So this is the culmination of my first ever ’Boss Month’ concerted focus on everything Boss! I do hope you enjoyed the broad sweep of all those articles - and had some fun with my speculative projections and suggestions. The natural end to all of that is of course to set out the pedal-chain as a Peak Boss implementation - using what I have within my extensive Boss collection. I of course had to add a few more units - but only a handful really. I’m guessing some who don’t...

The KMA Machines Wurm, which I have in limited WurHM edition (below), is already one of the very best HM-2 style distortion pedals you can buy. It doubles up the tone-shaping ability of the original with 4-Band EQ, which for the Wurm - is further serviced by individual internal trimmers - which place a proper 4-Band Parametric EQ at your disposal.

The Wurm also has an internal 3-way voicing switch which gives you authentic HM-2 Twin Peaks distortion, Enrico’s enhanced take on ...

It’s tricky to know where to start when Boss springs this big a surprise on you! With literally last minute notice for two top secret projects that Boss has quite evidently been working on for a while.

The guitar is something rather more unusual for Boss - so perhaps I should start there. I’m not sure many of you recall Boss’s last foray into guitars back in 2017 - as a collaboration with Strandberg Guitars - for the Boss V Guitar - a heavily customised and evolved ...

I’ve been following Oriol and his El Garatge devices on Instagram for a while now, and have been aware of his smart Expression Knob in particular for a fair few months. Oriol is a desktop synth specialist and engineer who happens to own three of my favourite synths - the Teenage Engineering OP-1 (which is the only one I own), Korg Minilogue XD, and Access Virus. He’s one of those innovative musician engineers who is always looking to improve and innovate his environment - and each ...

Where once there were around 12 Boss 20-Series Double Pedals (per second visual below) - now if you scan through Boss.Info - you will find only a couple still on the books as it were. And I feel that the days of the RE-20 Space Echo and VE-20 Voice Performer are likely numbered too - which is why I’ve done a suggested mockup of what the RE-20 in particular might look like in 200-Series format.

As a long-term Boss and Roland flagship effect - I feel we will certainly see it being ...

So back in around 2013 Boss made the smart decision to start reviving and reissuing some of its earlier pedal editions. The process involved selecting typically Series-2 analog pedals and re-engineering and hand-assembling those in Japan - with superior and more vintage parts.

Boss’s mainstay pedals were all initially built in Japan, but then production mostly moved to Taiwan, and more recently Malaysia - where all those standard and core pedals are mass-manufactured. By contrast...

I actually see this as an evolution and refinement of the Dedalo FX Beat from Winter NAMM 2020. Of course there is a lot more to the Snare Trap - but the core concept is roughly the same - where you tap in different percussion sounds / voicings to create a beat. I was actually waiting for an official manual to materialise for the Snare Trap in order to gain further insights, but none such seems to be materialising any time soon - so it was now as good as ever.

There are several ...

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...

May turned out to be another pretty busy month as far as new releases and the overall collection is concerned. I personally acquired around 20 or so new pedals - with some further acquisitions not having landed yet.

Obviously a fair amount of new Overdrives and Phasers in particular - while May covered most of the key pedal categories in one way or another. And most of the pedal-chain additions for the month have been reviewed or touched on in some way previously - with the exception ...

Those more sharp-eyed among you will have noted that I’m currently engaged in exploring the Pettyjohn Electronics range - sort of one or two pedals at a time. And this would seem to be a good point within those proceedings to share some of my findings thus far.

As I’ve relayed elsewhere, I was initially highly confused by Stephen Pettyjohn’s output in that all the Foundry Series pedals were offered with a number of ’Upgrades’. Making it seem to me that the...