order of appearance here :

• Elastic Mattress Deluxe Flanger [EHX Electric Mistress+] - $209
• Gallstone Phase-Shifter (EHX Small Stone V2+] - $209
• Echo 600 3 x MN3005 Analog Echo w/ Chorus & Vibrato [EHX Echo 600] - $349

Each of those 3 has a similarity of look with a mostly shiny polished enclosure and mostly ...