An interesting fact is that this collaboration almost happened several years ago, but evidently the timing wasn’t right then for various reasons. This time around though there was an added ingredient in the mix - ’Yours Truly!’ - and I was somewhat instrumental in bringing the two sides together and finally making this happen!
It’s great news for us Brits - as these Lastgasp Art Laboratories Pedals have always been somewhat beyond our reach until now.
I obviously recently covered my 9 ...
I always get pangs of sorrow when a pedal brand retires for one reason or another. Late last year Luca Romanelli announced that he was pulling the plug on his Mastro Valvola pedal brand - which at times I have referred to as ’The Strymon of Italy’.
There are so many complications and complexities with pedal-building in general - chip sets and key components increasingly harder to source, and numerous challenges with logistics and red tape. It’s a wonder more of these don’t go to the wire. ...
Boss has really been showing Bass Players a lot of love recently - with superb dedicated devices for the lower range of playback. For April we get a Bass Edition of the ME-90 - wholly re-designed with Bass Players in mind and the precise effects they favour in their rig. There may be some superficial similarities to the ME-90, but the ME-90B has been wholly re-engineered for Bass. In my describing all the effects, features and functions - it’s almost overwhelming just how much you get on the ...
Following on from his smart stereo Cortado Reverb, by friend Benno has conjured up a quite superb Tape Style Delay - packed with some exceptionally smart features.
You get 4 different styles of delay, including a handy Dual Tape, and the powerful Playback Direction toggle-switch allows you to engage the Delay in Reverse, Forward, or both together in parallel - which is a little reminiscent of the Chase Bliss Reverse Mode C.
In my visual I’ve incorporated the secondary settings / ...
We’ve had a number of pedals released into Catalinbread’s Belle Epoch Tape Echo family - starting with the original 2015 compact edition. The Deluxe edition arrived 2 years later, and and 2 years after that we had a large-format Epoch Pre - Preamp/Buffer, which is alas discontinued now.
In fact 2024 kind of sees something of a replacement for that Epoch Pre - in the shape of the 4-controls Epoch Bias - Preamp/Bias pedal.
The range currently consists of 5 pedals - One large DLX, a mini, ...
Misha Mannsoor’s Horizon Devices has quietly made its way to 4 superior modern tone enhancers. It kind of set the mould with its specialist Metal tone enhancing Precision Drive, then came its Apex High Gain Preamp, then the Flux Echo/Reverb - and here we have a very unique take on a Compressor.
Horizon Devices’ slogan is "Sound great, and be easy to use" and that theme is very clearly carried through all 4 pedals which are about as straightforward a pedals as you might expect to encounter -...
The ALABS Audio Pedals were so successful over the Christmas / New Year period - that they were sold out for a while. So I thought it prudent to pause the action until ALABS were back in sync with the demand.
The TimeSlip is my second-favourite of the quartet and shares Cetus’s perfect mix of algorithms - mixing up classic and more traditional flavours with some more intriguing and unusual modern and futuristics ones. I really love this pedal in particular for superb sweep of algorithms - ...
I first glimpsed this pedal on my friend Andy Ebsen’s Effect Boutique site - while the image there wasn’t suitable for my use. I always intended to do an article on said very interesting looking pedal - which for me is kind of a pedal equivalent to a Casio G-Shock watch. In fact it really just needs those hexagonal corner bumpers to complete that look. In fact I’m surprised that a pedal brand hasn’t properly borrowed more from the G-Shock style by now.
In any case this is a pretty neat and ...
I’m delighted to report that my friend and yours Vitalii Bobrov - of Drunk Beaver fame - at last has a proper website / webstore for his pedals - DRUNK-BEAVER.ROCKS - where his full current range of 19 pedals can be purchased - of course when in stock.
All these pedals are made in relatively small batches (20 or so at a time) and when there is high demand as there often is - then stock clears out very quickly and then there is typically a wait of around 3-4 weeks before more stock is ready ...
I kind of see the Tripple Threat as an update / replacement for Donner’s discontinued $69 Alpha Cruncher (High Gain Distortion + Chorus + Delay) - but now with All Analog effects - where the Distortion is likely the same / similar to the analog British-voiced (Marshall) High Gain Distortion found on the Alpha Cruncher, while the Tripple Threat’s classic Phaser is a tune-up of Donner’s analog Pearl Tremor, and the Analog Echo is a tune-up of Donner’s well loved Yellow Fall Analog Delay.
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