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 ...

Probably the strongest selection of the year - each one of these is amazing and sounds killer. But then agin similar was true of the Overdrives. I’m very much a fuzz fanatic - so his selection has to take the edge - what a selection!

This selection includes 3 from EarthQuaker Devices, 2 from Drunk Beaver, 2 from Fjord Fuzz, and 2 from ThorpyFX.

It also includes the likely pedal of the year - within a selection of 10 award winners here - these are so good - I could have labelled even ...

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 ...

Another killer Drive Pedal from Hangman fx which gives you 3 Gain Stages to play with, a Bass Boost, Gated Boost, and a Mini Gain Stage 1 Alternative Control  (Alternative Growl) - which is activated by the second / right-hand Footswitch.

External Controls - Roar (Gain Stage 2), Growl (Gain Stage 1), Meat (Bass Boost), Gain (Gain Stage 3), Gated (JFET Gated Boost), Gain 1 Alt / Alt Growl Mini, On/Off Footswitch, Gain 1 / Growl Alt Footswitch (per Mini Knob!).

Internal Controls - ...

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

The new Hangman fx pedal is a rare object of beauty in looks, output, and playability!

The DAGG’R Dynamic Auto-Gain/Gate features 2 Gain Channels - Overdrive and Fuzz - which you can Auto-Swell between the Gain dialled into the O.D. or Fuzz Knobs, and the Max Gain via the smaller Black knob. With DAGG’R Mode Engaged - your playing style triggers the gain bloom / swell when you dig in. Where the Sense (Sensitivity) knob defines the threshold of the trigger point - which you can then further ...

I originally referred to this as a Trem-Fuzz, which is not exactly correct - it has the most amazing and versatile 3 x 3 mode Fuzz, supplemented by a secondary Chopper Circuit - a sort of signal slicer / stutter which with Speed at peak levels delivers Drone and kind of Ring Mod tones - which you then can tune into a particular note / frequency with the Fine-Tune control. The 2nd channel cannot be engaged independently - as it has to chop the fuzz signal to produce an output.

The main left-...

In some ways May turned out to be a little uneventful! I was due to visit Hello Sailor Effects down in Gosport, but that got pushed back to next month - so the only event of note is tomorrow’s Leeds Pedal Show - which takes place from 10:00 to 15:00 at the Northern Monk Refectory - in the former The Old Flax Store building! Supposedly 20 minutes walk from Leeds Station, and less than 10 minutes in a taxi. I will of course have my show report up for Monday!

May was a lot about pedal roundups...

I first encountered Hangman fx in the Autumn of last year - where I was immediately smitten by the Lord GermFet Dual Overdrive. It has a 3 x NOS Germanium Transistor Left Channel (3 x Soviet MΠ21A) and a JFET Fetzer Tube Emulation Right Channel.

Left Germanium Side

• Output
• Gain
• Tone
• Voicing : Low / High / Vintage
• Left Germanium Channel Footswitch (lower white LED)

The Voicing toggle I originally thought was just about gain range - Low, High, Vintage - but it has an EQ component to ...