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 ...

And so onto the Distortions of the year - the smallest group stage this year! There’s no particular logic as to why there are just 20 Disortions this year. There were a further couple of acquisitions that I was disappointed with - and I deliberately left out of this selection. It’s mostly a case of what appeals each year - and evidently there weren’t that many appealing ones beyond those I acquired. I’m not aware of any particular ones that are still in the wind. The last one in was the ...

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 ...

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

So Joe Halliday made me a killer Dual RangeMaster - with Silicon Texas Instruments 2N4060 Transistor on the left channel, and Germanium Newmarket NKT CV7001 on the right - which I picked up a week before my Birthday.

It’s literally and liberally filled to the brim with the best of Primo Components - for a wonderfully richly textured output. And it features that fantastic looking ’Bees’ fabric that Joe spotted in a store while on holiday.

Controls - SILICON } Boost, Range : Hi / Mid, ...

So a quick second Woking Show in the same year - for reasons I will endeavour to explain. A bittersweet moment for me as I have really loved the Fiery Bird venue - it’s a great setting for these kinds of events - and so close to the town centre - just 5 minutes or so form the main Woking Train Station. The reason Jason brought the 2nd show forward is that the council has taken back the licence for the building - with a view to redeveloping the premises - so presumably demolition beckons - which...

If you didn’t make the first one - you really missed out! Check out my Inaugural Woking Show write-up to get a flavour of how good that first show was back in March - it genuinely had amazing vibes - in fact all the March shows - including The Birmingham Guitar Show and the London Synth and Pedal Expo - all had a really friendly and chilled ambience to them - and all three were a joy to navigate - where I often struggle to get around at the Birmingham show.

The Woking Boutique Guitar Show ...

The most popular post on this blog to date is ’A Brief Hobbyist Primer on Clipping Diodes’ which has to date been read 117,610  times! It was always on the cards to follow up that article with deep-dives into Capacitors and Resistors too. I wanted to be even more encompassing than before - and go into more detail - and it was a matter of finding the best possible partner and collaborator for that task.

And no one has a deeper exotic-filled parts bucket than my good friend Joe Halliday at Hello ...

July was a tough month for me! Plenty going on for sure - and I had a particularly traumatic Sunday a couple of weeks back - when I was unable to get any sound out of my pedal-chain for the best part of that day. At the end of that I retired incredibly frustrated and kind of distraught - which zapped whatever remaining energy I had - and left me entirely shattered.

After a night’s sleep - I turned up  a little sharper on the following day - and was able to fairly quickly and systematically ...