2022 October Pedal-Chain Update - Episode X - Another Lost in the Post Edition!

So 26 pedals is still a very decent haul - even though there were supposed to be a lot more arriving. Of course Distortion was the heavy hitter this month in every way - particularly for High Gain Distortions - and a total of 12 Distortions being added to the collection.

We then had 6 new Fuzzes - including the best of the Walrus Audio 5-State Trifecta - the Eons. 5 Overdrives landed too - all quite superb each in their own way.

And then we had individual Modulation, Reverb, and Looper pedals.

September also had so many new pedals that there was a significant backlog throughout October - and now a lot of pedals arrived at the tail end of this month - including the Blackhawk Uruk-hai, pair of Horrothia pedals, and pair of Victory V1 pedals - all of which will be reviewed throughout the next few weeks. There are of course some embargoed pedals arrived too as usual - awaiting their imminent launch dates.

All in all a very impressive month with some serious pedal-chain long-termers / high-rotation pedal contenders!

5 really superb Overdrives added to the collection this month - including the 2 superb new Drunk Beaver ones, the MXR Duke of Tone, Pedal PCB custom Pot & Kettle Snouse BlackBox clone, and Horrothia Discrete JFET Preamp - the latter two of which I have still to publish reviews for :

• Drunk Beaver Bloom Expandora style Ovedrive, Distortion & Fuzz
• Drunk Beaver Inglorious Bastard Blues Breaker Overdrive
• Horrothia Triage Discrete Transistor Pre-Amplifier
• MXR Duke of Tone Analog.Man Mini Overdrive
• Pedal PCB Snouse BlackBox 2 Stage Pro White/Gold edition

Of course October was supposed to be all about my Full Metal Racket Compact Pedal overview - so a great number of these are for that category - including the Aura Amps Diamond, Blackhawk Uruk-hai, Engl Powerball, Hardwire TL-2, Midvalley Peaks V3, Tone Ink Raven and Victory V1 Kraken.

October was also the month that the Aura White Sugar, Boss DS-1W, Drunk Beaver Mykolaiv Grunge, Frost Giant Athos V2, and Victory V1 The Jack landed. Several of those arrived quite late in the month - so I've still to do reviews on the Aura White Sugar, Blackhawk Uruk-hai, and Victory V1 Jack and Kraken - all those will be appearing next month :

• Aura Amps Diamond Dual Rectifier Distortion
• Aura Amps White Sugar Plexi + JCM800 MIAB
• Blackhawk Amps Uruk-hai V5 LM308 High Gain Distortion (Parcelforce!!!)
  Boss DS-1W Distortion
• Drunk Beaver Mykolaiv Grunge PW-2
• Engl Powerball EP645 High Gain Distortion
• Frost Giant Electronics Athos V2 Doom Sludge Distortion
• Hardwire TL-2 High Gain Distortion
• MidValleyFX Peaks V3 Heavy High Gain Distortion
• Tone Ink Raven Brute & High Gain Distortion
• Victory Amps V1 The Jack Preamp
• Victory Amps V1 The Kraken Preamp

Once more we have a strong contingent of fuzzes with some really potent and wide-ranging performers here. I actually haven't had an opportunity to road test all - I still have to put the Acorn Kakarot through its paces, while the Coffee Shop Affogato, King Tone miniFUZZ V2, SGFX 76 MKII, SUF Electric Warlord, and Walrus Audio Eons have all been on the board this month.

Winners always stays on - which this time around means the Affogator, miniFUZZ V2 and 76 MKII are pride of place!

• Acorn Amps Kakarot Hybrid FFuzz (Blue variant!)
• Coffee Shop Pedals Affogato Programmable Fuzz
• King Tone Dual V2 miniFUZZ Ge + Si
• SolidGoldFX 76 MKII Octave Super Fuzz
• Stomp Under Foot Electric Warlord Velcro Fuzz
• Walrus Audio Eons 5-State Fuzz

I'm a huge fan of analog modulations and have targeted various effects in sequence - with sizeable capsule collections now for choruses, flangers, phasers and tremolos in particular.

My Uni-Vibe selection is still somewhat fledgling - with only a handful of pedals to date - including the DigiTech Ventura Vibe, JHS Unicorn, DryBell Vibe Machine and I'm also including the Ritual Devices Fay - which also has a superb uni-vibe style voicing. I've targeted a few more to acquire including the Formula B Vintage Vibe - while for a long time the Horrothia Berkeley has been at the top of my list - and it certainly does not disappoint!

• Horrothia Berkeley 60's Liquid Leslie Vibe

The Empress Reverb has been a target for the longest time - especially since I acquired the superb EchoSystem many years ago and determined that was best in class. I was hoping that the Empress Reverb might be revised at some stage in the future to include the dual channel / parallel processing of its EchoSystem sibling - it was supposedly considered at one stage but is no longer on the cards. Of all the Reverb Worksations the Empress Reverb has by far and away my favourite mix of algorithms - with no less than 32 varieties onboard. Since there was not going to be a V2 - it was about time I got with the program! :

• Empress Effects Reverb Workstation

I mentioned in the intro how much I was captivated and inspired by Boss's 'In The Loop' event - to the extent that I now have a major journey ahead of me with Boss's flagship pro floor-based Loop Station - the RC-600. The Artists featured at the event were all superb - Claudio Passavanti (Doctor Mix), Jo Quail, and Chris Woods - the last of which mentioned is now a firm friend. I'm more 'acquainted' with Claudio at the moment - he made some positive statements at the time - but has not responded to correspondence. And I've yet to make proper contact with Jo Quail.

My mission is to fully get to grips with pro-looping using multiply inputs - meaning I need to hunt down various 'accessories' and other instruments, including a dynamic microphone, Kalimba, Kala U-Bass Ukelele, and various percussion instruments and implements - where I might end up with some sort of drum pad system too.

I've been more of a casual looper up until now - while I will for sure be doing more effects-laden atmospheric soundscapes - building sci-fi style pads and phrases in layers - much like the best Detroit techno tracks. I've even set Chris Woods the challenge of doing his own take on seminal DJ Rolando's Aztec Mystics Knights of the Jaguar. Chris has tracks in his repertoire which are somewhat similar structurally - and I feel he could do a brilliant version of his own.

I will be starting from some more basic principles - the goals are pretty clear though :

• Boss RC-600 Loop Station

I've picked up a number of pedals along the way and thoughout October - including Ola Englund's new one right at the end - but there's always new and interesting ones on the horizon - and like I keep saying no one can get them all - not even Josh Scott!

Some of the following are higher priority targets, others as usual I will try to negotiate a discount on or bide my time until a sale or discounted one becomes available.

7 pedals were added to the Infinite Wishlist in October :

• 29 Pedals FLWR Gain-Staging Overdrive
• Black Mass Electronics Kill Chain One-knob Fuzz
• Kinatone Ribbons Tape / Multi-FX
• KSR Amps Vesta 3-Channel High Gain Preamp
• Missing Link Audio AC/OD
• Muir Audio Design Morphtone EQ
• Pladask Elektrisk Falma V2 Random Modulator (new version forthcoming)

17 Slots changed in October - #2, #4, #5, #10, #11, #12, #15a, #15b, #19, #20, #21, #23, #24, #27, #30, #32, #40.

A number of these saw several pedals in rotation, and the final snapshot is always who the eventual winners were - winner stays on as I like to quote. It's not always the case of one pedal being necessarily better than the other - it often also just inspired a certain something in me which made me want to explore it further. Certain pedals have hidden depths which take a while to uncover - while many pedals are quite instant really - and even though they have a wide variety of outputs they don't always inspire further long-term explorations.

Sometimes it's to do with mood or timing or other factors - a good example of this for October was the King Tone miniFUZZ V2 - which was on slot #5 for a long time - but where I had more fun with the the SGFX 76 MKII overall - so that one stayed / extended its rotation.

Often there are various themes for the month - and certain pedal types and genres take priority - and October / Halloween was supposed to be all about High Gain - but not everything materialised as planned - so some went on the board - and other will go on next month - while still more are yet to land!

In any case these are this month's runners and riders :

I can't go too long before bringing my perennial favourite DigiTech Whammy Ricochet Pitch-Shifter back into the mix. I use it 99.9% of the time for that Tom Morello sweep-up / sweep-down effect - but sometimes simple is best - and this pedal does this one task perfectly!

This was a tough one for me as I still really love the Beetronics Zzombee Filtremulator - and haven't really finished exploring that. While I also have the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Float Dual Moving Parallel Stereo Filter just sitting there! Another amazing pedal which I've only just scratched the surface with so far. I worried that it would be tricky to accommodate - but managed to slot it in fine. In fact all my many pedal changes recently have been pretty smooth running!

Two fuzzes in the main were vying for this slot during October - the King Tone V2 miniFUZZ and SolidGoldFX's 76 MKII Octave Fuzz. Both are superb - and the V2 miniFUZZ is about as good and versatile a Fuzz Face as you can get. But I still prefer the 76 MKII - which was already one of my favourite fuzzes in its previous edition, and is even better now.

I actually really like Walrus Audio's 5-State series and all 3 pedals in the series are worthy. I have the Eons Fuzz as the MVP, then this Ages Overdrive, and finally the Eras Distortion - which I feel would have really benefitted from a Mid / 3d-Band EQ. While all actually sound really decent. And with those 6 controls each has a very significant amount of versatility and different tones onboard - where the Eons definitely stretches into the most directions - but the Ages is pretty handy too - covering of Tube Screamer and Klon duties and extending into sort of Dumble and other mid-gain delights. While the lack of a Mids control on the Eras definitely limits the prowess of that pedal - and particularly if you're going for vague Marshall adjacent tones - where chewy mids are essential!

I quite like the Eras - but it's far from the most versatile distortion I own - leaning more into vintage styles of distortion  without what I feel is an essential tone control for distortion pedals - the mid range. Typically vintage style distortions are slightly bass-heavy and scooped, while modern styles are much more mid-forward and punchy - tight even! As I say the Eras is decent, but not quite the all-rounder distortion I would like it to be - I have a lot of other more versatile and more extended distortions than this. I supposed it does what it was intended to do - string more in the vintage distortion camp - but I feel it would have been better for me with a mids control in place of the Blend knob!

And so to the best of the bunch - the Eons Five-State Fuzz - which is supposedly based on a Ram's Head Muff deep in its core - but with the different clipping options and volts / starve control in particular you can really get the most massive range of different styles of fuzz - pretty much touching on all the key classic varieties. I really like that the top middle control is volts - I could probably have done with an external bias control too to tweak the character further - but this pedal is pretty much perfect as is and is one of the most versatile fuzz pedals out there - just uniformly brilliant. Funnily I have two of the most versatile Fuzzes on the board at the same time - this and of course the Coffe Shop Pedals Affogato which is also superb.

The new Drunk Beaver Inglorious Bastard V3 Blues Breaker style Overdrive is one of the most glorious sounding of that genre. Has a phenomenal rare NOS Toshiba opamp onboard and is beautifully textured. warm and bluesy every  which way. Definitely one of my very favourite takes on the Blues Breaker.

The other killer half of the pair of new mainline Drunk Beaver pedals most recently landed - this V2 of the Bloom expanded range take on the Expandora is another fantastic evolution of the format. It sounds even warmer and more expansive than the original. All 4 Modes sound superb - and the LED options beautifully extends the range and output - probably my favourite of that genre now.

It's cool that I have two of the most versatile Fuzzes on the board at the same time - this and the Walrus Audio Eons - both have a hugely extended range through their extended tone-shaping topology. The Coffee Shop Pedals Affogato Programmable 3-Band EQ Fuzz is one of those rare fuzzes that have full 3-band EQ - and there is plenty of range on each of the dials - much like on the Eons - so you're never short of Volume or Gain, but can set the pedal anywhere up or down that scale. The added advantage of the Affogato is that you can then save 3 of those sweet-spots as presets. Both are kind of Big Muff adjacent but go well beyond the one genre.

The two Horrothia pedals - this Triage Discrete JFET Preamp / Overdrive and the Berkeley Late 60's Liquid Leslie Vibe - are just freshly arrived really and are bedding in nicely - expect full reviews of those very soon. The Triage sounds particularly great with the extended headroom of 18V input. A very warm, expressive and dynamic pedal with a handy mid-hump switch to get you into rough TS808 / Klon territory - while I mostly prefer it in its full frequency mode. Plenty of range onboard from an elegant low gain to a nicely crunchy mid gain. Full review coming veyr soon as mentioned!

First to land of the new high gain pedals was the Frost Giant Electronics Athos V2 Sacred Sustaining Device Doom Sludge Distortion - which sits right on the crossover of distortion and fuzzstortion for some lovely doomy sludge flavours - but slightly more mid-focused than my similar Blackhawk Amps pedals. It's a decent sounding proper high gain distortion with really great breakup texture.

One of the later arrivals this month after some unusual delivery delays - this was recommended to me by a reader a good couple of months ago - when I first ordered it. It was purported to be the most authentic of the various MESA/Boogie Dual Rectifier Preamps and it indeed does a superb job of matching the output and feel of those heavyweight amps. The inclusion of 3 different Rectifier types onboard is very unique and unusual - and really allows you to explore that format to the ultimate degree. It's the first of 4 pedals in the chain which are wholly or in part inspired by those legendary High Gain Distortion Amps.

Another monster high gain pedal inspired by the MESA/Boogie Dual Rectifier - this MidValleyFX Peaks V3 has been somewhat tuned up for a meaner and punchier output - it delivers less of a grind than the Aura Diamond but is every bit as good in its own way. Purists will probably say that the Diamond is more authentic sounding, while the Peaks generates an equally distinctive soundstage which is a little more modern in its profile - more articulate, punchier and more open-pored as I like to describe it. 

The Tone Ink Raven Brute & High Gain Distortion also has a Dual Rectifier voicing onboard - but it's just one of three Modes alongside the Bogner Ecstasy Red and Peavey 5150. This one really turns on the sizzle on 18V power and is capable of some truly brutal tones across the range. What you have here is a proper triple threat - with 3-band EQ, 3 great voicings and 2 really clever triple EQ / Character switches. I was hugely impressed by this one!

One superb Vibe replacing another prime contender - as the Horrothia Berkeley Late 60's Liquid Leslie Vibe takes over the slot from the Ritual Devices Fay. Just a pure throbby delight - everything that Tom Oakes turns his hand to has a magic tasteful elegance about it. I have this down as his flagship pedal - everything here is just perfect formed - including the placement of controls, font choices and spacing. It's the perfect Horrothia pedal and fully embodies every high quality facet of that brand. Full review coming very soon!

The DigiTech Nautila Stereo Chorus / Flanger has actually been a long-term target of mine - and I finally picked it up last month as part of my Flanger roundup then. There are still a few more flangers to come over the next few months - so I will probably carry the main overview article into next year when all those have landed. In the meantime I acquired the Nautial mostly for its superb Flanger voicing - which is really quite distinct - albeit digital vs my usual analog choices - it does have beautiful stereo separation though - and sounds really great.

Another long-term target finally came to fruition with my acquisition of the best Reverb Workstation for my preferences - where the 32 algorithms aboard the Empress Reverb are my absolute favourite mix - and include Lo-Fi and Reverse varieties. I was kind of holding out for a possible updated version of the Reverb with all the dual-channel / parallel processing that the EchoSystem has. While I finally managed to arrange a conversation with Steve Bragg who confirmed that such was not on the cards and therefore I should really get it now. I've long said that the EchoSystem is my favourite Delay Workstation of all time - I'm still fully trying to get to grips with the Meris LVX - which is not quite as immediate and hands on for my as the Empress workstations. I still have a way to go to get to grips with both these new additions and there will be full review once I have uncovered all the delicate nuances of each!