2022 Best of the Best Guitar Pedals of the Year

This is the pedal that most impressed me this year - it quite blew me away really. I've always been a fan of the Sinvertek N5 line - and I have witnessed each of them getting progressively better. I thought nothing could have improved on the N5 3D+ Gold - which is still exceptional. But the MGAT-1 is incredibly even better!

It has the unique ability to ramp up through 19 gears of gain - starting with Bright and Sparkly Cleans and ending up in Brutal Heavy Metal Extreme - but mostly being about capturing the various Legendary Marshall Amps - the MGAT-1 takes on the unenviable task of authentically replicating the JTM 45, JCM 800, 1987 X, 1959 SLP, and JVM flavours - and incredibly it totally lands each one.

What looks like a very complex control layout initially actually breaks down very logically - as I hope my visual indicates. Once you're aware of how things work - which doesn't take very long - you're up and running with your preferred tones in on time at all.

This has all the Marshall flavour you could need - elegantly and authentically rendered - there's no spiky-ness or buzz or any annoying in-between frequencies. To my ears the analog 'emulation' of those amp circuits is near perfect - it sounds about as authentic as any Marshall-in-a-Box could be. And it can deliver every Marshall Voicing I might ever want. While - as there are no presets onboard, I will be keeping my Custom Pettyjohn Gold II in place on its slot - as that really does a brilliant Plexi voice too. The Sinvertek will be my default JCM800 / EVH / Brown sound voicing!

I find the MGAT-1 incredibly natural and organic sounding - and the controls are actually logical, intuitive and really well calibrated - which means they are entirely predictable and super reliable on the dial-in.

I was instantly smitten when I first tried it out, and it's still the pedal that got me the most excited this year. It is simply one of the very finest gain pedals ever created! I classify it as a Distortion - but it's as wonderful an Overdrive as it is a Mid Gain Distortion and Brutal High Gain Heavy Metal distortion. It is also supremely granular when you're shaping the gain and frequency profile / core tonality - allowing you to easily hone in on exactly what sound you had in mind. Of all my myriad gain pedals - this one brings me the most joy!

In terms of which other ones were properly competing for the highest honours - they have to have great deal of innovation for me - so each of the top 3 picks is incredibly innovative, versatile and actually user-friendly too.

Congratulations to Mr Wu for this next level of engineering excellence - it's just incredible that all this - including the 14 controls has been fitted inside a compact 1590B enclosure.

I will detail why the Kermon Ridge ended up in second place, and the Generation Loss MKII in third - and then I will reveal which other pedals were on the cusp of a medal position!

My first reaction to this pedal was that it was a little on the large side - in fact it's enclosure kind of emulates the original Klon Centaur - but with modern cut-outs along the perimeter to make it more distinct. You don't realise how well-made these pedal are until you get your hands on one - the level and quality of finish is probably the finest of any pedal I've encountered. The eggshell finish on the knobs and enclosure is just exquisite.

And despite what some of my readers say - this is an incredibly innovative pedal with its Mood Variable Clipping Control - which takes you from shallow clipped sine-wave to deep-cut square-wave and it brilliantly alternatives within the curve - Asymmetrical and Symmetrical - with each side of the wave varying in proportion. This is entirely new functionality - and pretty genius - delivering all the obvious variations of Soft and Hard-Clipping in both Symmetrical and Asymmetrical formats. Of course it doesn't have the nuance of individual discrete NOS component  - but the fact that it has such an extensive clipping curve is serious next level.

The Pre and Post EQ with additional Mids control is smart too - but not quite granular enough to get some of the individual overdrive type nuances. I feel it's a little large for what it needs to be - but do still really like it in its current format, and I feel this is just the first step of the journey and that there will be further refinements and smaller enclosure options along the way. I can see the use of different clipping components coming in to play here too. This is truly a fascinating circuit and quite superb for ballparking a huge variety of overdrive sounds - sort of up to proton-fuzz level.

It's not as granular as the Sinvertek N5 MGAT-1 - which is better at pin-pointing a particular tonality - and has far greater gain range overall too. The Kernom Ridge is a fantastic and wholly unique overdrive - which opens up a whole new chapter on development possibilities.

By dint of Sinvertek's greater gain range, granularity and form-factor that wins out overall, while the Kernom Ridge deservedly picks up the second place.

Congratulation to the Kernom team for such a fantastic debut!

And Congratulations to my good friend Tom Majesty for taking his Tape-FX unit entirely into uncharted territory. 

The new Gen Loss II has both new Modern Mode and the older Classic Mode intact - so if you liked previous versions of the Gen Loss - you can flip back to Classic Mode. For me it's all about what has been added to this format - which now encompasses 12 different Tape effect Modes - having captured the performance of Toy Casette Players, Dictaphones, and everything in between as well as the Classic's core VHS Flavour.

And we have a huge expanded range of new parameters including 'Failure' which makes the signal even more unpredictable / random / organic. The things you can now do with the Gen Loss are extraordinary - and you can still get a decent chorusing sound out of it.

I actually see the Gen Loss II in a very similar way to the N5 MGAT-1 - both are evolutions but which take those formats to the very peak of what the technology is currently capable of. Both of those are full-range fully granular animals with tonnes of in-between nuances. They both really excel at that they encompass - while the Gen Loss II does suffer from the usual Hidden / Secondary / Alt Function thing - which takes away marks for usability.

It is though Chase Bliss's first compact stereo pedal - and what you can do with it is just immense. There's so much to like here - but there is for sure a learning curve - which is why the N5 MGAT-1 and Kernom Ridge have edged out in front.

I still feel it's an amazing engineering achievement - and if there was an award for kitchen-sinking a pedal (everything onboard) this this would surely win that accolade.

All in all an enormously accomplished and wide-ranging pedal - for the ultimate in Tape-FX!