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 - ...

I’m a huge fan of the power and prowess of the Polyend Step Drum Machine - which I’ve owned for a few months now. Polyend is obviously on something of a roll at the moment - with its newest product coming out so hot on the heels of the Step release.

There’s only an ’Effects List’ so far - which I’ve transcribed into the visual and below - and without the Manual I can’t fully gauge exactly what we have here.

In essence we seem to have a library of 125 stereo effects which can be assigned...

I was one of the early movers on the Zoia - all the way back in 2019, it’s incredible really that 10,000 units of this pedal have been sold to-date. Right from the start I called it out as more of a tabletop device - and one more at home with modular synth types really.

For the average guitarist - the control interface is ever somewhat clunky, and doesn’t really allow fluid tweaking on the fly like we’re used to - as you only have a singular rotary encoder. And moreover no Bluetooth ...

When I first started doing the visual for this I thought I had amassed 10 Beetronics pedals to date - but it turns I’m one short of that milestone - it still kind of made sense to mark the occasion of the Custom Shop Nectar’s arrival - which is probably my favourite Custom Shop edition to date. I had to wade through 3 batches to pick out that one - I wanted metal knobs - and a pinkish hue to the core - and the one pictured really captured my imagination. I quite liked my SeaBee at the time of ...

And here is the turn of the combined Modulation, Pitch and Utility category - which I affectionately label ’Modutility’. Obviously as frequently mentioned -  2021 was ’Year of the Phaser’ - so 8 favourites of those here, alongside 4 choruses, 3 flangers and a couple of stand-out Amp and Cab sims. 

Some genuinely innovative pedals here - and particularly handy new expression controllers in the guise of the Chase Bliss Audio Expression Roller, and Cooper FX Expression Generator. Free the Tone...

It was great to get in on the limited 170 run of the Satellite Cards - Tom’s last roll of the dice for the Arcades - based on the much-loved DigiTech XP-300 Space Station. I had been aware that Tom was working on this for most of this year - but it was all up in the air when Tom folded his company at the end of October. Actually Tom had been due to send me both the Satellite and Ambient Endeavors Cards for free - but that all got somewhat mixed up in his move across to Chase Bliss Audio. ...

It is with much sadness that we bid a fond farewell to Tom and his faithful companion Cooper - who have now retired from the Cooper FX brand as such. Tom’s protégé Dan will continue to make his new Expression Generator and Signal Path Selector utility pedals as long as there remains a demand for those.

The Cooper FX Generation Loss, Arcades and Outward though have all ceased production. While there is still some hope that the final Arcades Modular Card - based on the DigiTech Space Station ...

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 revived in ...

Hot on the heels of the Darkglass ADAM comes another wonderful modern confection of disparate parts - from those creative Japanese fellows at Banana Effects. I’ve still to get in a few of their minis - but his may be even more enticing still.

Actually a fantastic 8-Step Sequencer / Arpeggiator with all kinds of clever tricks up its sleeve - including numerous onboard presets and handy DSP subroutines.

I will give you a general features overview first - as below - which is rather ...