GPX Blog

It has to be said that Carl Martin - a long-standing Danish pedal-builder of high pro-gear repute - was starting to look somewhat fusty and old-fashioned there for a while. And while some brands would look to simply refresh their graphics and update things in a largely superficial manner - Carl Martin set to designing an entirely new compact enclosure for its Vintage Series of pedals.

The incumbent pedals were in rather uninteresting medium enclosures while the degree of innovation and...

So even this close to Summer NAMM - Boss still somehow feels it needs to unveil its further innovations in advance of that key product launch event. And following on from the superb recent debut of the 200 series - we see another 200-style enclosure - albeit for some reason numerically not associate with said series. The RC-10R is the looper I’ve been waiting for. You may recall in my ’Early Summer Pedal-Chain’ overview I mentioned that I was not particularly enamoured with or...

I previously highlighted a wider selection of pedal power supplies in my feature ’The Importance of Clean Pedal Power’ which included all the key power supply brands - big and small in a broader category overview, while this time around I’m specifically dealing with larger pedalboards and their power requirements.

Most of you will know by now how important isolated power supply per pedal is for whisper-quiet operation. For my own pedal-chain in which there are ...

Australia and New Zealand together have a fair few brands of international repute, and I for one certainly have a number of pedals of Australian origin in my collection. Foremost amongst those is Michael Ibrahim’s eponymous MI Audio / MI Effects - from which range past and present - I have 7 to date - with a couple more on the ’nice-to-have’ wishlist. Of the ones I have 2 are permanent features in my pedal-chain - the Super Crunch Box V2 (my Brown Sound pedal of choice) and ...

As many commentators have noted - we were well aware that Chase Bliss Audio had an Overdub Looper in the works along with their forthcoming Benson Amps Automatone PreAmp MKII collaboration. What most of us did not know is that Joel was busy working with David Rolo and Old Blood Noise Endeavors on a sort of companion pedal or different take on the Blooper looper.

As is Chase Bliss’s way now - this was all launched today with much fanfare - with product already shipped and ...

In line with its ongoing enclosure format innovations and taking significant influence from the recent 500 series - Boss replaces the dual latching-plate format of its 20 Series Twin Pedal line with a much more compact and sleeker medium vertical enclosure 200 Series Design - with 4 pedals due to launch in September, and all priced at £219 as of the moment:

• DD-200 12 Mode Digital Delay Stereo Workstation - £219
• EQ-200 10 Band Dual Channel Stereo Graphic Equalizer - £219

This article was triggered by the recent release of the diminutive Old Blood Noise Endeavors Expression Slider - which has yet to reach distribution on this side of the pond. I’ve long held a love/hate relationship with expression pedals - where the only one acquired to date has been the Dunlop DVP4 Volume (X) Mini - which enjoyed a relatively short stint in my pedal-chain.

I really like the idea of TC Electronic’s ’MASH’ functionality - which brings the ...

This is one of those moments that I feel that my celebrated Pedal-Chain has reached another milestone of ’peak performance’. There are a number of new releases here - and probably all the big ones I was expecting this year - bar the Chase Bliss Audio / Benson Amps Automatone MKII PreAmp - which is due in the Autumn now - and still pending final pricing, but will probably take up the top spot on Slot #14 eventually. Also - my long-awaited Beetronics Swarm Harmonizing PLL Style Fuzz ...

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 ...

Followers of this site will know by now that I’m a big fan of Jackson Audio, and I’ve already put in an order for their brand new Broken Arrow Programmable Soft-Clipping Overdrive + Boost. I was amongst the first wave to adopt both the Prism and Bloom when they arrived on the scene, and now the Broken Arrow continues that legacy of smart footswitch-controlled innovation.

The control-layer technology on the Broken Arrow is identical to the Bloom - whereby you can press and ...