I’m not typically a fan of simple mono delays, while Chris Benson has indisputably created something really great with his fairly minimalist Benson Delay Pedal.

This originally Karaoke Machine PT2399 chip has been repurposed for myriad delay pedals over the years, but no one’s quite managed to eke as much flavour out of it as Chris does here - combining the core delay sound with an analog LFO - which introduces tape-like Wow & Flutter, and Warble into the proceedings.

Controls - LFO...

It felt right to cover these 2 fuzzes together as there are some superficial similarities here. The same size enclosure, and both with 4-Knob control topologies including a dedicated Filter control - and of course both originated in the 60’s - one in 1965 and one in 1969.

Of course there are significant differences too - in orientation, number of footswitches, and circuit makeup - these are both super versatile and great sounding fuzzes while each delivers something quite distinctly ...

The Boost, Overdrive and Distortion category is the most heavily contested, and indeed the most heavily congested category this year. I started with a Longlist of more than 70 and whittled down to the 39 featured here. Note that for balance I have included Rat pedals in the Fuzz Category already listed. This list features some of the more subtle fuzz-edged / fuzzy-drive varieties - although there will of course be some slight degree of overlap.

Featured above and listed here are 39 ...

Chris Benson’s Germanium Boost is actually his first attempt at creating the Auto-Biasing Germanium Fuzz. The first attempt consisted of using a voltage-controlled error correction circuit to bias a single Germanium Transistor. It ultimate didn’t work well enough for the Fuzz - which is overly sensitive to transistor gain. While it worked brilliantly as a Single Germanium Transistor Clean Boost - which is what we have here. It takes approximately 10 seconds for the self-biasing ...

I actually only got to know ’Axe and You Shall Receive’ Owner / Founder Scott Hager relatively recently - while I first bought a pedal from his store (courtesy of Reverb.com) back in 2017 - my much loved ’Gold Bar’ edition of Dr Scientist’s The Elements Preamp / Drive which readers will have seen heavily featured on this site.

Earlier this year - back in March in fact - Scott and I bonded over Big Tone Music Brewery’s (BTMB) EQ’d Vintage Series...

The big pedal story for me last year - apart from the Synesthesia, Volante and Zoia was the amazing Joel Korte and Chris Benson collaboration based on Chris’s popular PreAmp pedal - in turn modelled after his Chimera Amp - but with transistors in place of 12AX7 valves.

We witnessed a number of previews of the Automatone last year with the cool moving sliders and fantastic onboard Preset functions - now confirmed at 2 banks of 15 - for a total of 30 automatically shifting and ...

So it’s that usual post NAMM-haze time where I figure out the longer-term impact of NAMM, and how those new products will affect the layout, order and composition of my now sort of 40-slot pedal-chain. As noted several times - this was indeed a bumper year for really innovative and highly appealing new pedals - and I will look to accommodate a number of those as they materialise in the forthcoming months.

As I hinted in my last pedal-chain overview - while 2018 was very evidently ’The Year ...

It’s a little early to call it - in fact a full day ahead of the opening of this year’s Winter NAMM, but it looks like Joel Korte has stolen the show here! In recent weeks I have been getting to grips with the superb BYOC Crown Jewel - and I stated several times in that review - how much impact presets could have for such a pedal.

And while the Automatone PreAmp MKII does not have quite as many tone-sculpting and clipping options as the Crown Jewel, it shares a great many ...