Back in 2019 I coined the term ’Turbo Dane’ - meaning using the just then released Heavy Water in combination with The Peacekeeper Overdrive. As I detailed in last week’s Heavy Water Origin Story, the Peacekeeper circuit was involved right at the start of The Dane development project, but where that latterly headed off in its own distinct direction. The Dane (MKI and MKII) is obviously Pete Honoré’s signature Drive + Boost pedal - specifically designed to bring out the very best in Pete’s ...

The #20 Drunk Beaver Pedal Drop is a major milestone in that series - utilising a special small format Pentode Tube - with the purpose of warming up your core signal, and adding some magic and sparkle to the final output!

There seems to be something of a vogue for tube-powered preamp pedals these days - with each builder seeking rare and unique small format tubes. Vitalii has discoverd a stash of fairly rare / unique Ukrainian small format tubes - including the 6Ж45Б-В ones featured here - ...

As mentioned previously - I meant to feature Lastgasp Art Laboratories (LAL / Lastgasp) quite a while back, but access to pedals from the UK has been rather limited, and most of these therefore fairly hard to come by! I detailed how there were only two properly active current dealers that had most of the range in stock - my good friend Andy Ebsen’s Effekt Boutique in Germany, and Perfect Circuit in the USA. I also was instrumental in getting Joe’s Pedals’ Joe Light to connect with Lastgasp’s ...

As soon as you engage this Hot Saké you immediately notice that rich, dense distortion character which is so associated with the SD-9 Sonic Distortion.

This is the 3rd SD-9 derivative I feature within fairly short succession - following on from TWA’s Scott Henderson Signature SH9, and Vemuram’s Mark Landau Signature Butter Machine. The Hot Saké came long before those two, but somehow still remains a little under the radar.

I’ve long said that the SH9 and Butter Machine were rather more ...

This new King Tone format has turned out to be something of a Marmite project for the brand - with consumers having mixed feelings on this new shape - which I feel owes a lot to the Danelectro Billionaire Series, which in turn surely took its form-factor in part from a computer mouse shape.

King Tone is beset with so many grey and black market fakes of its signature pedals, that these new designs are designed to both enhance the specific pedal performance and experience, but also make it ...

The XO Variable Crossover essentially allows you to combine the Lower Frequencies of one pedal with the Higher Frequencies of another - blend them in parallel, and create entirely new textures and tones through that specific pedal combination - and by varying the centre point / mix of each side.

So you have in effect a High Pass Filter on the Right Channel - which shaves off all Lower Frequencies beyond / below the Threshold / Centre Point you set on the Crossover Frequency Knob, and the ...

You would have thought that I would have been long since bored of 3-knob overdrives, considering how many of those have crossed my path over the years. But every now and again something special comes along which makes you park those prejudices.

And the Project 34 Selenium Rectifier Pre/Drive is just one such magical pedal - verily sounding like it’s loaded with tubes and other primo amp components - so lively is its character. There’s a massive hint of Vox in its tone profile, alongside a ...

So this project was first announced right on April 1st - in the middle of all the April Fool stuff - and  part of me still isn’t 100% sure this is entirely real - even though the pedal is in wide dealer distribution by now.

It seems a little vanilla to be a full-fat Beetronics style pedal - but there are several smart touches here which make it worthy.

Controls - KLONE } Honey (Gain), Taste (Tone), Volume, Mode : 1 No Clean Blend / 2 Medium Blend / 3 Full Blend, Klone Footswitch; ...

The second feature for ’Heavy Water Month’ concerns its provenance and how the pedal came to be!

The story starts all the way back in 2016 with Thorpy’s Chain Home Tremolo - his smart take on the choppy Vox Repeat Percussion. A common issue with early Tremolos was volume drop - perceived and actual, and an output typically under signal-chain unity, for which the remedy was to add a boost circuit - in order to raise the volume back up to optimal / usable levels.

The very first High ...