I have a number of swell pedals in my collection already - mostly EHX types at several different sizes. I had intended to get in an SG-1 - it’s one of only 2 key Boss Modulations I don’t yet have - the other is the PN-2 Tremolo/Pan - perhaps Wade can work his magic on that circuit too!

A lot of the earliest Boss circuits are a little overly simple and typically not fully granular and not with the most robust of output profiles - the PH-1 for instance is wholly put in the shade by the PH-1R,...

Freqscene Effects delivers amazing improved and expanded full-flavour takes, massively evolved from Boss’s vintage analog SG-1 and CE-2 pedals - both originally from 1979. The SG-1 and CE-2 had just 2 controls each - where both the Slow Life and Koldwave get 3 additional knobs, and the Koldwave gets an additional Mode-switch too!

Freqscene has significantly expanded the scope of those pedals compared to their original source inspirations - where the Koldwave takes you into entirely new ...

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 ...

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 - ...

So hitherto I’ve used my full size and also pico format Attack Decay pedals - for delivering cello-like swells - albeit I believe the AD is monophonic - while this new sweller Swello - is fully polyphonic - and uses the Envelope Effect from the POG 2.

Generally you have a Slow Gear style note bloom / swell device - with some additional controls - and including a 3-position Low Pass Filter push-button.

Controls - 3-way Filter Button : GREEN is Disabled / AMBER is Low Resonance, RED is ...

August turned out a little bit different than expected. Not so many releases - as expected - but really busy regardless - with a number of Marquee Events and Articles throughout the month. With the king of the crop being the Extended Capacitor Primer - to which I’ve just added a further section on Capacitor Lifespan. Obviously I hit 15,000 followers on Instagram - which is a significant achievement - a really killer month all-round with some big articles - meaning I’m a little bit burned out ...

So Boss delivers its first compact Multi-FX pedal - with all those early classic Boss Pedals onboard. This is obviously fairly similar to TC Electronic’s Plethora X1 from the tail end of last year - which had 14 effects at launch but has added a few more since - compared to Boss’s 8+8 at launch - where 8 Effects are onboard by default - and once you register your pedal on the dedicated Effects Loader App - you can access 8 more in that App (which requires a Roland Cloud Account) - which App can...

July was a tough month for me! Plenty going on for sure - and I had a particularly traumatic Sunday a couple of weeks back - when I was unable to get any sound out of my pedal-chain for the best part of that day. At the end of that I retired incredibly frustrated and kind of distraught - which zapped whatever remaining energy I had - and left me entirely shattered.

After a night’s sleep - I turned up  a little sharper on the following day - and was able to fairly quickly and systematically ...

Electro-Harmonix is the only one of the big 3 for which I haven’t done a capsule collection rundown yet - so here it is! Obviously heavily dominated by Big Muffs and fuzzes - mostly JHS Modified, with the Violet Ram’s Head modified by Alchemy Audio - after JHS exited from that arena.

As for all of these reference projects - acquisitions are based on a mix of opportunity, timing, price and condition. And I periodically do sweeps to see if any of my targets can be acquired on beneficial terms...