When I first glimpsed the HARM pedal - it very much appeared to me to be the full-fat embodiment of my ’12 Degrees  of Saturation’ Methodology. Now that I’ve been road-testing it for 3 weeks, I can absolutely vouch for its potency, versatility, and prowess - its range of coverage is extraordinary!

This is the one compact pedal that can pretty much cover all your gain needs. That’s not to say it wholly accurately 100% replicates every gain pedal, while it most definitely gets well beyond the...

Considering my well documented fallout with this brand - this is a slightly odd article for me. I might not get along with said brand name head honcho - but Jackson Audio still make some very decent pedals. They’re not necessarily always the best sounding overall, but in terms of their format innovation, build quality, feature set and usability they’re still a formidable force.

Pedal industry relationships are always complex - as they don’t just involve the builders, but distributors and ...

As promised - this turned out to be quite a big month - we had 5 substantial pedal rundowns - where I hope you appreciate the time and effort put into those - they take a very long time to compile and write up! :

• Reference Collection World Odyssey [25]
• 32 Favourite Compact MIAB Distortions
• Fuzz Pedal Olympics [25]
• 32 Favourite Compact Rat Style Distortions
• Drunk Beaver 15 Favourites

I attended just one show this month - but it was a great one - the #2 Alternative Guitar Show @ Hackney...

It’s been a while since I did a Marshall / MIAB roundup - where last time I leant rather more into EVH / Brown Sound variants. In this current selection we mostly have Plexi and JCM800 types, but also some that extend down to JTM45, and a few that get up to JVM levels of gain.

I’ve always been interested with Marshall Colour Association - where in the visual you can see a fair smattering of gold and red variants, a few black ones too - which are kind of the core colours. Purple seems to have ...

Apologies that his is a little late - it took and age to research, compile and complete - and is filled with myriad wonderful fun facts - I sincerely hope you enjoy this one - as a whole heap of work has gone into bringing it to you!

So I spent the whole weekend working on updating my pedal inventory records to figure out exactly where I was at with the Reference Collection, the last time I did that exercise was a couple of years ago. I had kind of mentally estimated that I had around 1.300...

So despite this being a relatively quiet month for releases - I was somehow manically busy throughout!

The month started with custom editions of ThorpyFX and Empress pedals, and I then did 2 massive articles for the Glou-Glou Flancher Series of Stereo Analog Delays / Modulators, and in-depth coverage of Henrik Nordvang’s excellent 1590B3 Series. I’m not sure people realise just how much works goes into those kinds of articles!

Also this month - Mini Pedals were a major feature - all ...

So I typically do the metal pedal roundup in and around Autumn, while now seems to be a decent time to do a recap - as quite a large sway has changed since I last did this exercise back in 2022. And we have had a number of really strong new contenders - which each sounds fantastic, and overall heralds a kind of new era of heavy metal pedals with even more range and dynamics.

There are 10 New Pedals since 2022’s rundown, more than a quarter of the previously listed pedals have been swapped /...

Lydia Sean Mandrake is not one to follow the crowd or do things by halves. This Grand Classic Passion Project has way exceeded its Kickstarter timeline - but is all the better for it, and is overall a vast improvement on the original concept - acquiring an improved control topology, and a couple of key accessories along the way.

At the same time, Lydia developed Audiostorm’s own automated ’pick-and-place’ manufacturing assembly line, utilising numerous 3D-printed parts. Turns out Lydia is ...

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. ...