At one stage there was a 50/50 chance as to whether I would make the show - as there were significant disruptions on the Liverpool Street to Norwich line - which meant a bus replacement service between Colchester and Ipswich. Some of the journey times quoted were up to 4 and a 1/2 hours each way! In the end the door-to-door was closer to 3 hours in total! The journey up including the coach was actually more fun that the journey back via Cambridge. Cambridge has obviously sinned grievously as ...

Obviously all the PowerBolt Series pedals ship with stock orange knobs - but since I have so many pedals - I need to be able to easily identify what is what - and so I’ve replaced each of those orange knobs with pertinent unique colour replacement knobs.

When The PowerBolt Series launched last year - I bought 4 sets of knobs from Love My Switches. I used the Dark and Light Blue ones on the PowerTrem and PowerVibe pedals last year, and the remaining Purple and Hot Pink / Violet were perfect ...

May has been a little bit of strange month - lots of delays really, and waiting for pedals to land.

As inevitably happens most months - much was delayed this month, and I was unable to complete some of the larger articles - they will need to wait until next month, there’s certainly lots of projects in progress. Where new and imminent arrivals kind of scuppered several intended projects - hopefully they can be completed in June.

The first event I’m attending this month is tomorrow - as a micropub ...

What we have here is essentially a downward and sideways extension of the DLS Series - first with the lower-gain Clean Little Series compact edition - more akin to a BluesBreaker. And then a Mini version of the original DLS - the Little Secret - which contains just the dual-Mu Preamp section of the Dirty Little Secret - without the EQ’s.

All three of these are available current at a launch discount - and all these pedals are widely available now at international dealers - including all the ...

Thermion famously started off its affordable €125 PowerBolt Series back in May of last year - with two amazing Modulation pedals - The PowerTrem - in part based on JAM Pedals’ Harmonious Monk, and the PowerVibe - a superb compact take on a Shin-ei Uni-Vibe - not nearly as expansive as DryBell’s Vibe Machine - but near enough as flavourful. I was hugely impressed at the time and quickly acquired the pair of them.

This time around I’m a little behind the curve - as the pedals have already ...

I got heavily involved with Pettyjohn / Stephen during their MKII Era - which saw further consolidation of the main ’Foundry Series’, and the introduction of a more affordable, more compact ’Core Series’.

Over that period I acquired 4 of each series - including all of the Core ones. It took me a while to understand the nature of how Stephen works - which is always part custom-shop - and there are always additional custom Mods on offer for each pedal - which makes acquisitions more ...

I thought I should focus on my large format heavy-hitters for a change - where these 8 are some of my largest, most potent, and best favoured gain pedals. They are arranged here in alphabetical order, while they were released in the below chronological order. All 8 have featured heavily in my rig at different times - and all 8 are still very valid award winners and still in rotation. While the enormous girth of the Elektron Analog Drive means that is gets somewhat less of a rotation nowadays - ...

After the quiet comfort of February, March unleashed an avalanched of work - both in terms of new releases and acquisitions, but especial in the field of Guitar and Pedal expos - where I attended 3 within a month - first The Birmingham Guitar Show at Cranmore Park, then the London Synth and Pedal Expo at Studio 9294, Hackney Wick - and then back to Birmingham for the Noise Maker Market at Centrala, Digbeth - all grand events.

I burned myself out a little this month, and came back willingly empty...

I was immediately attracted to this smart Multi-Drive when I came across it fairly recently - where different clipping mods significantly change the core character of the pedal. My favourite voicing is the Guv’nor one - which adds Red LED’s into the mix - for more gain and sustain, and a really punchy bottom end. That voicing sounds superb.

It’s a really decent standout voicing for sure - where I also really love the OD-1 Asymmetrical Clipping Diodes one, and the AC30 style one - which ...