2023 April Pedal-Chain Update - Episode IV - Future Past Perfect

Plenty older pedals here - and one brand new one for which there will be a review next week!

I'm still working on a Greer Amps roundup - and I want to grab at least one more before I do that :

• Boss FBM-1 Fender Bassman Overdrive Pedal
• Boss FDR-1 Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Amp Pedal
• Greer Amps Hammer Overdrive / Fuzz
• Nordland Electronics ODR-CS Overdrive
• Vox Mystic Edge Top Boosted Drive

Mostly new selection of Distortions - with further in-depth and hands-on article to come for the Eighty Master :

• Crazy Tube Circuits Motherload Holy Grail MuffRat
• Formula B Eighty Master MIAB Overdrive / Distortion
• Sua Devices Aker Distortion (DriveMaster)
• Vox Copperhead Drive JCM800 style Distortion

Some fantastic new-to-me fuzzes here - review still to come of the Fjord Fuzz Hedda Bias Fuzz - some time next week no doubt!

• Bleak District Antistatic
• Drunk Beaver Taras Bubla V2 (TB MK I.V & II)
• Fjord Fuzz Hedda Bias Fuzz
• PastFX PunkiFriar Fuzzy-Drive
• Rabbit Hole FX Pile of Sticks Octave Fuzz

Some killer Modulations in this month's drops - mostly straight on the board - the Julianna will be appearing soon as part of my Compact Chorus Pedal Capsule Collection - it's pretty nicely rounded now - and also includes the superb PastFX New Division :

• Bleak District Rec Head Cassette Style Tape Saturator and Modulator
• Drunk Beaver Odesa Envelope Filter (MXR MX-120)
• PastFX New Division Chorus / Flanger / Vibrato (EHX Clone Theory)
• PastFX Rotary Phaser (Maxon PH-350)
• Walrus Audio Julianna Dlx Chorus - Obsidian Edition

The Chase Bliss Mood II is so much more than a Microlooper  - while that is kind of at the root of what it does. And the Sitek Cristal is just one of the finest buffers around - pristine! :

• Chase Bliss MOOD MKII Microlooper & Ambience Generators
• Sitek Cristal Signal Booster

 14 pedals that evaded capture this month - but will be chased up eventually, some a lot sooner than others! :

• Acorn Amps Compact Edition Solid State Preamplifier
• Boss JC-2W Jazz Chorus (when it becomes a reality!)
• Death By Audio Disturbance Lockable LFO Modulator
• EHX Compact Edition Lizard Queen Octave Fuzz
• JHS Bat-Sim (If it ever becomes a reality!)
• Origin Effects DCX Boost Tone Shaper & Drive
• Peterson StroboStomp Mini
• REVV Amps Tilt Boost
• Sentimental Bob Albert OD (OCD)
• Sentimental Bob Tephra Distortion w/ Octave + Boost
• SolidGoldFX Beta-V Bass Preamp
• Totally Wycked Audio Krytical Mass Octave Fuzz
• VS Audio Platinum Silver Jubilee style Preamp
• Wampler Cory Wong Compressor, Sustainer and Boost

15 Slots Updated : .#4, #5, #10, #11, #12, #15a, #15b, #19, #21, #23, #25, #29b, #30, #31, #33.

Pretty even spread in all rows - significant changes to modulation selection and some likely long-term players introduced along with some a touch more fleeting for this round!

This is really just more strength in depth - some subtle improvements overall, and some interesting new flavours and textures! By the time I get to the middle of the year I may start reintroducing some of the old favourites - the BD-2 has been away for a while as has the Demon Kondo, and Dr Scientist Franz Dazzler - just to name a few. Perhaps there will be some time during the more typical mid-year lull - to bring some old favourites back into the nest - I know a lot of you want to see the Strymon Riverside back in play - it does have certain advantages over the 29 Pedals FLWR - while I'm still really enjoying those new tones and textures!

Never a dull moment!

This may be a somewhat short rotation for the Drunk Beaver Odesa Envelope Filter (MXR MX-120) as the Subdecay Prometheus V3 Filter is somewhat lurking in the background. The Odesa is a wonderful vintage sounding Envelope Filter - a superb update on the MXR MX-120, with some of Vitalii's usual deft touches. While I personally tend to like my fitters a little more multi-faceted and with a somewhat wider pallet of patterns and textures - and so I typically go for the slightly more workstation -esque types with a few more bells and whistles. As this is a rapid-prototyped Monthly Pedal Drop edition - there are no demos as usual! While it really sound like the MXR Envelope Filtter of old - with a little more verve and pizazz, and a few better quality components onboard!

The Drunk Beaver Taras Bulba V2 (TB MK I.V & II) obviously launches today - I was in two minds as to what to do here - make it part of this month's selection or next - and it made more sense for me to present it here. A superb combination MK I.V / MK II Tone Bender style Fuzz - with a heavily expanded feature set. You can really get some cool tones and textures here that are very hard to get elsewhere - marshalled by no less than 8 controls - sounds thick and glorious - If you want it to of course! Full review coming up just after this - consider this a sort of Teaser! A Demo will probably appear here a little later in the day - but we may get lucky and have one sooner!

Kai's improved take on his ODR-S pedal - with Active Mids, and cool new Germanium Drive Control - where you can swing from Germanium through to Silicon Clipping. An all-round better version of the original - with even finer parts onboard. Full review coming up next week!

You know how much I love fuzzy-drive pedals - and this is another distinct classic of that genre. The Fuzz voicing is a little buzzy - but with some deft handling and OD blending you can get it to sound really amazingly textured - ably supported by some really smart and unusual controls!

I actually had the Bleak District Lo-Fi Cassette style Saturator and Modulator in various different slots in the chain this month - it sounds better before some pedals and after others - you just need a little trial and error to figure out where it fits best on your board - its pretty versatile! And when you get it just right - then this is a really rapid dial-in modulator - where the saturation really brings out the texture of the waveform.

The really cool edgy Rabbit Hole FX 'Merkin Octave Fuzz which has been in high rotation this month with its Pile of Sticks sibling. Both share some similarities - while being totally different at the same time too!

The somewhat more aggressive metal leaning sibling to the previous 'Merkin Fuzz. The Pile of Sticks 'Metal' Octave Fuzz (formerly Chaosmic Fuzz) can really pile on that low down growling menace. A touch more granular than the 'Merkin and easier to set to you precise preferences - highly reactive and with some really lovely harmonic bloom!

Crazy Tube Circuits Motherload Holy Grail Fuzz / Distortion - which combines Big Muff and Rat Distortion voicings with combination EQ's too. Both voicings sound suitably fatter and juicier with the full unified EQ applied - I'm not sure why anyone would want it otherwise. A brilliant 2-in-a-box combination with some of the best Muff and Rat voicings to be found anywhere. You're essentially getting and extended range Rat and Muff in the same enclosure - all killer!

At its core the Antistatic is a Fuzzed-up Microlooper or really a Stutter Fuzz in how I mostly like to use it. You can select short bursts or longer more languid patterns. While I'm all about those choppy Fuzz rhythms. There's a wee learning curve to getting the timings right - both on the Clock and you own beat-accentuation - and you will soon be doing fairly complex textures in no time at al - really fun to deploy and with more applications that you might things. All started from Phil's idea to make a more distinctive fuzz pedal!

A sort of beefed up DriveMaster (JCM800), the Sua Devices Aker Distortion has some real bass heft to it - which you further tighten and crunch up with the Gate Switch. Its heavy bass-reponse probably makes it sound a little better on Single Chois - where it really excels at those chunky perfussive styles. Some cool craft touches here also - a really well engineered pedal all-round.

The Formula B has such a strong starting voice with all dials / controls in mid-way positions. It's such a great Marshall voicing and instantly impactful. It sounds pretty brilliant at default - and then you can crank up the dials as appropriate - a little more Volume and Modelling (Presence) for instance it's all it really needs for perfection. Overall I mostly prefer it with some Compression in the mix, but never the Max setting for that - either none, or moderately impactful. You rarely get such and immediate positive response to the core voicing - Marco has really nailed the Marshall character here - it totally sounds superb, I still probably prefer it a little more on the 50W setting!

Lots of people have looked at my pedal-chain a little aghast by how extensive it is - and the fact that until now the only buffer I was using was at the front of the chain. And until there is a mini stereo buffer, then the buffer will need to be fitted in just before the Stereo modulation pedals - or just after the Empress ParaEQ 2. The Sitek Guitar Electronics Cristal Signal Buffer is just a pristine buffer - really over-engineered to protect your tone at all cost! As sort of tone insurance policy if ever there was one! Really well-made and looks really cool in its Sparkle Frost enclosure!

The JAM Pedals Harmonious Monk MK2 Harmonic Tremolo continues the legacy of the fattest and juiciest Harmonic Tremolo ever! It really can sound like a Uni-Vibe at times - and has so many extra bells and whistles compared to the original. The addition of Tap Tempo and Ramping is genius - as is the new reverse-saw-tooth waveform. The best just got better in by book - and you have a full set of internal EQ's and input Gain to very granularly refined the output to your exact preferences - everyone should have one!

So two great new PastFX modulations kind of shared this slots this month - the Stereo Rotary Phaser, and Stereo New Division Clone Theory style Stereo Chorus / Vibrato / Flanger. The only negative thing that can be said about those is that they alas lack stereo ins - so they can't be deployed together to full effect - which is why they had to alternate. There's quite a few PastFX stereo modulations now - but I think they're all Mono-in - which means that they just can't chain together in stereo. I often have the entire modulation section in stereo - and the Rotary Phaser really needs to Stereo to do a proper convincing Leslie Rotary Speaker Effects!

A pedal that is so much greater than the sum of its parts - and could really sit in several different categories. This month I've barely scratched the surface of this pedal - so deep it its range. Some are compelling that the Stretch Mode is not as fluid and smooth as it used to be for those killer Sigur-Rós-like tones - while I've yet to get to that part of the pedal. It just has so many strings to its bow - it's as much an ambient modulator as it is a microlooper. Apparently Tom Majeski pretty much redesigned it from the ground up - in a similar killer kitchen-sink fashion to that he did for his own Generation Loss pedals. I've done some combination plays with both of them - and looking together various tape effects on each device is going to make for some truly killer ambient soundscapes. I love that both pedals are full stereo now - making it so much easier for me to accommodate them in the chain. Possibly I will bring back all the Chase Bliss Modulations and gain stages - some of those haven't been in the chain for quite a while!

So I think this was a pretty decent month - certainly quite seminal for the evolution of GPX - and plenty of cool new shiny things - where I still have some NAMM outliers to cover.

I feel some of this month's update is a little rushed and raw - as I had to content with some emergencies during the day - which then involved more early hours working - where the mind is no longer at its sharpest.

I would have liked to have finessed some things a touch further - but there is obviously a publishing deadline that you need to meet to satisfy those various social media algorithms.

We're also coming up on 10,000 followers a little quicker that I envisaged - as I promised to have some new things in place for then - but I was expecting that even to be in at least a year or two, nor in some months or few!

I always try to do a decent balance of styles and genres - while I'm conscious of the fact that I occasionally go down some rabbit holes.

I want to apologise also for how slow I've been at responding to some inquiries and comments. I'm just under enormous strain and both my day job and GPX are extraordinarily demanding - and have restyled in some very late hours - which in turn as resulted in some peculiar ailments and conditions.

I think I'm about as prolific as ai can be without actually killing myself with overwork. While I'm really going to have to do some things a litter smarted to persevere my sanity long-term.

In any case I'm enormously grateful for the support I'm given by my readers and builder friends alike. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more collaborations with all of you - and probably quite a few more Guitar Pedal X deviaitons and some actual developmental projects.

I'm sort of peripherally involved with a Bardic Audio Devices project that I kind of inspired. And I'm hoping to inspire Roland / Boss to actually make the JC-2W - help me make that a reality!