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 ...

July was punctuated by two very significant events - Doug Tolley’s Witney Pedal Party on July 1st, and Phil Steere’s Brighton Guitar Show and FX Expo on July 15th - where I covered both of those in fine detail. Both were seminal events for different reasons, and while we were relatively few at Witney - we got to witness a truly legendary performance by David Rainger - which doubled up as about the best pedal demo I’ve yet / ever experienced - David was truly on fire - and the audience - we ...

Readers will know that from my growing Dumble Style Overdrive Capsule Collection - that the favourite to date has typically been the Demon Pedals Kondo-Shifuku, just ahead of the BJFE ODS34. While we now have another to join that elite and lofty company - where the HRM MKII delivers that glorious extra zing - which adds so much verve and dynamics to that pedal.

As you can see from the below comparison - the new pedal looks quite a bit more elegant and sophisticated than its predecessor - ...

This episode is a little more esoteric and preferential than most - and involves identifying the most notable and easily recognisable ’Pedal Shapes and Formats’ essentially. Of course there is some subjective preference here - while I will try to explain objectively how I came to this exact 25 pedal selection - some of these are very obvious - others are slightly more idiosyncratic choices - while there are obviously some brands that are particularly good at coming up with memorable enclosure ...

The title here is just an odd confection to represent that the most significant additions to the chain this month were Choruses, Clones and Fuzzes. All-in-all a really special month - with my properly hooking up with hitherto correspondent pal Paulo De Gregorio - of Delicious Audio and Stompbox Exhibit fame. He was in London coordinating his first ever London Synth and Pedal Expo - and I was proud to be a Media Partner for that event. I feel Paulo and I are 2 of the biggest parts of the pedal ...

I’ve long been a fan of J Rockett / JRAD Pedals - but don’t necessarily have as many as I should in the reference collection. Historically I’ve always been very impressed with their Archer Klone type pedals in particular, and The Dude and derivative Dumble-style pedals. In fact I see J Rockett as a sort of cousin to Greer Amps pedals - where both brands are particularly adept in putting out universally great sounding dynamic overdrives.

To date I have just 4 JRAD pedals - the 3 in the ...

This article has been a long time coming - I’ve teased it a few times now - but there was always one or two pedals missing from the list - and in fact new varieties and iterations inbound! I have all of these in the reference collection now bar the Analog Alien Bucket Seat Overdrive and the super rare Keeley Bootlegger Overdrive - which was a Sweetwater Limited Germanium Run of the Red Dirt - back in 2016.

I probably won’t be getting the Bucket Seat as I don’t really see the point in that ...

So I last did one of these back in 2020 - meaning that these ’Best of Overdrive’ run-downs seem to be a circa biennial affair. We’ve upped the numbers to 32 this year, while they represent barely a quarter of the overdrives I have in my reference collection - so there are obviously a lot of honourable mentions listed below - before the Final Thoughts section.

These types of exercises are incredibly tricky to strike the right balance of generally considered classic overdrive pedals and ...

I just recently stated (during my 6-Band Trifecta review) that my next likely J Rockett pedals would be the Animal and Majestic - while I had not counted on there being such an apt release in the interim.

Readers know that I’m a sucker for Billy Gibbons Fuzzy Drive tones - and a big fan of those sorts of pedals - including the various Expandora types and pedals like Mythos’s Chupacabra.

Controls - Volume, Gain, Bite.

We have a fairly standard 3 controls here - where the third one is...