The Shodhana is quite a distinct overdrive - which kind of pivots around the 1kHz frequency band at the peak of its output profile. The Level side of the pedal essentially works as a Clean Boost / Clean Channel - delivering beautiful sparkly cleans - some of the very best of that nature. And the Drive half is the Dirty Boost - both sides ramp up very quickly - and get progressively brighter and more focused in their output. And you get a lot of Volume - while only relatively moderate gain.

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January has been a bumper start for the year - with lots of killer arrivals - especially the DSM & Humboldt Dumblifier which I’ve been hugely impressed with.

Also my most formidable NAMM coverage to-date - where I only started work properly on the 8th of January - but have managed to do 60 articles since that time - which is a record of course, as is the week of 20 posts.

I feel I covered all the key moments - and mixed up new and old in my usual inimitable fashion.

There was ...

Probably the strongest selection of the year - each one of these is amazing and sounds killer. But then agin similar was true of the Overdrives. I’m very much a fuzz fanatic - so his selection has to take the edge - what a selection!

This selection includes 3 from EarthQuaker Devices, 2 from Drunk Beaver, 2 from Fjord Fuzz, and 2 from ThorpyFX.

It also includes the likely pedal of the year - within a selection of 10 award winners here - these are so good - I could have labelled even ...

And so onto the Distortions of the year - the smallest group stage this year! There’s no particular logic as to why there are just 20 Disortions this year. There were a further couple of acquisitions that I was disappointed with - and I deliberately left out of this selection. It’s mostly a case of what appeals each year - and evidently there weren’t that many appealing ones beyond those I acquired. I’m not aware of any particular ones that are still in the wind. The last one in was the ...

36 outstanding Boost and Overdrive pedals  featured here in various sizes - 35 of which are already in the reference collection - with the Superlunar SR-01 the last remaining straggler!

The rules of the game are that I can only finally recommend pedals that I own and have lived with, while I can also feature a few other intended targets in the overview which I fully intend to acquire (like the Superlunar SR-01) - but those can’t feature in the final rankings. So there is only one remaining ...

So I’m a huge fan of high gain Doomy Fuzzes - with already favourites including the Blackhawk Balrog and the Lichtlaerm Altar.

I’m delighted to report that the fierce and amazingly textured High Gain MOSRAWR Fuzz is wholly up to the task too. Each of my now 3 favourites hits slightly differently - with the Balrog still the King of Sludge - it just has that sticky low end that delivers exactly the right texture for that. Make no mistake - these are all top-tier Doom Fuzzes - with ...

We used to see quite a few ’Tourboxes’ back in the day - Basic Audio for instance used to send those out for promotional and review purposes - so artists could sample several of their pedals at a time - and get a good overview of he range of pedals offered!

So RhPf’s Thomas and Simone are kind of reviving an older tradition - with some modern twists to it! I really love this initiative - and look forward to seeing the various different chapters of the ever evolving Tour Board Diary! Will be...

Another super busy month - where the lack of a holiday is really starting to impact my wellbeing - as I’m about as shattered and burned out as is possible without going entirely into meltdown - I’m teetering on the edge!

Here follow the highlights of the month - which I normally try to limit to around 10 elements - but stand at 12 for September. No show or onside attendances this month - while plenty of other activities - and some killer releases of course!

• Jo Quail @ the Roland Store,

When I first clocked the Tri-Harmonic Phalanx it brought to mind the VFE Triumvirate Multi-Band Distortion - which was the fist device I encountered that split the incoming signal into 3 different frequency band gain stages that you could adjust and combine in parallel. That Triumvirate seemingly has exactly the same 6-Knobs control topology (3 Big, 3 small)!

The Triumvirate is obviously a forerunner here - and that makes use of 2 x TLE2074 and 1 x TL7660 IC’s / OpAmps, and the 2 x BS170 ...