2024 October Pedal-Chain Update - Episode X - Tremolayed

October also saw two vital additions into the 12 Degrees of Saturation reference library - with my 2 - 10 Pedal Challenge articles - first Compact and Medium enclosures, and then Mini and Large. That exercise identified a few more targets for me that I had been meaning to get in - where everything is in place now - bar the Walrus Audio Mako II M1 - high doesn't arrive on these shores until the middle of the next month. And I've also determined that I should add an Analog.Man Mini Beano Boost into the collection - where I will probably try to get one of the Express FX Mini OC141 Treble Boosters also!

Here are those two cool visuals - which were liked by a great number of you this month :

And as something of departure from the norm - I thought I would talk about visuals - and how much work goes into some of these - it's something that's pretty unique to this site, and involves a fairly convoluted processs of reading manuals, watching videos, and getting hands-on time with those pedals - to extract their full essence into a single overview visual. Two visuals this month took a considerable time to prepare - it's not just a straight forward task of visualising - you need to read the manuals and fully understand what you are dealing with - and then figure out the ideal format to include all that essential information in the one super appealing visual.

So if I refer you to the visual I did for the Poly Ample - that was pretty much a straight up 8 hour job - which I started on the day after my birthday - after dinner too - at 9 o'c and which carried me through to 5 o'c in the morning. Note that there's a lots of tweaking and refinement that goes into theses visuals - and many of these are dual digit major iterations. There's also something to be said to being 'in-the-zone' or 'in-the-flow' - as everything comes so much quicker when you're at your best. Often when you take a break from a project you totally loose its moment and it can take 3 or 4 times as long to complete over a number of sessions - while in-the-flow you can tackle it in the most expedient manner - however long that session eventually takes.

The visual for the Zebra-Trem was similarly of a higher magnitude - which involved photographing all those waveforms - tracing over the top of them and then refining those further. Finding the appropriate fonts and other visual elements for the taks - colour scheme, background etc, is key too. For instance for the Poly Ample I had to comp together several different visuals and screencaptures to complete that visual. For that visual I was also very proud of my Heinz-like AMPZ - 56 Varieties logo.

I know a lot of you appreciate how much work goes into all of this, while equal numbers evidently don't understand the timings - and are forever trying to encourage me to do more. Where I mostly get by on 4 or 5 hours sleep overnight - so understandably I'm a little shattered by this time in the year - I only really get to relax in the two weeks straddling Christmas and New Year! In any case I do hope you enjoy and appreciate the work that goes into all of this - and of course feel free to show your support and appreciation via Patreon!

In among another stellar month within yet another stellar year - there were some further exceptional top tier new pedal releases this month - these included the JAM Pedals Kochness Monster Supreme, Tavysh HARM, Chase Bliss Clean, Fjord Fuzz Dovre Fuzz-Verb, Caroline Wave Cannon Zero, Life Is Unfair Bad Machine, LPD Pedals Lucent Overdrive Boost, Spaceman Spacerocket II Fuzz, Fractal VP4 Virtual Pedalboard, Cosmodio Gravity Well Wave-folding Tremolo, Horrothia Lutz Fuzz, Poly Ample, Silktone Fuzz+, NRG Effects Purrer Overdrive + Boost, Boss GX-10 Guitar Effects Processor, Electric Love Norrsken Fuzz, PastFX Kurt's Cologne Chorus, Line 6 Pod Express Black High Gain, Tru-Fi Zonked Machine Fuzz, Funny Little Boxes DIRT Distortion, Menatone MenaWatt V3, Menatone Wreck'T, Eventide x Third Man Knife Drop Octave Fuzz / Synth, and Muir Audio Silicon Steel Boost.

Some of those I still don't yet have in my possession will be acquisition targets for the remainder of this year, while some will surely be pushed back to early next year. I still need to finalise the final priorities - while the remaining crop this year will definitely include the Poly Ample, and the Walrus Audio Mako II M1 Modulator.

More on all of that here below!

22 Pedals added in October, particularly strong selections for Distortions, Fuzzes and Modulations. With a number of new top-tier pedals - including the likes of the Tavysh HARM, Horrothia Lutz, and Life Is Unfair Bad Machine - all champions of their respective genres.

Pretty much heavy hitters across every department this month - with an embarrassing riches of Fuzzes in particular - which could not all be accommodated on the board at the same time - so choice had to be made!

• 3 Boosts and Overdrives
• 6 Distortions
• 7 Fuzzes
• 4 Modulations
• 2 Time-Based Effects

The odd one out here is of course the Tavysh HARM - which straddles half the categories here. The Drunk Beaver Lutsk is a great tube-take on the original Fender Tweed Amp, and the Muir Audio Silicon Steel Boost is an exceptional Hi-Fidelity / High Headroom Tone Enhancing Boost.

• Drunk Beaver Lutsk Deluxe Tube Preamp
• Muir Audio Silicon Steel Boost
• *Tavysh Effects Harm Harmonic Saturator Multi-Gain Stage Device

Of course the Tavysh Harm could also have sat here, and where some might have placed the two Menatone ones in the Overdrive Category, and the Bad Machine in the Fuzz Category - but all rightly belong here too. And what a superior selection of distortion units - each one a giant within its space - I love all of these - even though I have some Output Volume issues with the DIRT Distortion - all these sound great if not stellar!

• Caroline Guitar Co Wave Canon Zero Superdistorter
• EarthQuaker Devices Zoar Discrete Transistor Distortion
• Funny Little Boxes DIRT Alice In Chains Distortion
• Life is Unfair x Boston Manor Bad Machine Distortion
• Menatone MenaWatt Preamp [Hiwatt DR103 Custom 100)
• Menatone Wreck'T Preamp (Trainwreck Express)

I typically get a lot of fuzzes in each month - many more than I can fully accommodate on the board at one time - which is kind of a shame as each of those deserve their time in the lights. The ones that aren't part of the final selections are still phenomenal pedals - including the Beetronics Tuna Fuzz, Fjord Fuzz Dovre Fuzz-Verb, and Spaceman Spacerocket II.

The 4 that ended up on the board were the most impressive ones this month - the Reverend V2, Norrsken, Lutz and Zonked Machine - each of those is most definitely top-tier!

• Beetronics FX Tuna Fuzz
• Decibelics The Reverend V2 + Fuzz Remote
• Electric Love Norrsken Compression Fuzz
• Fjord Fuzz Dovre Fuzz-Verb
• Horrothia Lutz 3 Transistor Full Range Fuzz
• Spaceman Spacerocker II
• Tru-Fi Germanium Zonked Machine Fuzz

This month was supposed to be all about Tremolos - but we encountered some unforeseen delays - which meant that the final exercisese for this month were kind of 'Tremolayed' (Tremolo-delayed!).

Each one of these is top tier too - some munificent sounding modulations here!

• EarthQuaker Devices Night Wire Harmonic Tremolo
• PastFX Kurt's Cologne Clone Chorus
• Rounder Sounds Zebra-Trem Waveform Generator Amplitude Tremolo
• Swindler Effects Red Mountain Tremolo

This section was hugely influenced and triggered by the 10 Pedal Challenge article - both of these had been long-term targets for a while - but I determined that as I was doing that article - I had better put my full support behind those excellent pedals - I'm quite taken by both of those - and the Dahlia Delay in particular!

• Flower Pedals Dahlia Dual Channel Analog BBD Stereo Delay 
• Mooer R7 X2 14-Mode Stereo Reverb with Presets

Right at the top of the acquisitions list for November is the Poly Ample and Walrus Audio Mako II M1. I've already negotiated the Ample with Loki - we're just waiting for things to quieten down a touch - and then one of those will be on the way. And I would have sprung for a Mako II M1 before - those were announced quite some time ago - but they're landing in the UK / Europe on the 14th of November or so - those as listed as preorders everywhere currently!

There's a few of these that I will most definitely push back to January / February of next year - those include the Chase Bliss Clean Compressor, 

• Analog.Man Beano Boost Mini
• Boss GX-10 Guitar Effects Processor
• Chase Bliss Clean Smart VCA Compressor+ with Movement!
• Cosmodio Instruments Gravity Well Analog Tremolo / Wavefolder / Refractor
• Eventide x Third Man Records/Hardware Knife Drop Octave Fuzz + Synth
• Fractal Audio Systems VP4 Virtual Pedalboard Multi-FX Processor
• JAM Pedals Kochness Monster Supreme
• JHS Pedals Colour Box '10' Anniversary Edition Studio Style Console
• JHS Pedals Flight Delay
• Keeley Electronics Zoma Stereo Reverb and Tremolo
• LPD Pdeals Lucent Overdrive Boost
• Line 6 Pod Express Black High Gain Edition
• Poly Ample 56-Amps-In-A-Box
• Silktone Fuzz+
• UAFX Knuckles '92 Rev F Dual Rec Amplifier
• Walrus Audio Mako II M1 Multi-Modulator

17 Slots updated this month - #4, #5, #9a, #10, #11, #12, #15a, #15b, #15c, #21, #23, #25, #30, #31, #32, #36, #38
   
Slots #4 & #5 particularly busy this month which shared 7 different fuzzes over the month - with only 2 final positions available. Also this was an incredibly strong month - so a few of these missed out on final placements. All of these had a turn on the board - but there were others that shone a little more for me that ended up in the pictured snapshot - this means that the Drunk Beaver Lutsk, Beetronics Tuna Fuzz, Fjord Fuzz Dovre, and Spaceman Spacerocket II missed out by a whisker. No doubt all of those will be back in the rotation in the next few weeks an months.

Things change so rapidly here at GPX HQ that we are forever ushering in new candidates for your perusal - as I say - it's important to know what's going on - even though not all of those featured might be to your own preferences!

As mentioned in the intro - we had 7 killer fuzzes in this month - and only 2 slots to accommodate those - so that slots #4 and #5 had a lot of combined turnover - while the Horrothia Lutz in particular, and in part because of its vast scope - ended up having rather an extended inning. Slot #4 is often the one with the most circulation each month - and this month it saw the  Electric Love Norrsken Northern Lights Carlin Compressor style 9-Transistor Fuzz, Beetronics Tuna Can 3-Transistor Fuzz, Fjord Fuzz Dovre 2-Transistor Fuzz-Verb, Spaceman Effects Spacerocket II 5-Transistor Fuzz, Tru-Fi Zoneked Machine Germanium 3-Transistor Fuzz, and NRG Effects 2 Transistor Fuzzer. And some of these also appeared on #5 - but in the main the Lutz held sway there. Here it was the Norrsken and Zonked Machine that hit the most significant - each with very different textures, and a vast range of tones - each in their own way.

The Horrothia 3-Transistor Lutz Full Range Fuzz totally blew me away this month - it's a proper beast of a fuzz in the best possible way - with so much extended scope - covering both Tone Bender and Fuzz Face voicings, even Oscillating Fuzz, and elements of the Super Fuzz sound - in terms of Harmonic Octaves. A superb full-range all-rounder that can be as visceral and in your faces as you like - or all Eric Johnston smooth and musical. An incredible fuzz pedal every which way - and most definitely top tier!

Colin Muir's pedal exuded confident High-Fidelity and tasteful elegance - where his Muir Audio Silicon Steel High Headroom Transformer Augmented Tone Enhancer Boost / EQ - is the always-on magic and sparkle boost pedal you were looking for - can get super loud if you need it too - with effortless clean volume headroom expansion!

The EarthQuaker Devices Zoar Discrete Transistor Distortion was reviewed in November of last year - I always meant to get one in - it just took an opportunity and a special occasion - that is to say EarthQuaker's Jame and Julie visiting Guitar Guitar in Camden - I kind of bought this as a memento to that event - and the 10% discount on the day certainly helped out. A fantastic Fuzz-tinged distortion with that discrete transistor bite - sounds pretty much exactly as I had expected it to. A really cool, good value distortion that very much has its own character.

The Life Is Unfair x Boston Manor extended range Boss FZ-2 take with HM-2 and MT-2 accents was another pedal that totally blew me away this month - it takes you from Boost, to a gorgeous sounding Overdrive voicing, and then onto Fuzz and Distoriton - with and HM-2 Twin Peaks EQ Boost, and MT-2 Metal Zone Gain Boost! An incredible sounding versatile all-rounder Multi-Gain Pedal!

Another pedal that totally blew me away this month - the Tavysh Effects HARM Multi-Gain Boost, Overdrive, Fuzz, Distortion, and High Gain  Pedal is the perfect embodiment of my 12 Degrees of Saturation Methodology taking you into so many interesting areas of Saturation, Overtones and Harmonics. A veritably chameleon of a Multi-Gain pedal - doesn't get everything 100% spot on necessarily - but it does across numerous variants - and most definitely in the ballpark of near everything else! A barnstormer of a pedal!

We still have not official demos of the new variant - Decibelics The Reverend V2 Mini Expandora with Remote Fuzz Switch - it elevates even further an already magnificent Multi-Gain pedal. In its current incarnation with Remote Fuzz Switch, Bass Boost and LED Clipping Option - it's the very perfection of that Expandora forma - now as a proper dual pedal - with even more verve than the original. This was already top tier in its previous edition - and now deserves even further accolades. The fact also that such potency comes from such a small pedal - never fails to fill me with joy - just everyday wonderful!

I had both the Menatone MenaWatt V3 Hiwatt DR103 style Preamp and Wreck'T Trainwreck Express Preamp in at the same time. And I'm surprised those two aren't on everyone's wishlist. Both are wholly perfect takes on their original source amps - delivering those same sort of sounds and dynamics in a much much smaller unit. I have and love several of Brian Mena's pedals - but these two are really special within all of that. Both of these hit me incredibly hard - in the best possible sense - they have a sort of visceral nature to them - which give you the fuller flavour of those legendary amps. I think I said it before - but Brian has most definitely pushed the boats out with these circuit designs. I'm delighted I've finally gotten my hands on them - absolutely brilliant authentic preamp takes on those legendary amps!

If anything , the Menatone Wreck'T Trainwreck Express style Preamp is incredibly even better than the already amazing MenaWatt - it has that verve and low end punch which so typifies this style of single channel amp. To a degree based on the Marshall Super Lead Plexi - but more ballsy in every department - sound utterly superb in my rig - it does require a little finesse on the dial-in though - same for the MenaWatt actually - in how you combine those 2 input channel types. While those two from Brian Mena are two of his very best. He only tends to make those to order nowadays - and I thoroughly recommend you get in on the list! I have just 2 more to get from that Compact Series Range - the Workingmans Blue and Dirty Blonde - while I might be latterly persuaded too to go for hits also excellent The PiG - based on the immense Marshall Major.

Funny Little Boxes' Alice In Chains inspired DIRT Distortion - is another out-and-out winner for the brand. Most everything about this pedal is excellent - and as brilliantly demonstrated by Matt - certainly hits all the right notes and textures. But like the VS Audio Jangle Master it has a significant volume differential compared to everything else on by board - where engaging at full volume output below unity in my rig. The same was true of this one's 1991 sibling - neither pedal has quite the right amount of output volume for it to suit my rig. The tones and textures it produces are very authentic to the DIRT album that inspired the pedal - it's just that this circuit needs quite a bit more volume to be fully viable in my rig. Is currently able assisted by the Strymon Sunset on boost duties - which remedies the situation. I would prefer for said pedal to have more output volume onboard though! Still sounds great regardless!

The Caroline Guitar Co Wave Cannon Zero Superdistorter otherworldly Rat style Distortion with Feedback Oscillation - is the second of my Caroline Guitar Co trifecta - I just need to get a special edition of the Shigeharu SuperFuzz now to complete the set. The Wave Cannon is very unique feedback oscillation take on the ProCo Rat Distoriton - with some enhanced shaping abilities. At times it can sound nothing like a Rat - but you can also dial the Rat voicing in if you ish too - a really smart and distinct take of that core circuit.

I've developed quite the bond with my Rounder Sounds Zebra-Trem Waveform Generator Amplitude Tremolo. I've nursed it back to rude health - and it seems to be firing on all cylinders now - after the screen failed to boot up for the first few days - I presumed a loose connection eventually - and was bale to tighten everything up - which seems to have fixed it now! Still early days - but I made a couple of new Wafeforms under Bill's tutelage - 'Swell' and 'Judder' - across Simple and Complex Hybrid Waveforms. The Waveform Creation / Editing is a little clunky, and imprecise at times - but still works wonderfully - and on the pedal - I was able to generate those new waveforms with relatively minimal input from Bill - who was though on-hand throughout the session - with pertinent advice and suggestions - including certain waveform aspects that I had not considered - in terms of where to start with the wave. I need another week or so with the pedal and I will have fully formulated a lasting opinion - it's already been on the board twice, and now goes in for a more permanent stint since all the visuals and photography is now complete!

A new modulation from Verlie - The Queen of Modulation - is always a big event for me. And this 3-Eras Small Clone take is probably her best Chorus to date - on top of three already stellar choruses - it seems as if each of her subsequent variants is better than its predecessor and the PastFX Kurt's Cologne 3-Decades spanning Small Clone take is one of the very best - in fact probably my own favourite Chorus to date - it really does sound superb. It can get proper bright too - which not all choruses can - this one's output and extended feature set is indeed very special.

An incredibly smart multi-modulator - EarthQuaker Devices' Night Wire combines Harmonic Tremolo, with Fixed Filters and Phaser sounds even - for a really smart psychedelic multi-fx take. And it sounds pretty gorgeous too - with a suitably richly textured output - where I find some Harmonic Tremolos, particularly stere one can end up a little anaemic - and in particular when compared to something like the JAM Pedals Harmonious Monk - while the Night Wire entirely holds its own - in its own unique and clever fashion!

This one has been a long time coming - on the wishlist for a few years - I obviously needed to embark on a specific Tremolo odyssey to give me the right timing for Swindler Effects' Red Mountain Harmonic Tremolo. When it first materialised it was state of the art, and it still has some pretty smart features onboard, while several other builders / manufacturers have caught up since. It's a rather special Harmonic / Ping-Pong / Amplitude Stereo Tremolo with cool stutter mode and favourite preset onboard. Compared to some of my other or so dozen Harmonic Tremolos this is voice more towards the milder side of that range - but still flavoursome and tuneful. It's indeed a rather elegant take on a tremolo - which I still quite like even though I typically prefer a slightly more fuller flavour.

Yet another pedal I'm blown away by - the Flower Pedals Dahlia Full Stereo Dual Channel Analog BBD Delay totally hits every mark, and sounds totally glorious every which way. Relatively easy to dial in too - while the final Pink Presets is already perfect for my requirement. My dialled in settings are still valid and distinct and equal to the task - this compact wonder is just perfect for my needs - a fantastic engineering achievement. The similar Walrus Audio Meraki is very decent too - but it's dearer, and I much prefer the Flower Pedals enclosure format and features set - pricey, but worth it!

Mooer R7 X2 14-Mode Reverb's second set of 7 Preset is particularly handy for me -  Studio | Reverse | Warp | Shake | Crush | Shimmer | Dream - where the only one of the first set I use regularly is the Plate variant - Room | Hall | Church | Cave | Plate | Spring | Mod. It's the most potent of compact format Reverb's I've encountered - while ideally Boss needs to update it RV-6 in the format my recent GPX Deviation Article suggested! This is a fantastic multi-mode reverb which sounds fantastic across its 14 modes.

The AI Channel is still imminent - while I've still to be afforded the whole 2-3 days I need to fully configure and properly set up that facility - hopefully some time will free up at the weekend. In tandem with that new AI Search facility appearing on the site - we will be doing a sizeable brand revamp too - where the new logo is all signed off and being prepped for inclusion in the website's framework - it's taken a little longer than expected, while I still hope to have it up in early November. I wanted to coordinate it around my birthday in the third week of this month - but there were some unforeseen delays that got in the way.

I've already mentioned that the intended Tremolo rundown has been pushed back due to the late arrival and initially issues with the Zebra-Trem - but that review is well on the way now - so you should not have to wait too long - here follows a sneak peak for that - for those who made it to the end of this article :

Also coming in October is my updated PastFX 'Queen of Modulation' feature - to celebrate 11 of Verlie's finest. I can't recall whether I shared the 10 pedal edition of that visual - while it's now all about those killer 11 modulations - across Chorus, Phaser and Flanger variants - each one superb in its own way :

I also though I would update my OneControl capsule collection, I was still missing some, and there were new versions out for a couple of my incumbents - to a wee 6-pedal spree took place to make everything full representative. Three of those new ones have arrived already, and 3 more are due to land imminently - either by the end of this week, or the start of the next one. So there will be a group review overview of that when I've had all of them for a week or two :

Those are all the big group ones, perhaps one or two more - while I'm starting to wind down a little for the year - before I totally burn out. Early December I will have all those Best-of-the-year articles to complete - which is always a major undertaking. I typically don't acquire pedals in December - as that's my Christmas / Holiday month - which just a couple of exceptions typically.

In any case you can look forward to the Menatone Wreck'T review towards the tail end of next week, and then in the following week will be my definitive work on the Zebra-Trem.