January has been a bumper start for the year - with lots of killer arrivals - especially the DSM & Humboldt Dumblifier which I’ve been hugely impressed with.

Also my most formidable NAMM coverage to-date - where I only started work properly on the 8th of January - but have managed to do 60 articles since that time - which is a record of course, as is the week of 20 posts.

I feel I covered all the key moments - and mixed up new and old in my usual inimitable fashion.

There was ...

Freqscene has evolved a pretty cool new Drive pedal - which combines elements of Cocked-Wah and the balancing of Clean and Wet / Distorted Signals. The Gain switch gives you 2 levels of gain - in a lower / higher fashion. 

The Humans Drive covers a variety of sounds - including of course elements of Mick Ronson and QOTSA - depending on where you set the Sweep and Clean Blend.

The Drunk Beaver Forest Song uses a resonant filter to similar great effect. And I have at lease a couple of ...

Mad Professor strips out the Sweet Honey Overdrive portion from its original mid-size Super Black Fender Blackface style Preamp - for a more streamlined and pedalboard-friendly experience.

The Super Black Mini retains the main controls :

Super Black Mini Controls - Bass Cut Switch, Compression Switch, Presence, Volume, Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble.

Where when you compare it to the original :

Super Black Original Controls - MAIN } Bass, Middle, Treble, Gain, Volume, Presence, Bass ...

This is the 2nd Iteration for this article - where we go from a selection of 13 to 16.

I landed 4 of these these last year - the Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker, Flattley Outlaw, Fortin Kali, and Tubesteader Gainlord.

And two early this year - the Car Martin PlexiRanger and Seymour Duncan Diamondhead

We have 4 distinct types of pedals here across 4 format sizes (Compact / Mid-Horizontal / Mid-Vertical / Large) :

1. Dedicated Dual Channel Plexi + JCM800 Overdrive / Distortion with

In the wake of the quite superb recent Olbia Super-Klone - which is my favourite Drunk Beaver Overdrive to-date as well as by far and away my favourite evolved Klon sound. I thought I should do a roundup / overview of my other favourite Drunk Beaver Overdrives too.

This listing and visual is roughly in order of my preferences - where fortunately - the first 5 pedals listed are mostly on general release. Vitalii has made 26 Overdrives so far by my count. Actually there’s a couple of earlier ...

The Ian Thornley Signature Thornicus Dual Channel Fuzz / Octave Fuzz seems to be only the second circuit to use the same enclosure format as its Discovery Analog Delay - with a stupid portion at the front which features the footswitches.

It’s interesting that the Fuzz and Octave Fuzz have wholly identical independent controls - 2 x Sustain, Mids, Level, Tone. With independent footswitches per channel also!

The Thornicus Fuzz seems a little oversized for my preferences, and part of me ...

Readers will recall that Vitalii made a somewhat evolved Lviv Liontaur Klone back in May of 2024 - which split out Dry and Distorted Signals to separate Level Controls, and made use of killer Soviet NOS D2 GE Diodes. While the Olbia is a whole other level above that - sort of in a category of its own!

For me the Olbia embodies the essence of classic and killer rock and roll sound - in that compact enclosure. And similar to how Thorpy’s ’The J’ delivers the ultimate enhanced-texture for a ...

You may recall that the last time I did a Mad Professor roundup I still had 3 long-term targets remaining - that I was hoping to land somewhat opportunistically.

And just recently my good friend Joe Light had a pristine second-hand Sky Blue available on his Joe’s Pedals store - which I snapped up at a great price. And while looking around for my other 2 active Mad Professor targets - I was given an offer on a near pristine Double Moon too - at a price that I could not refuse. So in quick ...

I have and love my Shnobel Daily Driver pedal - and had long intended to get the enhanced Daily Driver Boost Version - which adds in a smart Clean Boost and Order Switch. I had intended to get a white edition of that for a while which hasn’t happened yet!

When I first saw the Dumbbell Driver from afar - I thought it somewhat reminiscent of the Cosmodio Instruments modification of JHS’s NOTADÜMBLË and Blammo Electronics’ TNYDÜMBLË - which I own - both 6-knob variants - with 2 banks of 3 ...