I love that Gamechanger Audio exists and is so free and forward looking in its innovation - continuously delivering new and distinct ideas into the world of pedals. They certainly make very interesting form factors, while their pioneering spirit often kind of ignores the more practical aspects of day-to-day pedalboard management. All their units are larger than the norms - often quite substantially - which makes those pedals difficult to accommodate on a typical board. And those considerations ...

And here is the turn of the combined Modulation, Pitch and Utility category - which I affectionately label ’Modutility’. Obviously as frequently mentioned -  2021 was ’Year of the Phaser’ - so 8 favourites of those here, alongside 4 choruses, 3 flangers and a couple of stand-out Amp and Cab sims. 

Some genuinely innovative pedals here - and particularly handy new expression controllers in the guise of the Chase Bliss Audio Expression Roller, and Cooper FX Expression Generator. Free the Tone...

Andy Ebsen’s Effekt Boutique has been one of my own essential pedal reference and resource website for many years now. Andy is so smart with his curation and pedal selection - that there are several pedals there that just cannot easily be found elsewhere if at all. I regularly check in on Effekt-Boutique.de several times a week - just to see what smart pedal choices Andy has most recently unearthed!

Over the years I have acquired a fair few pedals from Effekt Boutique - obviously...

I’ve followed Rabea Massaad for quite a few years now - and while I’ve not attended any of his Toska, Dorje or Frog Leap gigs yet - I’ve been to a number of his impressive Guitar Clinics - including at the last Birmingham Guitar Show most recently.

I’ve obviously grown up with Rabea mostly courtesy of his association with Rob Chapman and Lee Anderton / Andertons - having watched most of his output on those channels - including in particular ’Sounds Like’ alongside Matt Hornby - and a number...

I’ve had some fun picking these up in sort of random order in the end! My first acquisition was the only limited yellow edition one I have, and that I obviously picked up at the right time - the Gamechanger Plasma Coil - which regularly puts an appearance on slot #15. Actually the third pedal in the series!

I had watched the TMR Mantic Flex come and go - as I already had the more capable Pro version of that pedal, and it was a similar story with the Bumble Buzz - which I wasn’t sure was my ...

So ever with the innovations - Gamechanger Audio have this time teamed up with Fender / Bigsby to craft a pedal based on that legendary guitar vibrato unit. The shape and concept of the device is a combination of an enhanced take on the Bigsby - to enable proper treadle control - and funnily enough a computer mouse controller - featuring a trio of those scroll wheels - here clever illuminated in red when the device is on.

Obviously Ganechanger have added significantly to the range and ...

This article pulls together Jack White’s 4 key pedal collaborations from the very first Union Tube & Transistor Bumble Buzz Fuzz through to the recent Coppersound Triplegraph. I myself have been intrigued about these along the way - and am still pondering if I still need to add one or two more of these to my own collection / rig.

I already have a limited edition Yellow Plasma Coil, and am in line to get a standard Triplegraph in the new year. I was sort of waiting for the ...

As noted elsewhere, 2020 has sort of turned out to be the year of Mega Reverbs as such - with several super appealing pedals launched into the category this year. I see them as largely 2 types based on this selection - multi-mode, and multi-variability - the latter category which includes the Eventide Blackhole and Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal - delivers extended variations based on a singular type of Reverb.

The most recent proper That Pedal Show Episode (as per Final Thoughts below) ...

So despite the perilous state of the world, the first NAMM of the new decade actually turned out to be pretty stellar. I had thought that last year’s exceptional show might end up as the all-time high water mark - but this one turned out just as many pleasant surprises.

Slightly different to last year there were a more significant number of pedals announced and launched in advance of the show - while a lot of pedals at the show had very little by way of collateral and some are ...