Lydia Sean Mandrake is not one to follow the crowd or do things by halves. This Grand Classic Passion Project has way exceeded its Kickstarter timeline - but is all the better for it, and is overall a vast improvement on the original concept - acquiring an improved control topology, and a couple of key accessories along the way.
At the same time, Lydia developed Audiostorm’s own automated ’pick-and-place’ manufacturing assembly line, utilising numerous 3D-printed parts. Turns out Lydia is ...
Firstly - props to my good friend Henry Kaiser for putting me onto this. This very neatly dovetails into the same kind of experience that I had with my fairly recent superb Tanabe.TV Trifecta. All of those pedals have it in common to sound already brilliant with all dials at noon, but then things get even better when you dial the pedals in to perfectly match your own rig.
Controls - Volume, Gain, Variac (< Classic Plexi | Instant Eddie >), Tone.
Those 4 controls configured to my ...
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I know times are tough for most everyone these days, while the ethical monetisation of GPX is going very slowly indeed. If I bring a little joy or erudition into you life - why not show some appreciation via Patreon. Considering how many thousands of people make regular use of this site, the Patreon numbers seem somewhat mystifying! Help keep GPX alive and independent!
Big changes are coming soon, we’re in the process of calibrating an AI Chatbot on the site - which ...
I picked up my first of these - the PAL800 Gold Overdrive V4 this past November (2023). Where it was originally Phillip McKnight (Know Your Gear!) that put me onto PedalPalFX - all the way back in March of 2018. I have covered this brand a few times on this site before my acquisitions - and always meant to get the two main ones into the collection - as they were so highly lauded, and I didn’t think any Marshall pedal collection could be complete without those two!
It’s one of those ...
Another totally mad month for sure - loaded with frenetic activity and peppered with highs as well as crushing disappointments. The first give-away for GPX didn’t quite hit the highs I expected (said give-away closes tonight at 23:59 BST). And there are some weird gaps in the entrants’ home countries - certainly no shortage from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, or much of mainland Europe. I’m active in a lot more countries than have so far entered the give-away, so I don’t fully understand why ...
I’ve gone a little bit movie poster on this one! The saga of the forgotten Top Gun :
’The Bluesman!’
I’ve long been a fan of Chris Buck - and indeed named him as one of my favourite 25 Guitar Heroes back in a 2022 article. His incredibly expressive touch is second to none! And he can wring out the most impressive detail and nuance over several bars - from just a single note!
So it’s entirely fitting that Thorpy has built him an equally dynamic and expressive pedal to match Chris’s ...
I’m a huge fan of richly textured gain pedals - and have a particularly liking for super potent firecracker mini pedals with huge sounds! - for which this Paddy Whacker Distortion certainly seems to fit the bill. The distortion circuit is designed by Ryan and Neil at Dr Scientist Sounds. The Enclosures are individually hand painted and assembled by Patrick, in-house, at Leprechaun FX in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
I love those ’Landgraff’ style swirly paint jobs - while Leprechaun note that ...
It seems a long while ago now since I reviewed the V1 The Jack and The Kraken - respectively November 14th, and 21st of 2022. I had intended to tackle the remaining 3 Victory V1 pedals - The Copper, The Sheriff and The Duchess - not too long after that - but all kinds of other happenstances and priorities got in the way. So it seems a timely exercise to revisit the Victory V1 Series - which was / is a close collaboration between my good friend Adrian Thorpe and Victory Amps’ Martin Kidd.
It...
So 2024 is off to a pretty spirted start! I treaded myself to 2 pedals right at the tail end of the year - the Poly VERBS puts in an appearance in this month’s selection - while the Reeves Electro BHS-D is running a touch late and will be part of the February selection instead.
This time of the year has to be mostly about NAMM - while I feel that a lot of builders kind of took away from NAMM and launched / showcased their new release in advance!
I’ve still to make it to NAMM - timing’s ...
I’ve followed tkog / The King of Gear for many years now - and have had the Mini Glitch in the reference collection for quite a while - a really cool and relatively simple but impactful Micro-Sampler. I believe that first materialised properly in 2018 - where I’m aware there were a few earlier sort of prototype versions before then - while I think the final design occurred some time in and around 2018.
Around a year later, tkog then introduced its Oxford Drive - which I understand is an ...