Probably the strongest selection of the year - each one of these is amazing and sounds killer. But then agin similar was true of the Overdrives. I’m very much a fuzz fanatic - so his selection has to take the edge - what a selection!

This selection includes 3 from EarthQuaker Devices, 2 from Drunk Beaver, 2 from Fjord Fuzz, and 2 from ThorpyFX.

It also includes the likely pedal of the year - within a selection of 10 award winners here - these are so good - I could have labelled even ...

So I’m a huge fan of high gain Doomy Fuzzes - with already favourites including the Blackhawk Balrog and the Lichtlaerm Altar.

I’m delighted to report that the fierce and amazingly textured High Gain MOSRAWR Fuzz is wholly up to the task too. Each of my now 3 favourites hits slightly differently - with the Balrog still the King of Sludge - it just has that sticky low end that delivers exactly the right texture for that. Make no mistake - these are all top-tier Doom Fuzzes - with ...

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 ...

My close association with Thorpy started back in late September of 2018 - at the now defunct Olympia UK Guitar Show. He was the first pedal maker I reached out to, and the first I connected with.

Since then ThorpyFX Pedals have become my 3rd most populous selection after Boss and Drunk Beaver. Those 3 brands alone contribute over 200 pedals to my reference collection!

The fact that I’m now at 31 ThorpyFX Pedals is a major milestone - and features every mainline MKII pedal Thorpy has made. ...

So you can look at this as an updated and upscaled version of the Sputnik I Germanium Fuzz - with more volume and gain onboard in particular - and a refined Scan mode - per the Sputnik IIb.

It retains all the key facets of the original - with that singing searing tonality - there’s just more of everything onboard. It doesn’t quite have those Sputnik I Germanium Harmonics - but in most respects totally matches and exceeds the original pedal. Its core tonality is every bit as good - just with...

So the long-awaited Death Muff is in - and a superbly textured next level evolution of a Muff. It’s high gain and expressive - and slightly raspy sounding at times - with quite a bit more ’Crunch’ to than the average Muff!

It has a unique 4th Control - labelled Chaos - which Overloads the Gain, essentially a Second Gain Control - taking it form high gain - to extreme - with lots of sustain and feedback sounding texture. It’s a very distinct sounding and reacting muff - totally at opposite ...

This is an interesting hybrid Muff take - somewhat mild - but beautifully textured. The Ram’s Head is quite aggressive, while the Bubble Font Black Russian is the mildest / softest of the Big Muffs - with typically the least sustain.

So this Electric Elk is very unique in carrying aspects of both of those - where the general dynamics are closer to the Black Russian - and the Texture and Harmonics - more for the Ram’s Head - but at a milder level of gain.

It really is a beautifully ...

This has turned out to be something of a Thorpy month! - following on from the recent Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz and 3 Thorpy acquisitions this month - indeed the Supermassive is also engineered by Thorpy!

I thought I should do a quick retrospective of pedals and projects that Thorpy has been involved in.

I selected my favourite pedal from those 4 brands (some singular options!) :

• Redbeard Effects : Bearded Vulture Direct Drive with Octave
• Victory Amps : V1 The Jack Guthrie

What we have here is an incredibly potent fuzz - consisting of 3 x OpAmps, 3 x Silicon Transistors, and 2 x Blue LEDs - so the core fuzz flavour is already immense and richly textured - very much ’Supermassive’ in its output. And you then have an impressively powerful tone stack essentially - consisting of an expansive Filter [Warp] (350Hz > 5kHz) used in tandem with a wide-ranging ’Q’ bandwidth control [Dimension]. So essentially a sort of semi-parametric EQ - where you set your chosen ...