Leprechaun FX collaborates with Dr Scientist for the beautifully textured Paddy Whacker High Gain Rock 'N Roll Mini Distortion Pedal
I’m a huge fan of richly textured gain pedals - and have a particularly liking for super potent firecracker mini pedals with huge sounds! - for which this Paddy Whacker Distortion certainly seems to fit the bill. The distortion circuit is designed by Ryan and Neil at Dr Scientist Sounds. The Enclosures are individually hand painted and assembled by Patrick, in-house, at Leprechaun FX in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
I love those ’Landgraff’ style swirly paint jobs - while Leprechaun note that ...
2023 Best of New Modutility Pedals of the Year
The Modutility roundup combines Modulation, Utility and Pitch type pedals - it also includes Multi-FX and Multi-Modulation pedals of course. Some years this selection is relatively sparse - while this year it’s totally chock-a-block! In fact it was a struggle to whittle the Longlist down - and inevitably some pedals I wanted to feature did not make the cut - including the Endorphin.es Ghost Pedal Multi-FX and Subdecay Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter.
I still feel that this selection of 26 is...
Dr Scientist unveils a next level Multi-Mode Ring Modulator in the same format as their fantastic Dusk Analog Filter
Ring Modulation is most definitely something of an acquired taste - the sound of early synths to a degree - and indeed the sound of sci-fi - through extensive use in that genre - including Forbidden Planet and Dr Who soundtracks and sound effects. To my ears it can occasionally sound like a cat being tortured. But there are different degrees of Ring Modulation and some of those emanations can actually sound fairly sophisticated - particularly when delivered with some degree of panache.
The ...
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
This article has been a long time coming - where I originally started this ahead of the Mini Edition - which went live on January 24th. I was waiting for a couple of new pedals to be released - while the article has been iterated around 20 times now with a number of recent additions.
And the pedal I was waiting to launch still hasn’t quite happened, while the builder has authorised me to tease it in advance of its official release. And if I were to do the same exercise tomorrow - no doubt ...
16 Secret Weapon Fuzzes
A reader asked me to pick out some of my all-time favourite fuzzes - which are legion actually - just far too many to include in a single rundown. So we settled on doing somewhat less well known favourite fuzzes - under the guise of ’Secret Weapon Fuzzes’. These are mostly somewhat under the radar classics - several of which are discontinued, but all of which deliver distinct superior tones.
Beyond these being Secret Weapon Fuzzes there was no other specific theme - so we get a variety of ...
2022 Best New Time-Based Effects Pedals of the Year
So this is the first selection here where I only own a handful of the candidates - it’s easier to say what is in the reference collection than out :
- Boss RE-2 Space Echo Compact - $249
- Boss RE-202 Space Echo Deluxe - $399
- Chase Bliss Generation Loss MKII Stereo Magnetiser - $399
- Chase Bliss Habit The Echo Collector - $399
- Meris LVX True Stereo Modular Delay System - $599
- Old Blood Noise Endeavors Screen Violence Stereo Saturated Modulated Reverb Pedal - $279
Of those the Gen Loss II ...
Dr Scientist Revives and Improves its Sweet Repeats - Sunny Day Delay - as inspired in part by this very site!
Back in June of 2020 I did a best of Dr Scientist roundup article (pictured below)- which featured a number of classic discontinued models - including the Cosmichorus, The Heisenberg Molecular Overdrive, Sunny Day Delay, and Tremolessence among the current crop of pedals too. And where I have 5 of those 9 in the reference collection - including probably my favourite all-time fuzz - the Frazz Dazzler.
Said article sparked off all manner of dialogues and in fact several people petitioned Ryan...
32 Key Guitar Effects Pedal Types - Preferred Compact Pedal per Type : 2022 Edition
NOTE - this article is too large (108 videos) to work properly on Mobile devices - make sure you view on Desktop or Laptop!
This is my largest ever article - and it will unlikely be repeated in this fashion - as this takes so long to compile - and the 108 Pedals / Videos included just take a little too long to load up on the screen. In any case it’s a pretty exhaustive run-down in rough order of preference of my favourite Compact Enclosure Pedals of Each Type.
For a few here there are ...
2021 November Pedal-Chain Update - Episode XI, Penultimate Shuffle
It was inevitable that November would be a slower month after the birthday bounty that was October. In fact I deliberately made it so - as I can only deal with so many incoming pedals at a time - and too many makes things rather chaotic.
That said there are still quite a few changes to the chain - or 10 all told - including the featuring of the two Blackhawk Fuzzes I recently required which hadn’t been covered yet. Boss delivers another killer gain pedal in the shape of the FZ-1W 60’s Style...
Dr Scientist's The Heisenberg 3 Gain Stage Molecular Overdrive Pioneered the use of Molecular Junction Diodes
I’ve noted before that the Musical Devices Sector has relatively few dedicated electronic components that were specifically developed for that genre. There’s really only a handful of dedicated devices that were directly created for use in effects pedals and musical devices - these include the Princeton PT2399 and Spin FV-1 Chips, Korg’s NuTubes, and NINT / Nanolog Audio Devices / Quantum Tunnelling / Molecular Junction Diodes.
Back in 2015 Dr Scientist’s Ryan ...
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
