Fender evidently likes this licensing malarky - and adds Godzilla to its brand collaborations. It’s had a lot of success with Hello Kitty over the years, and this is another Japanese collaboration that really makes sense! Japan’s Toho Co currently owns the copyright and all rights to the Godzilla property - so there is a licensing fee to them within the $149 / £145 price tag!

This is a limited edition, and the USA Fender Allocation is already gone, with the UK one running low - but some ...

I personally find it sightly infuriating when demoers announce something as gamechanging which is anything but. In this sense TONEX is largely playing catch-up with the industry’s current leaders in that space - Boss, Fender and Nux.

Each of their solutions has compelling reasons for acquisition - but in truth it’s mostly about what core platform you’re mainly subcribed to. If you largely play though Boss Katana Amps like I do - then the Katana : GO is the natural extension for that ...

This article was prompted by the recent NAMM show, the new Walrus Audio Canvas Rehearsal in particular, and my thoughts about the big forthcoming UK Guitar and Pedal Shows. This post also hints at the return of a personal favourite!

I initially had the list and visual arranged in alphabetical order - but it made more sense to arrange those devices per the above visual - which has the sort of guitar jack micro multi-fx and headphone amps listed first, followed by the mini, and then compact ...

There are 32 Finalists in the Fuzz Category, where I own all but 3 :

• 29 Pedals Toki Overdrive / Fuzz
• Cachalote 214 Fuzz
• Subdecay Noise Theory Parallel Waveshaper Fuzz

The Finalists

• 29 Pedals Toki Fuzz Driver - $269
• Beetronics FX Tuna Fuzz - $99
• Beetronics FX Whoctahell V2 Low Octave Beeast Babee Edition - $149
• Cachalote Audio 214 Fuzz - R$1418 / $235
• Cornerstone Nero Dumble-Fuzz - €299 | $299
• Danelectro Nichols 1966 Liverpool Fuzz Tone - $199
• Decibelics Reverend V2 Mini

November has been a crazy month! With such a flurry of activity from around the middle of the month onwards. So many companies took full advantage of Black Friday promotions - and the smartest of them started early, and extended their campaign through to the 2nd or 6th of December - in order to be able to take advantage of 2 pay packets!

If you started your Black Friday sales with just a week to go or less - then alas you’re bang out of touch with the new paradigm shift. The early bird ...

Who doesn’t like a bit of Japanese Cutesy Kawaii Culture. Fender certainly does - and has been onboard with Sanrio and Hello Kitty now for half a century.

This latest release obviously comes just in time for the Christmas season - in fact I would imagine a few princesses will be waking up to one of these guitars on Christmas Day. And Japanese princesses have even more to be excited about - as you can see in the overview video below - with some unique product available in Japan!

While ...

So I’m trying out a new 4-way format where I feature / compare seemingly very similar pedals. They need to be almost identical in general scope and control topologies to be eligible for inclusion. So these 4 are the first for this format :

• EarthQuaker Devices Tone Job - $159
• Carl Martin Tone Tweaker - $159
• Fender Engager Boost - $119
• Kuro Custom Audio Hand-Made Bakeneko EQ Boost - $179

That’s not to say Looks-Like is necessarily Like-for-Like. All 4 of these have slightly different ...

And so to what is often my favourite category - the many wonderful flavours of fuzz - and we have some hugely innovative pedals in the selection this year - one of these may even be my pedal of the year!

So there are 24 in this year’s selection - where I’m just missing the Collision Devices TARS, Fender Shields Blender, JAM Pedals Octaurus, KMA Machines Mandrake, Reeves Electro Facet IZ, and Unsound Circuitry Kato Glitch Fuzz - where I will attempt to add most of those to the reference ...

This is not the first reissue of Fender’s seminal Fender Blender Fuzz - there was at least one back in 2010 or thereabouts which was a pretty faithful reproduction of said 4-knob dual footswitch original Silicon Fuzz from 1968. I’m not clear whether the 2010 reissue was also a limited edition - but you do get those popping up on Reverb.com every now and again.

For 2023 Fender have hooked up with one of the most famous users of the original Fender Blender - one Kevin Shields, lead guitar ...