The Kudu is a really cool circuit developed by Dan Coggins as a smart multi-clipping tone-enhancer - created to make everything it touches sound better. Thorpy and Dan have run the pedal into a vast array of pedals and amps - and the pedal never fails to improve the texture and tonality of the device that it pushes.

There’s no less than 12 Diodes onboard - while 6 of those are for power management. Which leaves 2 x 2N4148 Silicon Diodes for Soft Clipping, 2 x Red LED’s for Hard Clipping, ...

In the wake of my recent RangeMaster rundown I thought it would be fun to list those stand-alone units which ended up in my reference collection. I have a huge affinity for treble booster - where the majority I own are on combination pedals - including Plexi-Range types and Fuzz-Ranger types - overall around 30 treble boosters of various guises, and mostly in Germanium format.

My purely stand-alone RangeMasters / Treble Boosters kind of number 14 - while the CTC Constellation is kind of a ...

I believe this is the first time I’ve met Paolo’s lovely partner Nadège - and it’s her birthday today when this article goes live - so let’s all wish her well!

Nadége was on the door for most of the two days, and missed out on Sunday Roast - which Paolo and I had on the second day. I decided that Nadège and Paolo deserved to be this year’s covers stars - they put so much work into this event - to make sure it runs flawlessly smoothly - and the easy ambience and vibe of the event is a ...

This is the 2nd Iteration for this article - where we go from a selection of 13 to 16.

I landed 4 of these these last year - the Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker, Flattley Outlaw, Fortin Kali, and Tubesteader Gainlord.

And two early this year - the Car Martin PlexiRanger and Seymour Duncan Diamondhead

We have 4 distinct types of pedals here across 4 format sizes (Compact / Mid-Horizontal / Mid-Vertical / Large) :

1. Dedicated Dual Channel Plexi + JCM800 Overdrive / Distortion with

New Pedals in the Class of 2025 Pedal-Chain Snapshot = 41

[OCTOBER]  = 9

[NOVEMBER] = 6

[MARCH] = 5

[SEPTEMBER] = 5

[AUGUST] = 4

[JANUARY] = 3

[FEBRUARY]  = 3

[APRIL] = 2

[JUNE] = 2

[MAY] = 1

[JULY] = 1

[A-Z by Brand]

1. Becos FX CompIQ Pro Yuna Soft Knee Blackmer VCA Studio Style Compressor [SEPTEMBER]
2. Blue Colander Grimrobe Dual Cascaded Super Rat [OCTOBER]
3. Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields Ultimate Modulated Fuzz [SEPTEMBER]
4. Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble Leslie / Rotary Speaker

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 ...

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 - ...

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 ...

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 ...