And here we have the GRAND FINAL- with all 36 Award Winners from the Group Stages - across all 5 categories!

The first two places have kind of been obvious for a while, where the 3rd / BRONZE position was actually the hardest to decide on - it was between the eventual recipient - the Tubesteader Gainlord, Boss’s XS-100 Poly Shifter, Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields and Gamechanger’s Motor Synth - all of whom would have been worthy runners-up - while in the end I went for the one that overall ...

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 - ...

36 outstanding Boost and Overdrive pedals  featured here in various sizes - 35 of which are already in the reference collection - with the Superlunar SR-01 the last remaining straggler!

The rules of the game are that I can only finally recommend pedals that I own and have lived with, while I can also feature a few other intended targets in the overview which I fully intend to acquire (like the Superlunar SR-01) - but those can’t feature in the final rankings. So there is only one remaining ...

The Mood is Chase Bliss’s most perennially popular and celebrated bestseller - by far and away the most sold Chase Bliss pedal to date.

It also happens to have had the most different special and limited edition artworks - and I’ve selected 4 each of those for the Mood I and Mood II - I’m sure I’ve probably overlooked 1 or 2 variants - while hopefully I’ve covered all he best looking ones!

Up until now the Light Bright edition was my favourite - while I feel that may have been pipped by the new ...

So it was about time that Doug Tolley, the Chase Bliss UK Ambassador got the cover slot for his own party! It was a momentous occasion in many ways - including the final concert later that evening for his ’Nine is the Level’ band project. Where he gave away the 4 key albums from that project at the show - and I of course picked up a full set. [Oscillations, Crumbs, Remnants, and Traces].

I also picked up a Witney Pedal Party 4 T-Shirt, and 2 pedals on the day, and the unsung heroes for the day ...

October was a super busy month - one of the busiest ever - with such a scope and scale and body of work covered - I’m quite shattered as a result!

We had of the penultimate Events of the year :

• The 2nd Woking Boutique Guitar Show
• Kempton Park London International Guitar Show

And around one dozen key posts  as below also :

• Letter from Dr.No
• Teaching Machines FuzzBillion Component Combinations Wheels Gain-Shaper
• Hangman fx DAGG’R Dynamic Auto-Gain/Gate Mighty Morphing Gain-Ramper

3 elements inform this particular curated selection of pedals. Firstly these are all distinctive and striking designs of pedals - and some of these are absolutely at the top of that form. Also these all have unique proprietary designs of knobs exclusive to those brands, and finally all 9 of these are from my own Pedals Reference Collection!

Ever since I published my ’101 Pedal Knobs’ article back in 2019 (pictured below) I have been championing the creation of unique knobs for each brand - ...

I’m so glad to have made it to the sophomore Glasgow Stompbox Social. I was originally set to attend last year - while something came up last minute. I promised Angus I would attend this time around for sure - and I’m a man of my word! 

I have to say that I didn’t particularly enjoy the train journey - both legs of the journey were delayed over and above already long running-times. We kind of arrived at Glasgow Central on time - but there was no platform available to us - which meant that ...

So - early this morning Chase Bliss announced 2 new pedals. I already have the Reverse Mode C Multi-Direction Stereo Delay in original edition, while I recognise that this newer second batch / edition has a slightly more attractive colourway than the original Chase Bliss always said it would release another batch of the Revers Mode C - and the new edition looks glorious! What a gorgeous colour combination!

At the same time we have the brand new Lost + Found Multi-Modulator / Multi-FX - ...