This is another killer pedal from the recent Budding Bloom Series, not quite as much fun for me as the Leap - but still very decent. In fact the only one I would kind of question in terms of its ultimate utility is the South Zoo - all the others really deliver the goods for their intended audiences.

The Leap outguns the EHX Pico POG, and this Dive outguns its nearest competitor - the Digitech Drop. The Dive is mostly labelled as a Polyphonic Pitch-Shifter - which most woudl take that to ...

It’s quite evident that Klowra had one eye on the EHX Pico POG when it designed its Leap Polyphonic Octaver. The Leap has all the same controls as the Pico POG including the same tone options - Low Pass, High Pass, and Tilt EQ, but then adds in those super smart 3 x Detune modulation options on top.

For me those 3 Detune options can deliver similar voices to some of EHX’s 9 Series Guitar Synth Pedals. So alas it’s a double hit on EHX!

You can of course just go for the basic Upper and ...

I have to say that I’m a little mystified as to exactly who this pedal is aimed at. It doesn’t have that unbridled joy that the Korg Miku pedal delivers in spades, and in truth none of the Animal voicings are particularly close to those actual source sounds. The Frog voice is the most versatile - and gets the closets to a ’Ribbit’ and even some ’Frog Chorus’ type sounds. The Cat voice is very faintly a mewing / miaow sound - the B’s Music Meowdulator is more convincing - while I feel that is a ...

I have a soft spot for Rotary Speaker Emulators, and have long sought out the most flavourful from that genre. With the recent Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble my current champion of that genre, followed by Strymon’s Lex 2, the Eventide Rotary Vibrotone H9 & H90 Algorithm (Josh Smith settings), and the long-since discontinued Tech 21 NYC Roto Choir - also the Rotary voicings on the Hamstead Redwing, Eventide Tricerachorus, and Colortone VibroVerb - all those are excellent. And all those work ...

It’s been tough to get this out in time as I was away Monday afternoon when the final references came through for the launch. And I can’t properly process a pedal until everything is out in front of me. I always start my process with the visuals - to get a feel for where everything sits and what it does. And while nowhere near as capable and complex as Klowra’s full size compacts - they’ve managed to cram a lot into a 1590A style enclosure here.

I had hoped they might have ’Nobels’ed’ and ’...

The Vires is a high quality construction, beautifully made pro slimline mains-powered pedalboard power supply - which sits in between the CIOKS SOL and DC7 with its 6 ports, but mostly targets NUX’s 5-Port Zeus JR - delivering one further outlet than that for the same price of $129.

This is one of those power supplies very evidently designed for sitting on the underside of most pedalboard types. It is the main base unit - like all those other supplies just mentioned. While other brands have...

February is always something of a lull - particularly after the hyper busy NAMM-inflected January. This month is the doldrums of the calendar where not much gets releases. I did though manage to land a decent selection of a dozen pedals - obviously some from the previous year. With the Sinvertek MGAT-1 EVO being the standout pedal landed - where the Klowra Gnash and Wampler Golden Jubilee were pretty spectacular too. 3 x Klowra pedals on the board this month - all excellent!

Of course there...

This is a fantastic departure from Klowra’s usual DSP roots. Here we have their first entirely analog all-THT components circuit - and it sounds absolutely killer! In one of the pictures below you can see the high quality internals of this pedal - which deliver the most richly harmonically textured Overdrive, Fuzz and Distoriton tones. This pedal is fun for weeks if not months - it has such a high potential. And is one of the most versatile multi-gain pedals of all time - alongside my long-term...

This is such a smart pedal - it took me a while to figure out all the controls and their impact - but it’s mostly second nature now. I had to do a lot of experimentation for it all to slot into place for me. Klowra’s Jinbo was very helpful in getting me to understand the interplay between the main variable playback head - and the further fixed relative playback heads - which you can dial in and out of action or accentuate - by using the [Spawn], Heads Volume, [Groove] and [Sum-Invert] ...