Readers of this blog will know that I’ve long and consistently had 2 key pedal types in my pedal-chain - namely a Brian May Vox style pedal, and an Eddie Van Halen Marshall Plexi style pedal - which for the last number of years have populated slots #17 and #18.

My very first pairing was the hybrid set of Bearfoot FX EGDM and MI Effects Super Crunch Box V2 - which overall probably served the longest innings on those two slots.

Since that first pairing we’ve had matched brand pairs - from...

Readers have heard me refer to my ’Infinite Wishlist’ - which consists of a mix of new releases (Weeks & Months), relatively recent releases (Years), and older releases (Decades) that I either missed out on or was oblivious to at the time. What’s special about this process and exercise - like many things in life - and reminiscent of my DJ-ing days when it was all about a very specific version of remix - the same is the case with pedals - where the pedal reference and particular iteration is...

This edition comes rather hot on the heels of the recent 12 Degrees of Overdrive version as many readers’ inquiries questioned a couple of missing categories there - which I explained would rather figure within the Distortion contingent which is present here in all its glory!

As always, these is some considerable amount of grey science at play here - best typified by the Big Muff and Rat circuits - which are both very much distortions as well as fuzz varieties. I have 3 x 12 ...

So this is one of most significant works in a while, and carries on the legacy of two of my most popular all-time articles on the 12 Degrees of Saturation - the Original that evolved in the early months of 2017, and the follow-up which materialised in September of 2018.

I obviously deal with a lot of reader inquiries pretty much on a daily basis, and one of the more popular lines of inquiry has been about overdrives. And while Josh Scott attests to the fact that there are only 5 core ...

In my recent coverage of Eddie Van Halen’s Signature Pedals I indicated that I had none of the usual suspects Overdrives/Distortions - or namely MXR EVH 5150, Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe and Seymour Duncan Diamondhead. While in fact I have well over 20 Brown Sound Style variants in my collection of various different sizes - with the vast majority being compact enclosures as featured here. I make no secret of the fact that the compact size format is my faourite and particularly for these sorts of ...

May was the month that several things finally slotted into place - all my missing / presumed lost USA orders finally landed as did a few other pedals which had been somewhat lingering in the wild - so May delivered a pretty decent pedal yield overall in the end. I also got to be involved in a couple of exciting up-and-coming brands - Kuro Custom Audio of Italy and MidValleyFX of USA. I’ve already published a feature on the excellent Kuro Akuma Fiery Fuzz as featured on slot #5, and hope to be ...

A reader pulled me up on the fact that I had not included the Walrus Audio 385 Overdrive in my recent 28 Best Compact Overdrives roundup. In fact, as I stated then - there were a number of equally great overdrives that just missed out on that listing for a variety of reasons, but still deserve a mention.

This post seeks to highlight a few more exceptional overdrives which really play on touch-sensitivity and feel and pick-attack - where playing technique is a significant part of the ...

I’m possibly writing this just a touch prematurely as at the point of writing - one of the pictured pedals hasn’t turned up quite yet, and it will be touch and go if gets released out of customs before the end of the year. That pedal being Sinvertek’s new N5+ Drive - featuring no less than 7 beautifully milled aluminium knobs along with 5 toggle-switches - and all within a compact enclosure format - but more of that later.

This year has mostly sort of gone to plan - but there are really too...

So I thought I would combine the Mini Pedal selection with the final overall category roundup featuring my current favourites and forthcoming/future acquisition targets. The above visual may be somewhat convoluted, but it well illustrates the trade off in footprint and practicality/utility you get across the different enclosure form factors.

I’ve stated before that I’ve largely moved away from the larger styles of enclosures in favour of more pedals of a more compact nature - which means ...