I’ve been on something of a Tremolo kick this year - I decided that said capsule collection was a little slim in comparison to my other modulation categories - so I determined that I would focus on Tremolo for 2024.

The Drunk Beaver Chernivtsi Trembita Optical Tremolo kick-started this year’s journey, and I already have the Lastgasp Flikrrr and Tru-Fi Ultra Tremolo inbound - which will take that capsule to 15.

I had further identified around 8 or 10 targets for the reference collection ...

I always get pangs of sorrow when a pedal brand retires for one reason or another. Late last year Luca Romanelli announced that he was pulling the plug on his Mastro Valvola pedal brand - which at times I have referred to as ’The Strymon of Italy’.

There are so many complications and complexities with pedal-building in general - chip sets and key components increasingly harder to source, and numerous challenges with logistics and red tape. It’s a wonder more of these don’t go to the wire. ...

As mentioned previously - I meant to feature Lastgasp Art Laboratories (LAL / Lastgasp) quite a while back, but access to pedals from the UK has been rather limited, and most of these therefore fairly hard to come by! I detailed how there were only two properly active current dealers that had most of the range in stock - my good friend Andy Ebsen’s Effekt Boutique in Germany, and Perfect Circuit in the USA. I also was instrumental in getting Joe’s Pedals’ Joe Light to connect with Lastgasp’s ...

February can often seem a rather odd month after the hustle and bustle of NAMM Show January - where a lot of new stuff always gets announced - while increasingly outside the NAMM schedule - but certainly in and around it! Projects delayed from the previous year often get released in January, but this year those kind of seem to be more spaced out - with some not feted to happen until March / April. February always seems slow compared to January, and that sometimes extends into March too before ...

I’m not sure any of us were really expecting the return of the Condor. A lot of us are rather waiting for a stereo Dark World, the assumption was that the Condor was largely obsoleted by the Automatone Preamp MKII.

Yet here we have a new and improved version of that well loved format - and whether this is exciting news depends largely on how you mostly use this pedal.

If you mainly use the EQ and Filter elements - then the newer lower noise, smoother breakup and higher headroom HiFi ...

I’ve had my Rise & Shine for about a week - and it’s very evident that Luke Hilton and his team have pulled out every stop with this very unique Octave / Trem Fuzz. It’s most certainly full-fat-flavour on both the core Fuzz Voicing and Upper Octave Effect. And then it does some even more clever things in how it can further modulate that octave effect [Octapulse].

I’m going to start off with some of the trickier aspects of the pedal - not that anything here is particularly tricky - you ...

I’m delighted that following my recent monthly pedal-chain update - saying that I could do with more Tremolos in my reference collection - we now have the first Drunk Beaver Tremolo as its 18th Pedal Drop!

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As Vitalii notes - this is an LDR + LED Optical style Tremolo with Digital controls and 6 different wave-shapes onboard - Triangle, Ramp Up, Ramp Down, Square, Sine, and Square Pattern [1-1-0-0-1-0-1-0].

Controls - Output, Intensity (Depth), Rate, Wave Shape : 1-6.

The digital ...

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 ...

In a somewhat surprising move Supro has revamped the pedal styling of its perennially popular Tremolo pedal. Presumable the first of a range revamp - which sees a simpler more modern look with milled aluminium knobs in place of the highly stylised former concave silver-tops.

I think I prefer the new look, while it strikes me as not as immediately identifiable or iconic as the original - where that was quite distinctively ’Supro’. While the new modern look is a lot more generic overall.

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