New Pedals in the Class of 2025 Pedal-Chain Snapshot = 41

[OCTOBER]  = 9

[NOVEMBER] = 6

[MARCH] = 5

[SEPTEMBER] = 5

[AUGUST] = 4

[JANUARY] = 3

[FEBRUARY]  = 3

[APRIL] = 2

[JUNE] = 2

[MAY] = 1

[JULY] = 1

[A-Z by Brand]

1. Becos FX CompIQ Pro Yuna Soft Knee Blackmer VCA Studio Style Compressor [SEPTEMBER]
2. Blue Colander Grimrobe Dual Cascaded Super Rat [OCTOBER]
3. Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields Ultimate Modulated Fuzz [SEPTEMBER]
4. Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble Leslie / Rotary Speaker

A first ever analog circuit from Strymon is a JFET style Tube Power Amp recreation with unique Sag circuit to replicate that sort of mis-biased gating you get from those vintage source amps.

Controls - Drive, Level, Bright : Off/On, Sag.

Strymon put it best themselves in the following paragraphs :

"Fairfax began as an engineering experiment, initially inspired by the original Garnet Amplifiers Herzog® tube drive unit designed for Randy Bachman in 1965. Our analog guys decided to try...

DOD is obviously a company that doesn’t do things by half - and rather than just a straight-up reissue cash-in on that JHS hype. Instead DOD went back to the drawing board and massively re-designed the circuit to make it even more powerful and versatile!

The original circuit controls were - Level, Low EQ, High EQ, Gain. And the new pedal ups the ante with 3 separate parallel blendable circuits - Behaved, Bad, and Badder - where the 3-way switch allows you to target 2 of those at a time - ...

So this Orama is a wonderful take on the early Orange 120 style of Amplifier from 1974, combined with legendary 90’s Boutique Fuzz - the Frantone Peachfuzz from 1997.

We have 6 controls on the Amp side, and 4 controls for the Fuzz. We also get the typical Send / Return FX Loop that Chrisots normally includes on his Dual Pedals. The two voicings here combine really beautifully - adding further richer textures and harmonics into the mix.

Controls - ORANGE AMP SIDE } Master Volume, High ...

36 outstanding Boost and Overdrive pedals  featured here in various sizes - 35 of which are already in the reference collection - with the Superlunar SR-01 the last remaining straggler!

The rules of the game are that I can only finally recommend pedals that I own and have lived with, while I can also feature a few other intended targets in the overview which I fully intend to acquire (like the Superlunar SR-01) - but those can’t feature in the final rankings. So there is only one remaining ...

I came across this recently on Coast Sonic - and then quite forgot where I saw it original - where it took me a further day or two to find it once more. This Multi-Gain pedal is definitely a target for me early next year.

It’s a cool Overdrive pedal with Fixed High Pass Filter, and fully variable Low Pass Filter, Input Gain Attenuation, and Q2 Bias.

The Blue push-button engages a further gain stage - which delivers Distortion and Fuzz tones.

This is a highly stylised and stylish ...

I’m a huge fan of Brian Wampler - the persona, and the ’King of Drive’ as I call him! Some say Nick Greer is the King of Drive - but for me it’s always been Brian! They both have very different approaches - Nick leans into the simplified 3-knob format, while Brian is more about expanded features and extended range pedals. This is in fact my 20th Wampler Pedal - while I had to order it in from Thomann, as none of the UK dealers have those in stock - and Andertons is reporting that it will only ...

Another super busy month for me - particularly towards the end - with numerous large scale articles out this week. That also coincided with my busiest week of the year for my other day job. Meaning that I was up until 4-5 in the morning every day - just to keep up with my commitments.

I was already somewhat shattered and burned out before I even got to this super busy period - and it’s a relief that all that work has now been completed on schedule.

I’m especially proud of my work on the Bucket ...

Interestingly - the original compact JHS Kilt has typically been my least favourite Expandora take. To me it was somewhat cold and dense - and not nearly bright enough or sufficiently expressive. I hate brining in the wet blanket analogy once more - but that was my experience of the original take. Your typical Expandora’s tend to be quite more vibrant than JHS’s original take.

And it’s almost as if someone read my critique - because all my then niggles have been addressed in this new version. It...