2024 January Pedal-Chain Update - Episode I - Blues-Driven

I guess the pedal release of the show was the new MOD Series from GameChanger Audio - certainly providing some new to the genre. Some have claimed that this is simply just an update of the Moog Moogerfoogers. - but I feel there is more to this.

A really clever central concept of dynamic triggering - by playing attack and note position / pitch - where you can 'Modulate' or shift each of the 4 principal control vectors / parameters for each pedal - either ducking, embellishing or doubling up even.

This is quite old tech in many ways - relying on manual cabling - where this could also be deliver more electronically / systematically via a smart digital control layers - which allowed you to modulate all the parameters in a similar fashion. As always I question the practicalities here - in terms of pedalboard placement / accommodation etc. Individually the effects are priced about right - but it makes best sense to use all 3 together - and then it becomes quite a challenging proposition in terms of cost and footprint.

I do feel these are inspiration machines - and will undoubtedly inspire new modes and patterns of playing. Experimental player of a Radiohead style disposition will likely jump to snap this up - while I'm not convinced how much use I would have for these myself - particularly considering how much real estate these are taking over. I laud the fact that these effects exist - and wish GameChanger every success with them. While I can't help wondering if there isn't a more elegant way to to accomplish this more programmatically.

Obviously this very much plays into the hands of the Modular Synth crowd - and I do expect to see these pop up regularly in tabletop environments. I feel they will be less prominent as fully floor-based pedals,

Great to see that GameChanger Audio is living up to its name once more!

Another big winner from NAMM I feel is this MXR Joshua Ambient Echo - which rather steals some of the appeal away from the recent triumphant TC Electronic 2290P. The MXR Joshua captures most of the key flavours of its kind of larger inspiration - and neatly incorporates them in a highly potent compact enclosure pedal - with full stereo, tao tempo and smart modulation.

There were a smattering of interesting release for me but nothing really what massively wowed me, I don't thing there was much in the 'Must Have Now' category for me - several nice-to-haves for sure. Perhaps it's just a gauge of where the Reference Collection is at so far - I'm pretty much catered for all eventualities already really.

I do quite want the Hologram Chroma Console - but won't be inducting that unit the Q2 probably as I have other priorities I need to get out of the way first, and as mentioned there are sill aspects of the Eventide H90 that I wish to get to grips with before I swap in the Chroma Console on that slot.

Much of this covers over to the Infinite Wishlist segment below - where I will detail further - which of the NAMM releases caught my attention!

Would of course be cool to know which were your own favourites from the show!

14 new pedals in this month. 12 sort of brand new, and a couple new to me - long intended but only recently added!

Obviously the Blues Driver theme is big for January - while we have each of the key pedal food groups represented on his occasion. All but one of these made the board this month - the top visual will tell you which one has yet to feature!

I was very glad to have gotten in the Poly VERBS and Subdecay Tremcoder MK2 DLX Pattern Tremolo / Sequencer this month - those are probably two of the most significant. The new Kuro Custom Audio 19 42 is glorious too!

The Victory V1 The Sherriff was acquired very opportunistically and fortuitously - a mint second hand edition. While I can't see any The Copper variety around at a 'good' price - so time to hit up my friend Dan at Victory Amps.

Another decent spread for sure - nothing dramatically or drastically different - but some really fantastic alternative flavours nonetheless! Oh - the Drunk Beaver Hoverla Treble Booster, and Tru-Fi Dizzy Buzz Fuzz are also particularly good!

• 4 Boosts / Overdrives
• 3 Distortion
• 3 Fuzzes
• 1 Modulation
• 1 Time-based Effect
• 2 Utilities

I've rarely had as strong a selection as this all at once! Each one of these is stellar - some of my favourite pedals here - each of these will be a long-term prospect and in frequent rotation - all of these are highly recommended.

Drunk Beaver Hoverla review is imminent - fist batch sold out very quickly - and I'm waiting for the restock before I publish my review!

• Drunk Beaver Hoverla Germanium Treble Booster
• Onederful Effects Old Blue Overdrive
• SmallSound/BigSound Mini Overdrive
• Winnipeg Electrical Homework Series Blues (BD-2)

This selection is kind of overshadowed by the Sinvertek N5 MGAT-1 Golden Era - as far as I'm concerned the very best Distortion pedal / preamp of all time - I really love it! The other two are decent - but pale somewhat in comparison to the mighty might MGAT-1-GE :

• Drunk Beaver Zhytomyr Sunset Preamp
• Sinvertek N5 MGAT-1 GE Golden Era DS99
• Victory Amps V1 Sheriff Preamp

3 great fuzzes - the 19 42 and Dizzy Buzz in particular - super versatile and beautifully textured!

• Drunk Beaver Poltava DOA Muff
• Kuro Custom Audio 19 42 Analog Envelope Filter Fuzz
• Tru-Fi Dizzy Buzz Fuzz

The Subdecay Tremcoder 2 Pattern Tremolo and Sequencer is pretty impressive - and with tonnes of versatility. Doesn't quite impress me as much as its Prometheus 3 Sibling - which is just ultra stellar. Don't get me wrong about the Tremcoder 2 - it's pretty great in its own way - it's just not quite as impressive as its sibling!

I've waxed plenty lyrical about the Poly Effects Verbs Convolution Reverb Workstation - it really is a magically fresh take on the reverb workstation, It doesn't have all my favourite Reverb Algorithm - but what it has onboard and how elegantly it operates more than make up for it, And if you own a Zoom audio recored - you can create your own Reverb IR's - recording whatever space you wish to - and uploading those resulting IR's into the 8 available AdVerb slots. I was lucky to get in on the first batch of these - while Poly Effects Loki has been superb at churning these out - and he's already several batches into the year - well worth checking out if you're a reverb fan!

The additional Cioks 8 FPG of course went straight onto the board - the Rivne OTA Compressor will for sure be fully tested in February.

• Cioks 8 Expander Future Power Generation PSU
• Drunk Beaver Rivne OTA Compressor 

Following on from this month - I'm still very much in a 'Bluesy' / Blues Driver mindset - so the leading priority is to snap up the final straggler/s from that selection - so the Muse Drive is top priority, I've also been advised to get in the Mad Professor Royal Blue Drive - which has been on my wishlist for an age - so that will be a target too - plenty to get stuck into this month! :

• Beetronics FX Abelha Tropical Fuzz
• Danelectro Nichols 1966 3-Transistor Fuzz (Liverpool Fuzz-Tone)
• David Ross Musical Instruments Submersion Octave Fuzz with Parallel Blend
• Electronic Audio Experiments The Bard Preamp
• Fulltone Custom Shop v1.4 OCD
• JAM Pedals 3D-printed EureQuack Fuzz
• Keeley Electronics Andy Timmons Signature Muse Driver
• The King of Gear Pitch Magpie wobbly pitch-shifter
• Mad Professor Royal Blue Drive
• MXR Gran Torino Boost Overdrive
• MXR Joshua Ambient Echo
• NUX Zeus NIP-Z10 Isolated Power Supply
• October Audio robotic celebrity head drive/fuzz
• Red Panda Lab Radius Ring Modulator & Frequency Shifter
• Shnobel Tone Daily Driver Boost
• Supro Dual Mode Amplitude / Harmonic Tremolo
• Walrus Audio Silt Harmonic 12AU7 Fuzz
• Way Huge Geisha Drive Smalls
• Zoom MultiStomp MS-200D+ Gain Workshop Pedal

We also have some Key carry-overs from 2023 which remain a priority - none more than the Collision Devices TARS - hopefully I can make that happen in February! Blake Hickey has also gone very quite on me after a very promising start - will try to re-kindle that this year too :

• Blakemore Effects Deus Ex Machina Opamp Fuzz
• Collision Devices TARS Analog Filter-Fuzz
• Endorphin.es x Andrew Huang Ghost Pedal Multi-FX
• Fender (Kevin) Shields Blender Shoegaze Fuzz
• Flower Pedals Dahlia Stero Dual Analog Delay
• Hologram Electronics Chroma Console Multi-FX
• JAM Pedals Octaurus Octafuzz
• Meris Mercury X Modular Reverberator / Sound Designer
• TC Electronic 2290 P Dynamic Digital Delay and Effects Processor

12 slots updated this month : #4, #5, #9a, #9b, #11, #18, #21, #23, #25, #27, #31, #41.

Most of these are likely rotational pedals - while the Poly VERBS on #41  and the Sinvertek N5 MGAT-1 GE are rather more permanent board residents.

This is not really an evolutionary step - more of a sideways one - but one with some significant quality - some of those Overdrives and Fuzzes in particular are quite superb.

A spirited start to the new year in any case!

As I predicted - the first batch of these sold out incredibly quickly! The Drunk Beaver Hoverla Germanium Treble Booster is a cool and unusual Rangemaster with its Bias Voltage Display to help you fine-tune its output. Its Germanium is not particularly high gain - so at max gain it's rather a fuzzy-drive than a photo-fuzz. Still sounds glorious though - and is superb as a tone enhancer. Full review coming very soon - once there are more of these in stock!

The Tru-Fi Dizzy Buzz is not just a fantastic Buzzaround Fuzz - but a truly great fuzz all-round - where those 4 controls really help you dial it in to perfection. Sort of mid-gain-ish on the Fuzz spectrum - with beautiful texture throughout its range.

Oneder Effects' Old Blue Overdrive is one of the very best Bluesy Overdrives - where its extended range allows it to cover off both Breaker and Driver tones and beyond. Looks great in its Sparkle Blue finish too!

The Winnipeg Electrical Co. Homework Series Blue Overdrive is one of the very best extended range takes on the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver - and the one that comes closest to my favourite Keeley Freak Fuzz Modded Blues Driver - just a superb overdrive - and at a really great price!

I'm so glad to finally have the smallsound/bigsound mini in the reference collection - a quite superb overdrive / fuzzy drive with extensive range and superb dynamics. Those pedals I covered in my recent Blues Driver-ology article really are all superb.

I'm known for having a Vox AC30 and Marshall Plexi paring of pedals in the chain to cover Brian May and EVH tones respectively. I did a Vox + Plexi article last year featuring 9 pairs of those - where I owned and had reviewed each individually bar the Victory V1 varieties. I came across a V1 Sheriff (Mini) for a really great price - so I snapped that one up, now looking opportunistically for a discounted The Cooper Vox AC30 variety! Once I have both I will review them together!

Drunk Beaver's Poltava DOA Muff is a cool hybrid mix of the 1978 EHX IC Big Muff and 1989 Ibanez CR5 Crunchy Rhythm - combining aspects of each circuit - while very much retaining an Opamp Muff core - pretty cool sounding and distinct - no demos exist yet of this pedal!

Drunk Beaver's Zhytomyr Sunset Preamp is based on the Sunn Beta Lead Preamp with the usual Vitalii tweaks and improvements. Not as high gain as I imagined it would be - but sounds pretty great, and is nicely richly textured.

Kuro Custom Audio's Giulio Favaro has produced another killer pedal - the 19 42 Filter Fuzz 4-in-1 Fuzz + Filter + Envelope + FX Loop. Looks fantastic - is really well and logically laid out - and sounds every bit as good as it looks!

I didn't think it could be done - I felt that the original Sinvertek N5 MGAT-1 was the greatest Marshall style distortion ever created. But somehow Mr Wu has managed to make the MGAT-1 Golden Era edition even better sounding. For sure the greatest distortion pedal ever made - certainly within the Marshall cannon. There is no demo of this new variant yet - so I'm showcasing Peter Thorn's excellent take on its predecessor once more!

I so loved Subdecay's Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter DLX - that there was no way I wasn't going to get its equivalent Tremcoder MK2 DLX Pattern Tremolo and Sequencer. For me the Prometheus 3 is still a little more special than the Tremcoder 2 - while both are at or near the top of their class. You get the benefit of Presets for both of those - while somehow I feel there's more variety and an easier use case for fairly similar SL-2 Slicer - although that of course doesn't have presets!

The Poly Effects VERBS Convolution Reverb Workstation really is a fantastic reverb. It doesn't have a few of my favourite Reverb Algorithms - no Reverse, and no Lo-Fi per se - but it more than makes up for it - with its easy functionality and perfect execution - should be plenty enough on there for most - and you can define your own Reverb IR's too - so lots of scope for upgrades - and therefore pretty much future-proof! The only tiny niggle here really is the PreDelay - which is set so subtle and slight that it doesn't really do anything much!

And so for the final segment I turn my thoughts to the weeks and months ahead - and likely incoming pedals / priorities. I feel we've had the major flurry for Q1 already - and things should slow down a touch over February.

In my Kernom Moho feature I already stated that I would be getting in some sort of MIDI pedal to help me get the most out of the extensive versatility of that pedal. I initially looked at the Selah Quartz, and Matthews Effects Futurist - while both those seem to have been discontinued! So I turned to YouTube for likely solutions - where I came across this gem :

The Hotone Ampero Control MIDI controller can be had for as little as £105 - it's a little clunky in operation with a really tiny screen. But it actually works perfectly for the PC Program Changes that you need to access for the Kernom Moho. And it has Bluetooth connectivity to its iPhone App - which makes it relatively easy to set up those presets. Ideally I would have liked just a compact pedal that had Preset Up / Down Footswitches - but it seems that with most of those MIDI controllers you need to page up and down in group patches - and then select each of the 4 Presets within that group. The Hotone Ampero Control works well as it shows the PC numbers on the screen - which are just your sequential presets. If you were using this pedal for CC changes - the numbers would not make any immediate sense really as they would reflect program variables, rather than Preset numbers.

The Hotone Ampero Control isn't totally perfect for me - but it's slimline enough to easily be accommodated in from of the main chain - and it can do exactly what I need it to. The App is a little clunky - and the screen really is too tiny to be properly useful but it kinda mostly works - and thus becomes my controller of choice for the Moho for now - until something better comes along!

In acquiring the Subdecay Tremcoder MKII DLX and looking into my Tremolo capsule collection as per the visual above - I realise that selection is lagging a little behind the other key Modulation Genres - where I have significantly larger arsenals of those other types of modulation. So I'm of a mind this year to extend the Tremolo capsule collection by a few - to catch up as such. I've had several on the wishlist over the years while that list of course change month-to-month.

I'm mostly about Harmonic Tremolos - while I do love a beautifully textured tremolo of any and all stripes really - it just has to have something really special about it - and ideally occupy a compact enclosure - with smart foot switching - like tap temp and such.

I composed a brief list of likely targets, and this is what I came up with :

• Diamond Pedals Tremolo
• Drolo Twin Peaks Tremolo
• JHS 3 Series Harmonic Tremolo
• Supro Dual Mode Tremolo
• Swindler Effects Red Mountain Tremolo
• Tru-Fi Ultra Tremolo
• Walrus Audio Monument Harmonic Tremolo

Obviously I won't likely get every one of those - where I will look to acquire those pedals fairly opportunistically - especially older varieties!