A slightly uneventful month in many ways - just the one event - the excellent sophomore Leeds Pedal Show - where I ended up picking up 3 pedals.

Some killer releases during the month, with a strong final flurry to make up the 10 notable article highlights. I’ve been very busy all month - and plenty of work has gone into this as usual, while there was somehow fewer large-scale rundowns and marquee features - more of that next month for sure.

HIGHLIGHTS for APRIL :

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I’ve had my Big Joe Li2 Power Box for a number of years now, it lives on my desk mostly - and I use it to power pedals that I need to update via laptop etc. I typically photograph my pedals with their LED’s on - so my Power Box is used for that too.

I rarely use it on my actual board - as that currently has 2 x Cioks 8’s, 1 x Cioks 4, 2 x NUX Zeus, and 2 x Strymon Zuma - for a total of 58 isolated outputs and a total current deliver of 32,200mA. There have been a few odd moments when the ...

My Strymon journey started in December of 2016 - of course with the ’Stryfecta’ of BigSky, Mobius, and TimeLine. That was my first foray into Strymon, as well as the first of my Workstation pedal types - where I’ve favoured Stereo BIG-BOX solutions for Modulation, Delay and Reverb ever since. You can see the Stryfecta was a very significant part of my first official pedal-chain arrangement - first shared in April of 2017 - as below!

So I did a State of Power article back at the start of last year - where I identified that I really needed to update / upgrade a couple of my power supplies - my Friedman Power Grids - which were just a constant 10 x 350mA - all properly isolated, but not really up to some of the recent digital / hybrid pedals - which average out at 9V 500mA, and where the Tube Preamps typically take at least 9V 500, but more typically 12V @ 300mA+. The NUX Zeus supplies were the perfect replacements for the ...

I hadn’t intended to upgrade my power supply infrastructure this year - but was kind of compelled to because of the recent Poly VERBS addition to the chain. The Poly VERBS needs 500mA, so I swapped over the supplies for the VERBS and Hologram Microcosm slots - as the Friedman Power Grid was powering the particular VERBS slot and only delivers 350mA - which turns out is actually not enough for either pedal (Microcosm states 400mA requirement). The Microsm kind of works with no noticeable ...

Readers should know by now how highly I rate Cioks Power Supplies - where we’ve recently seen 2 new additions to the range - the 5-outlet SOL, and the 2,700mA single-outlet Crux. Of the 2 the Crux is the far more exciting proposition with me as its single outlet delivers 2,700mA @ 9V, and 2,000mA @ 12V - which is just the right amount for powering a Quad Cortex. By contrast the SOL is a highly stripped down and stand-alone edition of the DC-7 - where it has 2 less ports, and no outward daisy-...

As you will see in my forthcoming end of the month Pedal Chain Update - I acquired an Eventide H90 Harmonizer over the Christmas period - before that - my various Power Supplies / Outlets were already at Maximum capacity / use - with all outlets already assigned.

This means that I inevitably had to add one more Power Supply into the mix - where the only suitable candidates really came from Cioks - as the H90 requires at least 1,200 mA of current - where you need to use a Cioks Parallel ...

I’ve followed Rabea Massaad for quite a few years now - and while I’ve not attended any of his Toska, Dorje or Frog Leap gigs yet - I’ve been to a number of his impressive Guitar Clinics - including at the last Birmingham Guitar Show most recently.

I’ve obviously grown up with Rabea mostly courtesy of his association with Rob Chapman and Lee Anderton / Andertons - having watched most of his output on those channels - including in particular ’Sounds Like’ alongside Matt Hornby - and a number...

I have long been a fan of the highly convivial Paul Gilbert - with his Racer X Scarified fretboard workout being a particular favourite of mine. Paul is one of the most naturally gifted players out there and can pretty much play anything in any style. He’s a big fan of the Beatles and can play near enough their whole back catalog off the cuff.

There’s certainly plenty to admire about Paul - a lifetime Ibanez Artist with a few signature guitars and pedals to his name. What I particularly ...