I’ve gone a little bit movie poster on this one! The saga of the forgotten Top Gun :

’The Bluesman!’

I’ve long been a fan of Chris Buck - and indeed named him as one of my favourite 25 Guitar Heroes back in a 2022 article. His incredibly expressive touch is second to none! And he can wring out the most impressive detail and nuance over several bars - from just a single note!

So it’s entirely fitting that Thorpy has built him an equally dynamic and expressive pedal to match Chris’s ...

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. ...

The StarCrash 70’s Collection re-skins 4 Catalinbread classics (Adineko, Katzenkönig, SFT, and Valcoder) and adds 2 brand new period correct pedals - a Screamer-type SideArm Overdrive, and a 70’s style StarCrash Sustaining Fuzz.

I really like the styling of these - which enclosures come in a really appealing apple-green sparkle, and where prices vary from $179 to $209 for the Adineko delay.

I only own the standard Katzenkönig from this circuit selection, I’ve had the SFT on the wishlist...

Before we get into the detail of the Santanabe, it’s important to note that both the May Queen and Santanabe pedals are derivations of the the core Zenkudo circuit - with certain EQ, Voicing and Gain Tweaks / Alterations. For instance the Gain curve on the Zenkudo and May Queen has a Linear B Taper, while the Santanabe is of the Logarithmic A type curve.

Both the May Queen and Santanbe have significantly more gain onboard than the Zenkudo - with 3 times the amount of the Zenkudo at Max ...

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 ...

As soon as you engage this Hot Saké you immediately notice that rich, dense distortion character which is so associated with the SD-9 Sonic Distortion.

This is the 3rd SD-9 derivative I feature within fairly short succession - following on from TWA’s Scott Henderson Signature SH9, and Vemuram’s Mark Landau Signature Butter Machine. The Hot Saké came long before those two, but somehow still remains a little under the radar.

I’ve long said that the SH9 and Butter Machine were rather more ...

I’ve long had a Vox AC30 style pedal on the board - slot #19 nowadays - where the Brian May Queen sound is one of the key tones in my arsenal. Not all those Voxy pedals are equal by any means - in fact a lot of them don’t quite quite reach the Top-Boosted Heights you need to cover Brian’s more searing riffs and solos. I’ve long sought out the perfect pedal to replicate those tones - and while I’ve come close on a number of occasions - I’ve never quite totally nailed it with just the one pedal -...

So scanning through this month it seems to have been mostly about Guitar / Pedal Shows, Japanese Pedals, and Pedals Delayed and Missing in the Post!

The Guitar Shows have been pretty fast and furious for March - with two of the most significant ones of the year, along with a fledgling grassroots one : The Guitar Show (Cranmore Park - Birmingham / Shirley), London Synth & Pedal Expo (Studio 9294, Hackney Wick, London), The Alternative Guitar Show (The Fighting Cocks, Kingston).

I of ...

I first featured this pedal in the run-up to Halloween 2023 - where it most definitely has a suitably seasonal pumpkin theme to the artwork. So it’s taken a while to land - thanks once more to Kevin Bolembach and Trevor Shaikin for the assist.

Obviously the first thing you notice is the excellently themed appearance of the pedal, while it’s not without its idiosyncrasies. Bypass state delivers an all-green lit-up pumpkin - which then becomes orange, with green stem when engaged. While there...