I feel very privileged and honoured to be a long-standing friend of Daniel Thornhill - whom I believe to be the King of the Modern Fuzz. In fact the ’FF’ acronym can be just as synonymous for Future Fuzz as well as Fjord Fuzz - as Daniel mixes up the very best of old and new to create the most extraordinarily visceral and lively of fuzz textures.

Daniel’s circuits generally use super-reliable high-consistency modern components which allow him to hone each circuit to the finest degree - ...

I am fortunate to have known Fjord Fuzz’s Daniel Thornhill for a few years now - leading up to my original Fjord Fuzz article back in August of 2019. I often act as a sounding board for Daniel’s new ideas and circuit explorations where he invariably comes to his own conclusions. I do feel though that I’ve instilled a particular discipline in the consistent application of symbols - which is very evident in the latest versions of pedals - as we shall see. For me Daniel is one ...

I am delighted to announce that my good friend Christos at Crazy Tube Circuits has been able to source some more of those rare NOS Germanium Transistors - so that for the first time - you can acquire any which one of the 3 constellations - or even all 3 - like me!

The very original variety - the OC45 edition has been sold out for a number of years - so there is a limited quantity of that available again. Alongside the current OC41 variety, and the very Limited Edition CV7003 (OC44) ...

Readers will know that I’m a big fan of Brian Mena’s output, and own several of his flagship pedals. Early this year I identified a number of his Mini Pedals that I would really like to add to the collection. I had in mind then the formidable trio of Hindenburg Distortion (Supro Thunderbolt), Simplexity Germanium Harmonic Preamp, and The Thundering Revival Red Snapper -derived Hight Gain Distortion.

As is often my way I like to do these sorts of range overviews to really firm up and ...

So the first Blackhawk Pedal that won me over was the Balrog V3 High Gain Metal Distortion - actually being demo’d in a somewhat unusual fashion as a sludgy doom distortion - where it’s more typically deployed as a rather more classic pounding heavy metal distortion. I loved the grinding tones I heard in that first demo and that was my major gateway drug as such into the Blackhawk Amplifiers roster.

I’ve been chasing down a Skreddy Zero Distortion for quite some time now and have suffered several near misses over those years, and quirky odd experiences along the trail too. Joe Light of Joe’s Pedals thought he had one buried somewhere in his store room - and it’s taken nearly a year of crate-digging to finally uncover it!

So this selection is in homage to that particular milestone, and the fact that my Skreddy Pedals collection is up to 10 now. The vast majority of these were acquired ...

My good friend Vitalii has somewhat emerged as the master of Rat Distortion with his incredibly compelling series of Bat Distortion pedals.

My first of the series was the Compact V1 Cold War Bat which delivers two flavours of Opamp - Classic Western US LM308AN, and Eastern Soviet UD1408A - which renders a little more gritty. You get 6 Clipping Modes - Boost / Soft MOSFET / Soft Ge / Hard Si / Hard LED / Hard Ge - where one of the Red LED’s doubles up as the Bat’s eye! ...

I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of my very favourite Fuzzy-Drive / Fuzzstortion pedals is being reissued. An American interest has taken on the Bixonic Expandora trademark and these Made-in-the-USA pedals are now branded solely under the Expandora Pedals name.

I have a single authentic Bixonic Expandora to date - the 2000R variety with the external switches, also the Drunk Beaver Bloom, and JHS Kilt V2 - with the Decibelics The Reverend Mini due to show up on the cusp of the...

It’s something of a mystery as to why I have still to acquire the earlier Ages Five-State Overdrive as that’s been on the wishlist near enough since its launch. So I will probably acquire the Ages and Eras as a pair - say around next month or so. I’ve just had a lot of other more pressing priorities and commitments I suppose - lots of juggling going on really - and even this early into September I’m already somewhat over-committed for the month and still have a few other...