GPX Blog

This is the 11th in the Pedal Builders Country Series as such, although I’ve had to cast the net slightly wider as I currently don’t consider there to be enough top-tier / International-level builders in a single country here to satisfy the usual criteria. Brazil and Argentina come fairly close - with Brazil having significantly the most concentrated volume of builders of any Country in that part of the world. Generally Brazil, Argentina and Chile are particularly well represented. ...

I consider it my civic duty to bring the public’s attention back to Brian Mena and his excellent Menatone Pedals - as they seem to have slipped a touch under the radar of late. Part of the problem is that Menatone has only 3 dealers - Truetone Music in the USA, Deluxe Guitars in Australia and LEP International in Japan. Of those, only Deluxe seems to maintain a decent inventory - and they refuse to ship abroad - which is no good for us Brits! There’s also just a fairly meagre ...

When I do my category roundups and reviews, my remits are always to be as broad as possible within the set criteria, and I typically include one or two older and discontinued models alongside the usual suspects and new releases. It is always with some degree of sadness that I witness pedal builders going out of business for one reason or another. This industry seems to have a fairly high burnout rate and with competition getting ever fiercer, it is unfortunately understandable that some ...

As I assumed per my first couple of recce’s - Spain was going to be a tricky territory to cover/feature compared to all the others that came before it - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Greece. None of the current Spanish builders have yet attained wholly global recognition as of the moment - unlike a number of brands from the other featured countries.

Probably the most significant Spanish builder to-date has been Roberto García and his ThunderTomate brand - ...

I originally intended to do a 20 strong feature, but decided that since I had already covered 5 medium pedals in my recent ’Rat’ overview I could get away with 16 here. Since some of the enclosure sizes here are quite large, it doesn’t really make sense to cram in too many - so the 16 limit just about does the job. Whenever I do one of these features I always feel that I may have overlooked some essential/s - if you could please let me know in the comments if I’ve missed...

So you may have read last year that I went a little overboard with fuzz type pedals - aiming initially to build up an essential reference collection of 30 of the best - I then published my ’2018 Year of Fuzz Tone Quest’ just about half way through that year - featuring 40 pedals, and right now, my current fuzz quota is running at exactly 100 pedals - with 82 compacts, 11 minis and 7 medium to large pedals making up the collection.

This overview is 24 of the best ’...

So it’s that usual post NAMM-haze time where I figure out the longer-term impact of NAMM, and how those new products will affect the layout, order and composition of my now sort of 40-slot pedal-chain. As noted several times - this was indeed a bumper year for really innovative and highly appealing new pedals - and I will look to accommodate a number of those as they materialise in the forthcoming months.

As I hinted in my last pedal-chain overview - while 2018 was very evidently...

It’s a touch an unusual path, but I first came across British pedal brand Magnetic Effects courtesy of American Nick Jaffe’s JustNickMusic YouTube Channel - where he frequently named the White Atom as his all-time favourite fuzz - using it as an overdrive in low-gain, as well as a full-on higher gain fuzz, even on the more gated / velcro spitty side. So Magnetic Effects have been on my radar for a while and I had always intended to get the Flagship White Atom Fuzz which Nick ...

In going through all my various favourite mini Drive and Distortion Pedals, I thought I should round out the exercise by updating my preferred Mini Fuzz list which has grown and evolved over the years. The current number is 20 - with some additions, but also a number swapped out for better alternatives.

I haven’t really concentrated on Mini Fuzzes of late for whatever reason, but did put in a recent order with KO Amps for a sort of Skreddy Mayo Big Muff style mini. I’m ...

You could say that there are several masters of the Fuzz circuit - Greg Djerrahian at SolidGoldFX, Marc Ahlfs at Skreddy Pedals, Mark Piera at Analog.Man, Richard Coibion at Monsterpiece Fuzz, Scotty Smith at ProAnalog Devices, and Zachary Vex at Zvex to name a few. In terms of breadth and range of delivery it has to be said though that John Lyons somewhat towers above them all. He has currently 25 all bonafide classic pedals in his range - of which I have acquired 3 to date, with many more on ...