And here we have the GRAND FINAL- with all 36 Award Winners from the Group Stages - across all 5 categories!

The first two places have kind of been obvious for a while, where the 3rd / BRONZE position was actually the hardest to decide on - it was between the eventual recipient - the Tubesteader Gainlord, Boss’s XS-100 Poly Shifter, Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields and Gamechanger’s Motor Synth - all of whom would have been worthy runners-up - while in the end I went for the one that overall ...

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 ...

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 ...

So we’re at that time of year again for another Full Metal Racket Rundown. I meant to have it coincide with halloween - but was so inundated with new releases work - that I really struggled to fit this one in. And it now appears a month later than I wanted it to - but still very much at the appropriate end of the year!

As is ever the case - this selection continues to evolve over the years - and inevitably some previous candidates get bounced for more impressive newer variants.

For this...

So I’ve actually long favoured Wampler’s Mini Compressors. As the original Mini EGO was on the board for a good couple of years or so - before I upgraded to more granular and extended range varieties. The  Mini EGO followed on from the Modified Xotic Effects SP Compressor - and for sure I preferred the Mini EGO at that time - and it served me well. Its controls are somewhat different - Blend, Sustain, Tone Switch, Volume, Attack Switch. With a 3-way Tone control essentially in place of a 3-Way ...

Another super busy month - where the lack of a holiday is really starting to impact my wellbeing - as I’m about as shattered and burned out as is possible without going entirely into meltdown - I’m teetering on the edge!

Here follow the highlights of the month - which I normally try to limit to around 10 elements - but stand at 12 for September. No show or onside attendances this month - while plenty of other activities - and some killer releases of course!

• Jo Quail @ the Roland Store,

In my recent Klone Roundup I stated that I hadn’t acquired the Germanium Tumnus Mini - because of the Golden Horse and my close friendship with Decibelics’ Guillem Vilademunt, but also because I already had a number of proper Germanium Diode Klones - and probably did not need another.

The original Tumnus Mini was my very first Klone - back in December of 2016, I then picked up the Tumnus Deluxe in February of 2018, which came after my acquisition of the EHX JHS-Modded Soulfood, and Foxpedal...

My Klon/Klone journey started in December of 2016 with the Wampler Tumnus Mini - very near the start of my overall pedal journey - so very much in the first 50 pedals I acquired. That pedal had emerged a year earlier (2015) - and players were loving it for the extra bass / oomph it has in its low end. The Mini Tumnus is often selected as the favourite in Blind Tests - and has won a few of those Andertons rundowns.

It took me a while to run across my favourite Mini Klone - the Decibelics ...

Besides Boss of course - Wampler was one of the very first brands I got stuck into! I started posting up GPX style content from September 2016 onwards, and my very first Wampler was the Mini Tumnus (or just Tumnus as it was then) at the start of 2017 - that model had emerged back in 2015, and in November 2017 was joined by its bigger Tumnus Deluxe sibling which I also picked up at that time. Before then my second Wampler Pedal had been the Euphoria 3-Mode Dumble Drive in early 2017 - but after ...