So we get two interesting fuzzes appearing at the same time - Beetronics’ Abelha Tropical Fuzz, and this Walrus Audio + Hagerman Amplification Silt Harmonic Tube Fuzz. Funnily Jim Hagerman has 7 Tube-powered pedals in his extensive pedal range - and the only variety he doesn’t cover in his own Tube range is Fuzz!

When I think of Tube Fuzz - the first that comes to mind is Effectrode’s Mercury Fuzz, and then I recall that Friedman also used to have a tube-powered fuzz called the Fuzz Fiend. ...

And so to the final category - where competition is extremely fierce this year. No doubt some of your favourites will have missed the cut here - but hopefully this selection is fully representative of the best of the year. Obvious I lean more towards immersive stereo effects - mono doesn’t really do it for me so much - while there is a smattering of mono pedals in here too. Price, format, versatility and practicality - everything counts!

Of the 23 featured in the selection - I own around ...

And so to my roundup of the best gear of the year - apologies of course if I’ve overlooked one of your favourites - and note again that this year I’ve split out Boost & Overdrive - and Distortion separately - as there are so many new pedals that it’s tough to fit them all into a single summary overview. Some of these pedals are incredibly extended range - and if I’ve used them more on the distortion side - you will find those listed in the very next Distortion Rundown article - like say the...

I recall back when Suhr released their Discovery Analog Delay a couple years back - I was momentarily very excited until I realised that despite appearances it was still just another mono delay - everything else about that device was brilliant. I was keeping my fingers crossed for the eventual arrival of a Stereo Analog Delay - and Boss was first out of the gate I believe with its superb DM-101 on June 22nd - a totally genius device which I still really love - although that is alas just a M.I.S...

So back in 2019 - Reverb.com coordinated Black Friday Limited Blacked Out Editions across 17 Brands and 19 Pedals - and by and large it was a resounding success - a lot of those sold out very quickly - and overall pretty much every special pedal maid was sold in fairly short order.

I always thought it a little surprising that this exercise wasn’t repeated more often as I kind of expected it to be an annual or biennial thing following on from the 2019 event. While we’ve had to wait 4 years ...

I had long intended to get in the original 4-knob 385 Overdrive (pictured in inset) it’s been on my infinite wishlist forever - and like many of that number has not quite happened yet. Just as well I suppose - as there have been a number of pedals on the wishlist which have been iterated and improved over that timespan, and where I ended up getting a better version of the pedal - which looks likely to happen on this occasion.

The original 385 Overdrive simply had Volume, Gain, Bass and ...

Walrus Audio finally takes the obvious step to roll out the Slö Ambient Reverb as a more fully fledged proper stereo workstation. We now get all that lush ambient spatial reflection with the added immersion of full stereo delivery. The Slöer absorbs part of the Fundamentals range too - courtesy of those 2 slider controls.

I personally would have preferred a vertically oriented enclosure - where walrus could have saved some real-estate by utilising TRS Sockets. While overall this is about as...

So this is the second of this series - where the first was more about the uniqueness of the enclosure shape - more structural really - covering the overall form factor. While this edition is more about ’Trade Dress’ or the Memorability of the Aesthetics - style of graphics, consistency of theme, and consistency of control topology - doing something in a consistently measurable way that makes that pedal instantly recognisable from afar as belonging to a certain single brand.

So this one is ...

To many commentators - ’2023’ has sort of been the ’Year of Chorus’ so far - while overall I’m not sure there have been enough releases to fully justify the label. While at the same time my own collection of compact chorus pedals has reached a very decent 21. I also have the larger format ThorpyFX Deep Oggin, and recent TC Electronic SCF reissue. So really not short of options for that style of Modulation!

This year has seen a number of recent additions - including most recently the ...