So we’re at that time of year again for another Full Metal Racket Rundown. I meant to have it coincide with halloween - but was so inundated with new releases work - that I really struggled to fit this one in. And it now appears a month later than I wanted it to - but still very much at the appropriate end of the year!

As is ever the case - this selection continues to evolve over the years - and inevitably some previous candidates get bounced for more impressive newer variants.

For this...

The big mystery hear is where Keeley is getting all its RCA style knobs from - surely those aren’t all original Bakelite variants - I didn’t realise that quite that many were still to be found in the wild!

While it’s the exact same format as the Halo Core, Rotary and Zoma Reverb. I have that format on my "I Get Around Rotary Simulator’ which is then later improved in just the ’Rotary’ variant - one came in white, and the other has now been released in a number of colours - including Black ...

My Klon/Klone journey started in December of 2016 with the Wampler Tumnus Mini - very near the start of my overall pedal journey - so very much in the first 50 pedals I acquired. That pedal had emerged a year earlier (2015) - and players were loving it for the extra bass / oomph it has in its low end. The Mini Tumnus is often selected as the favourite in Blind Tests - and has won a few of those Andertons rundowns.

It took me a while to run across my favourite Mini Klone - the Decibelics ...

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 ...

So I’ve been waiting for my much delayed Keeley Manis to land (#17 overall) - to complete the series - and that happened on the day I’m writing this piece - which will be ’yesterday’ by the time it goes live. I ordered mine from Andertons on the 25th June - but it was delayed coming into stock at least twice, and then delayed on the shipping - so it’s been a series of scheduling issues supposedly.

I’m not sure what the root cause is - but the formerly pretty solid Andertons ’coming into ...

I’m at a stage now where I probably have all the Klone and Screamer pedals that I need - but I’ve really liked Keeley’s recent compact editions - which started with the Noble Screamer from the 4-in-Series.

Next came the Andy Timmons Muse Driver, now named the MK3 Driver - and this Manis is more along those lines - having just the one core circuit onboard (vs the 2 of the 4-in-1 Series). Where with the two toggle switches in down positions - you’re getting stock Klon Centaur style circuit - ...

So the original editions of these have a black enclosure with a colour accent graphic, and matching colour knobs. Where here those accent colours saturate the entire enclosure and the accent colours and knobs are black - a sort of inversion really.

I’m not sure I would feel the need to buy the whole set again in this new livery - albeit I really like these new editions. Which of course include the : 

• Noble Screamer
• Blues Disorder
• Super Rodent
• Angry Orange
• MK3 Driver

I’ve covered ...

In the wake of the recent Wampler one I did - it made sense to do a roundup of my Keeley pedals too - which funnily enough numbers a very similar amount of pedals.

I obviously juggle a lot of different priorities across something like 400 brands - so unless I was a millionaire - which I most certainly am not - I have to share the love across all those different brands - with a ’sample’ in effect from each range.

Seemingly only Josh Scott appears to be in a position to have one of each ...

Keeley put out so many different colour variants and special editions - it’s almost impossibly to keep up with all of those. While this is a particularly attractive colourway - where likely most of these will have been sold before this article even goes up. So this is more of a marker really as there won’t be many remaining when this goes live.

• Halo Core Andy Timmons Delay - $249
• Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz - $249
• Rotary Speaker Emulator - $229
• Zoma Stereo Reverb and Tremolo - $229

...