2024 June Pedal-Chain Update - Episode VI - Deferred Intermodulation

So a mix of Compact and Minis here - absolutely brilliant Compacts - where we're still actually waiting on proper demos for both of those. And I was obviously struck by the Mini Pedal Bug this month - and decided I needed to have the full see of OneControl / BJFE Mini Bees. The Sliver Bee only just arrived ahead of the cutoff limit - and that review / comparison - will be appearing early  July!

• Coriolis Effects Hail To The King KOT Compact Dual Blues Breaker
• Drunk Beaver Lviv Liontaur Candy Apple Red Hi-Fidelity Klone
• OneControl / BJFE Blue Bee Mini Custom
• OneControl / BJFE Silver Bee Mini

I really love both of these - the Eruption really is my perfect EVH style distortion - and combines beautifully with the Krozz Airborn. While the Mini Paddy Whacker looks as gorgeous at is sounds - but needs a bit more volume for my preferences. In fact most of my Mini Pedals seem to suffer from moderate output levels!

• Colombo Audio Eruption EVH Variac Distortion
• Leprechxaun FX Paddy Whacker High Gain Rock 'N Roll Distortion Mini

What a killer selection! Funnily, during my doing the Compact Fuzz Pedal Pairs article I could not find the Screamer Fuzz V3 - and decided I had to buy another one just in case! 

The Octaurus was hella delayed too, and I had been after a SuperCollider for many a year - and so I'm delighted to have those finally in the collection.

My friend Sebsiten at Farmer Factory keeps delivery the goods - I've called him the Basic Audio of France - and he's definitely heading in that direction - with some superb builds under his belt already - including of course the Harmonic Generator I just featured!

We also have my long awaited Reeves Electro Facet IZ, and Thorpy's new one - the WOPR Atomic Fuzz + Silicon Rainger - which is just missing that killer doom demo - which should be coming up soon.

The Recovery Effects Zenith and Vale landed too - that's just n incredible noise factory - not much really like a fuzz - but plenty of interesting textures.

And finally the two Mini Muffs - Mooer Triangle Buff, and Tone City Matcha Cream - actually both about equally potent - but both also needing a bit more output volume for my preferences! As mentioned previously - a lot of those mini pedals seem to have fairly moderate output levels!

• Cusack Music Screamer Fuzz V3
• Earthbound Audio SuperCollider Doom Fuzz
• Farmer Factory Effects Harmonic Generator
• JAM Pedals Octaurus Octafuzz
• Mooer Triangle Buff Mini
• Reeves Electro Facet IZ Mids-Forward Fuzz Face
• Recovery Effects Zenith and Vale Bit-Crusher Digital Annihilation Fuzz
• ThorpyFX WOPR Atomic Fuzz + Silicon RangeMaster
• Tone City Matcha Cream Green Russian Fuzz Mini

And what a beautifully textured collection of Modulations. All of these have been on the board this month, while the Rainger FX Mini Drone eventually lost its spot to its Reverb X Sibling - which follows below!

The Diamond Vibrato and Krozz Uni-Vibe are particularly glorious, and while the Monumental isn't quite as impacting as the JAM Pedals Harmonious Monk - it still have plenty to recommend it!

• Diamond Pedals MN3007 Vibrato 
• Krozz Devices Krakenheart Abyssal Uni-Vibe
• Rainger FX MiniDrone
• Walrus Audio Monumental Stereo Harmonic Tremolo

I actually really love the Reverb-X Mini - and can see exactly why it's so popular with MK.Gee and his fans. It's not quite as full on as I expected - but I guess delivers just the right amount of interesting texture to its reverberation voicing. I alternated this and its MiniDrone sibling on the same slow - where in the end the Reverb-X turned out to be more my kind of thing!

• Rainger FX Reverb-X Mini

So I pondered a long time here - which should be the cover star for this category! It was really between the massively innovative EAE Prismatic Wall, and wide-ranging Source Audio Artifakt Lo-Fi Elements - I will very likely get both of those in. In the end the latter one wins out for me - as it's fully stereo, and I think I will use it a little more. Still - props to John Snyder for introducing a whole new category of effects to us!

• Alexander Pedals Forget Me Not 4-Head DSP Tape Style Delay / Reverb
• Catalinbread Perseus Dio Dual Sub Octave Square Wave Fuzz
• Crazy Tube Circuits Unobtanium RAW Dumble-Klone, with OC45 Transistor Mod
• Custom Pedal Boards Muff War Mini
• Dawner Prince Boonar Tube Deluxe 4-Head Tape style Echo with Tube Preamp
• DBA + EQD Time Shadows Subharmonic Multi-Delay Resonator V2
• Electronic Audio Experiments Prismatic Wall Sympathetic Strings Resonator / Synthesizer / Reverberator
• Dunn Effects Death Knob HM-2 EQ Blender
• Glou-Glou Flancher 7 Stereo Analog Modulator
• JHS Pedals Hard Drive High Gain Distortion
• Nordvang Altitude 1590B3 Series Breaker-Boost
• OneControl Dimension Blue Monger
• OneControl Strawberry Red OD RC
• Source Audio Artifakt Lo-Fi Elements Crusher / Scrambler / Modulator / Reverberator

15 slots updated this month, 16 pedals - slots #4 (x2), #5, #9a, #9b, #10, #11, #12, #15b, #15c, #15d, #22b, #23, #30, #31, #33.

All 20 of June's arrivals had their time on the board - with the Cusack Music Screamer Fuzz V3, Mooer Triangle Buff, Rainger FX MiniDrone,and Tone City Matcha Cream being eventually pushed aside by newer and preferred choices on each of those slots.

Typically I try to limit each month's intake to 20 pedals - as it's difficult to accommodate that number already on the board. Certain slots in the chain are pretty much pivotal anchors slots for certain pedals - while other slots - like #4 and #5, #9-#12, and #21 and #23-#27 tend to change more often.

I have so many fuzzes in the collection - that there is always plenty of rotation on slots #4 and #5. And you only see the end-of-month placements - not all the other incidental movements that happens during the month. Every time I do a selection rundown - I typically dig those pedals out of the collection and run some further tests on them! So there's a lot of swapping around that happens ongoingly!

Oh - and if you count all the pedals in the visual - that's the first time they're exactly at 50 -  new record! The asylum just stepped up a whole other level!

Slot #4 was shared this month between the Farmer Factory Germanium Harmonic Generator (Burns Buzzaround) and Reeves Electro Fazet IZ Modern Silicon Fuzz Face. Both fantastic sounding fuzzes, where the Harmonic Generator has a little more output volume and all-round flavour about it. The Facet IZ is beautifully poised - and in a modern mids-forward configuration - it cuts through really well, and has a cool - fairly mellow overall texture - I just wish it could have a touch more volume to it!

I'm so delighted that my Octaurus Octafuzz finally arrived - around 2 months behind schedule - while when it sounds as good as it does - I would be prepared to wait quite a bit longer. One of the most vibrant and full-flavour upper octave fuzzes out there - with plenty of range on each of its controls, and particularly stellar with asymmetrical clipping on full-frequency voicing!

I'm really just teasing the Coriolis Effects Hail To The King Dual Channel Blues Breaker - as we're still waiting for the first demo videos to materialise. A superb engineering achievement in essentially getting a KOT 2-Chanel variant into compact enclosure - with largely the same parts, but with it's own Mods and clipping arrangements too. I've done a number of visuals for this already - it's been on the board for a big chunk of this month. And as soon as we get the demo - you will witness this pedal's might! I already own a full-size KOT, and the Duke of Tone Mini, where the intention at one stage was to get in the Prince of Tone also - to complete that 'Aristocracy of Tone'! While the fact that the Hail To The King has so much onboard - that's obviously my preferred candidate for the Compact throne!

It's very rare that I post up 2 subequent slots without demo videos. But - as with the 'Hail To The King' above, we have yet to get a demo for Drunk Beaver's Lviv Lionheart Klone. The Klone normally raises Dry and Wet Levels in  parallel via a single control, while Vitalii here has separated those out to Purr and Roar controls - which delivers the most articulate Klone to date. Being able to adjust those Dry / Wet Levels individually gives you a lot more versatility in output - this one sounds great, and is also distinct from the rest. You also get those cut-outs in the facia so you can peer in at those super-sized Germanium Diodes - they look like something from the Industrial Revolution!

This really follows on from all those special Tanabe pedals I received - the Zenkudo, Santanabe, and May Queen - each one of those delivering immediately satisfying signature sounds. And the exact same is the case for the Colombo Audio Electronics Eruption EVH Variac Distortion - which is just the perfect Eddie Distortion flavour in a box - with the least amount of fuzz. Normally I look to have a few more controls - for increased granularity and potency. While Luca has really dialled this one in perfectly - it just delivers instant satisfaction - and reminds me very much of the impact of those Tanabe's when I first got them!

Recovery Effects' Zenith and Vale Bit-Crushing Digital Annihilation Fuzz is something entirely new and different - and a lot of the time not really a fuzz at all, but rather a monster bit-crushed synthesiser which delivers all manner of slightly mangled textures.

And finally! Several years later - I have an Earthbound Audio SuperCollider Doom Fuzz in the collection - and it's exactly what I expected - a fantastically textured, low-end enhanced 4-transistor fuzz. Wonderful to have this in the collection at last.

Initially I split out slot #15 for the sake of checking out the Mini Muff Fuzzes - that then involved into a mission to secure the BJFE Mini Bee Trifecta - Honey Bee, Silver Bee, Blue Bee, and with the Leprechaun FX Paddy Whacker Distortion on the end!

Before I split out slot #15 I needed to find a slot to accommodate the new MiniDrone - where latterly I decided that the Reverb-X that I acquired at the same time actually did more for me. So that although the MiniDrone probably owned this slot for the longer time - it's the Reverb-X which is my winner here! A really beautifully textured distorted and optionally gated reverb!

So the ThorpyFX W.O.P.R. AtomIC Fuzz + Silicon RangeMaster has been out for a while - but I'm waiting for a demo that better represents my experience of the pedal. We're waiting for Fuzzed Drones to do a more heavy-set doom-laden on the pedal - where it properly lives up to the explosive nature of this fuzz. There are 2 key settings I deploy - the ultimate doom output occurs without the RangeMaster engaged, while with that TicTaxToe footswitch pressed down - you get the most wonderfully harmonically rich textures. My full review is imminent - It's already been largely written - I'm just waiting for a demo which better suits the subject matter - which should be with us fairly soon - in act it definitely feels a little overdue!

I really love my Diamond Vibrato / Chorus - it delivers the most beautiful rich and warm textures at various degrees of intensity. If you want a brighter output you simply run it at 18V - this is surely one of the best sounding Chorus / Vibratos out there - it sounds absolutely lush!

The arrival of the Krozz Krakenheart Uni-Vibe is both a joyful and sad occasion - as the equally brilliant Krozz Airborn Flanger has to give up its slot for the Krakenheart. Which is most likely my favourite Uni-Vibe to date - with its really smart features set, and extended tone-shaping ability - to match its extensive depth of flavour. I love using this in Leslie Rotary Speaker fashion - with a slow ramp up and down between the slower dial speed / pulse, and the max speed of the Ramp / Hold footswitch - a veritable triumph for sure.

So the Walrus Audio Monumental Stereo Harmonic Tremolo is on the board now. I really like it for sure - it's one of 7 Harmonic Tremolos that I have, and one of only 2 Stereo Harmonic Tremolos. It has some unique features of its own for sure, but in some ways I still probably prefer the Flower Pedals Sunflower to the Monumental, while my 2 JAM Pedals Harmonic Monks delivers the best harmonic texture - almost to uni-vibe levels!