So we featured 120 pedals across the 5 Genre categories this year - as you’ve witnessed over the last 5 days, and those have been whittled and distilled down to these 27 Magnificent and Exceedingly Flavoursome candidates.

Picking out the very best of those is obviously a slightly subjective exercise while based on a series of exacting criteria - including innovation, versatility, practicality, variability, playability, quality of manufacture, quality of output and sheer enjoyment.

Here ...

The Modutility roundup combines Modulation, Utility and Pitch type pedals - it also includes Multi-FX and Multi-Modulation pedals of course. Some years this selection is relatively sparse - while this year it’s totally chock-a-block! In fact it was a struggle to whittle the Longlist down - and inevitably some pedals I wanted to feature did not make the cut - including the Endorphin.es Ghost Pedal Multi-FX and Subdecay Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter.

I still feel that this selection of 26 is...

So May started with my posting the last of the NAMM Show stragglers, followed by an initial eclectic mix of different pedal types - while gradually leaning into ’Andy Timmons’ Month. I’ve always thought Andy to be a wonderful human being and a particularly fine journeyman guitarist. While it’s only in fairly recent years that he’s become somewhat more elevated in my affections as one of my all-time favourite guitar heroes. You will note that he did not feature in my last article on personal ...

Keyztone’s EXchanger Analog Pickup Modellers are based on the science of the key Resonant Frequencies of Pickups - and how you can manipulate your own guitar’s pickup/s’ output to more closely match the character of entirely different styles and types of pickups - so that single-coils can get thicker and heavier, and humbuckers can get brighter and more sparkly - as you wish.

You can also use the EXchanger to simply and subtly enhance the character of your favourite pickup rather than model...

^ 2022 Final Arrangement - December

So the time has come again to to the final reckoning of the layout and composition of this year’s ultimate pedal chain arrangement. I’ve introduced a new ’⚓’ symbol into the visual - which indicates those Slots / Pedals that are unchanged from last year’s Class of 2021 arrangement. That element really is testament to how much has changed between years. It’s also indicative of how much I love those particular pedals - and pretty much find them ...

Another healthy selection - Modutility covering Modulation, Pitch and Utility pedal categories - for one of the strongest selection to date. Some of the pedals here are truly stellar, and I have a little over half here already in the collection.

I’m unlikely to ever get all the pedals featured here, but there are several already earmarked for acquisition in 2023 - with the Eventide H90 at the top of that list.

The ones I don’t yet own, or may never own even - include :

• Chase Bliss

Each of the months this year has been pretty exciting in several ways while we’re still facing various unprecedented delays in getting our hands on new pedals. I’ve had numerous talks with industry insiders this month and it seems that the order cycle for certain components - particularly in any sort of quantity - is as much as 18 months now. Shipping costs are still near an all-time high, while some of the container shipping is starting to come down a fraction - but still nowhere near pre-...

I’ve long been a fan of the Keyztone Exchanger - and it’s occupied my #1 pedal chain slot pretty much from launch.

It has 8 different Pickup Types / Modes :

• Hot Texas (Fender Classic 1959 SRV Strat Single Coil)
• Bright Vintage (Fender Classic 1950 Tele Single Coil)
• P90 (Gibson 1946 P90 soap bar Single Coil)
• Rockability (Gretsch 1957 Filter’Tron Humbucker)
• Modern Power (1972 DiMarzio Super Distortion High Output Humbucker)
• Classic 50th (Gibson 1962 Seth Lover PAF Humbucker)
• Wide Range (

Carrying on from last year - where I somewhat correctly predicted pedals would continue to get more compact, larger numbers would adapt dual-footswitch functionality and pedalboards and pedal-chains would get increasingly larger - I have now identified 4 more prevailing trends for this year.

I have selected 4 pedals which underscore these trends - three of my favourites from last year, and the forthcoming significantly enhanced and improved Red Panda Particle V2. These pedals individually ...