Following in the wake of the very well received Noble Screamer (ODR-1 + TS808), and Muse Driver (AT / RK Modded BD-2), we now get 3 more in the same series - all at once.
The Blues Order covers Marshall Blues Breaker and Fulltone OCD voicings, the Angry Orange has EHX Civil War Muff and Boss DS-1 Distortion flavours, and the Super Rodent mixes up the Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive with ProCo Rat Distortion.
As before you get to mix or match the Tone Stack and Clipping Character of each ...
Most everyone knows the Fulltone story by now - and how that brand sort of came a-cropper during the BLM movement - getting removed from sale at Guitar Centre, Reverb.com and several major dealers - on account of some very ill-chosen words. Yet I’ve forever had mixed feelings about the brand - as I’ve always separated out the figurehead and his utterances from those mostly excellent pedals he designed. And I of course do have several Fulltone pedals in my reference collection which I really ...
Wow - what can I say! The original N5 MGAT-1 was already my favourite distortion of all time - so I initially thought that this was going to be a sort of sideways step from that with more specificity to reach certain key classic era Marshall tones more easily and more precisely - and it certainly does that. While Mr Wu has kind of blown me away again - as this is incredibly a further improvement over the already exceptional MGAT-1.
The MGAT-1 Golden Era seems a little bit more poised and ...
I’ve waxed lyrical for a long time about the potency of the Daily Driver - where I originally acquired it based on how close it came to the tone and timbre of the Pete Cornish CC-1. The CC-1 can replicate / reproduce the tones of the TS808, Timmy, Klon and Blues Breaker with ease - and this new Boost addition makes it even more versatile.
The original had those 4 key corner knobs - and a single toggle switch for More Hi-Cut / None / Some Hi-Cut. Those 5 controls gave the pedal an incredible...
Many who read my blog don’t know that I used to work in advertising - mostly brand origination / development - and we dealt with a lot of copyright and trademark issues over that time. You quickly get a feel for how close you can sail into the wind - and the truth is mostly not that close at all! Of all of these replicas only probably the first one could be argued away against a top copyright lawyer - the other 5 would pretty much come under straight-up plagiarism - but there are other factors ...
I’m expecting this post to attract a lot of ’whataboutisms’ as many of my rundowns seem to do. While every single choice / selection here is well considered, pondered upon on and properly weighted up against pertinent criteria and then further rationalised, whittled and distilled down into a top 9 or 16 or 25 - as I always favour symmetrical grids.
If I find 18 or 19 suitable candidates - then only 16 can be featured on the grid etc. - you need to draw the line somewhere. And you can also ...
This article was originally suggested by my now good friend Henry Kaiser - leading guitar and guitar effects experimentalist and prolific producer and recording artist. He’s been a long-term friend of Toshihiko Tanabe - of Tanabe.TV fame and thought I should do one of my pedal roundups on Japanese Boutique Pedal Builders.
I had long intended to do a feature on Japanese Pedal Makers - but could not decide on the context or format - as there are so many notable brands. Upon Henry’s suggestion...
Ukrainian circuit designer Volodymyr Zakernychnyi is best known for his Tacana Tremolo to date - which has featured on a number of Pro boards, and has been covered at least a couple of times on this blog.
It looks like there are roughly 5 pedals in the range now - which besides the Tacana and the above two, consists also of a BB-sized Screaming Bat Rat / Screamer, and Modulated Echo Delay with different waveshapes and filters on the repeats.
For this article we’ll be looking at ...
After the Compact size enclosure - the Medium-Vertical sort of 1590-BB size of enclosure is my second favourite format - and often a go-to for more extended range pedals. This is a far more practical format than those typically horizontal BB types - like so many of the dual overdrive units - a la King of Tone etc.
This article was prompted by my recent acquisition of the KMA Machines Logan which I kind of missed out on the first time around. In fact it emerged very soon after I had received...
^ 2022 Final Arrangement - December
So the time has come again to to the final reckoning of the layout and composition of this year’s ultimate pedal chain arrangement. I’ve introduced a new ’⚓’ symbol into the visual - which indicates those Slots / Pedals that are unchanged from last year’s Class of 2021 arrangement. That element really is testament to how much has changed between years. It’s also indicative of how much I love those particular pedals - and pretty much find them ...