Best of New Guitar Pedals Released in and around the 2020 Winter NAMM Show

I've said before that I really should own more Alexander Pedals by now (I have 3) - I've featured so many of them on this site over the years - for each show they present something new and innovative and I really liked their Superball Kinetic Modulator and Magnolia Vintage Overdrive from this year's new trio. The Superball is probably their standout pedal in this batch - with its clever bouncing-ball dynamic modulation which follows the springy high amplitude then sort of skittering acceleration pattern as the kinetic energy of the ball gets released/expended. This has a degree of novelty to it too - not so far away from the Rainger FX Minibar. Yet all-round the pedal has some new and intriguing algorithms and slightly different sounds to what we've previously heard - of course the pedal comes with secondary / alt functions on knobs and 4 presets onboard per all NEO Series pedals. I still wish Alexander would do some stereo-capable pedals of this ilk - so they would be more suitable/versatile for use in my own rig. A lot of the Alexander Pedals are somewhat leftfield in approach and sound and largely appeal to more adventurous and experimental players. Up until now and likely ongoing - I find I always have other priorities and preferences that suit me better - you have to admire the constant and consistently great innovation though!

There are so many Tremolos out there and I've covered most of them on this site at one time or another - truth is I have 3 really great tremolos already, and have always really loved my main CBA Gravitas - which happens to have a couple of Harmonic Tremolo modes too. Something about the Anasounds Ages Tremolo properly appeals to me though - possibly with or even without Anasounds' cool new fidget-spinner-style Spinner Expression controller. I've actually had my eye on Rock Fabrik Effect's Kuek Touch-Sensitive Dynamic Tremolo too - but which is too large for me to accommodate in my chains since I added the Thorpy Camoflange - I only have space for a compact pedal format - and the new Anasounds Ages has some cool dynamic Touch Sensitivity of its own with a much simpler control interface than the Kuek's 9 knobs. Then again I haven't seen all the internal trim-pots that Anasounds like so much. In any case I fancy taking a break from my two main Tremolos - the Gravitas and Stone Deaf Tremotron - and something about this particular variety really appeals to me - so it's not a particularly urgent need - but will likely happen later in the year.

I guess we had some very significant Reverb Pedal releases this year - with this Lexicon 224 -inspired effort, DBA's Rooms Stereo Reverberator, Gamechanger's Light Pedal, and of course Red Panda's significantly updated Context Reverb. Each one of these is fantastic and has something great to offer - although none are really quite perfect for me. Overall I probably like the CXM 1978 best for its format and presets - but it is pretty huge, and I cannot really fit it into my rig or compact and bijoux music corner particularly easily. I love the concept of the Automatone pedals - and have determined already that I will be acquiring the PreAmp MKII - but it would be something of a tall order to have a rig composed entirely or mostly even of pedals at this size. If I rejigged some things then possibly I could make way for it - but I've already decided that my next Reverb should be / will be the hopefully not too distant GFI System Specular Tempus V2 - which I'm very much hoping will follow the exact same design and topology as the amazing Synesthesia - which was my Pedal of the Year for 2019 and probably overall the pedal of the show too for me - there are so many smart decisions that have gone into making that pedal - that I fell this is the future of those kind of effects - interactive dual-channel multi-modulators! So however much I like the CXM 1978 which obviously looks, works and sounds stellar, but will undoubtedly come with a big price tag - the PreAmp is £749 - and that's a lot of real-estate - I feel there will very likely be a smaller variation of the same at some stage - possibly even by collaborators Meris themselves - or a compact format CBA Pedal in a similar vein to the Generation Loss.

This is actually the third NAMM Show in a row this pedal puts in an appearance at - but this is at last the final production model - which is due to start shipping by end of May I believe - which gives us just enough time to save up for the £749 cover charge. I've loved this particular format from its first appearance - 3-Band EQ with Parametric Mids and Q Bandwidth Options, EQ Routing order, Fuzz, 30 Presets etc. It's pricey, but it's unique and properly versatile - I know I will get a lot of use out of this. I mentioned that pedals would increasingly need presets to be relevant in the future and this is just the sort of thing I was meaning. The Origin Effects RevivalDRIVE is a fantastic pedal - but it can be quite fiddly to set up each time - having presets on that would make it so much more practically usable. So that's one of the many things that swings it for this PreAmp - the Benson Amps Chimera at the heart of the circuit, huge EQ range + Fuzz - I can't see how anyone would fail to be impressed by this - it is large though and rather pricey!

I was in on the Kickstarted campaign for this and it was my penultimate pedal arrival of last year. Truth told - I've not put it to too much use yet as I'm still having fun with the CBA Generation Loss and the MOOD for that matter - and have decided to extend that pedal's rotation further before I move the Blooper in for a shift. I've toyed with it a few times already - and as mentioned in my End of Year review - the Layers knob in particular is somewhat genius - of course all those modifiers and special effects you can do with your looped signal - this device is just extraordinarily creative - and will require some due diligence and patience to get the very best out of it. Early on I wasn't sure this would be for me, then I had the quandary of the MOOD - and deciding first that I would probably prefer the Blooper, but then that the MOOD was indispensable too - so of course I have both. I still have a couple of CBA gaps in the collection - meaning that I must get in the Dark World surely fairly soon - it's been on the wishlist for an age.

I featured this Argentinian maker in my best of South and Central America Overview - and again for one of my Synth Pedal overviews later in the year. Their new 'Beat' Beat Making Machine takes you back to the Linn Drum and those early tap-input keypads and keyboards - where you selected a percussion instrument and proceeded to lay down a beat layer by layer - kick-drum, snare, hi-hat/ride etc. This differs from every other Beat Machine pedal out there in that here you actually tap in the components of your own groove. I feel that this is already perfectly formed from the start in a fairly simple box, and that this will only grow and evolve - I hope Dedalo make some money out of this before someone steals their idea and works in some improvements. This is on my mice-to-have list for the year - I really like it, but currently would not know where to place it in my already sizeably complex chain.

This was another cool surprise for the show - a sort of dirty / Lo-Fi Reverb with some rather unusual industrial sounds and textures. I fear this will be quite pricey to match its rather sizeable dimensions. It has a clever Alternative footswitch with separate Frequency, Depth and Time controls - it's innovative and plenty tweakable, and has some great sounds onboard - but really could do with presets. Of the big 4 reverbs thus far launched this year - this is probably my fourth choice - with the CXM 1978 and Light Pedal likely tied for innovation, but the Red Panda Context ahead on practicalities - even though lousy with onboard presets and needs to rely on TRS cables for Stereo Input and Output. I would actually probably place the CXM 1978 ahead of all the rest for its Presets prowess. So the Rooms is an intriguing proposition but really rather too big for my needs and lacking in some practicalities.

When the original came out I immediately thought it was a cool concept but wildly impractical - a way oversized enclosure with all the controls facing away from you - which is something I've never been able to get along with (cv Beetronics Fatbee) as I'm an OCD pedal tweaker that needs to see where the dials are set! In any case as soon as the pedal materialised in its more practical medium vertical 1590BB format I jumped on the Andertons pre-order. Only the pedal is somehow still in transit - I keep getting new details and updates - and I've now been told my pedal won't be with me until the start of February - which is somewhat disappointing - and which is why I typically don't like to participate in these sorts of limited edition events. I don't mind getting future timings as long as they're adhered to - I'm not too good at dealing with endless delays and miscommunications. In any case I see this as a souped up Rat pedal (with Octave) - where the Rat is one of my favourite types of fuzz/distortion pedals - and a key reason why this had to be in the collection. Some of the sheen has gone off this one as I kind of expected to be playing it by now - and lots of people seem to have had theirs already. I live with the anxiety of being told one day that there was some sort of mix-up with just my particular order and that they're all now unfortunately all sold out - such a things has actually happened to me once before in the not too distant past! Actually - the latest update arrived just this afternoon:

"Apologies for the delay to your order, we had been told that stock was on the way to us several days ago but when it arrived only a small fraction of our order was actually included in that delivery. Our supplier has confirmed that we will be receiving some more units of this extremely limited item and that our next shipment will include enough pieces to fulfil you order, this is expected to arrive here on or around 14/2/20."

You can always rely on Gamechanger to pull out all the stops and wow you with something no one ever thought of before. Here adding infrared light sensors to an analog spring tank - to absorb all the transient textures and frequency details that are otherwise lost to more conventional devices. The additional richness of detail in the harvested signal can be used for new types of reverb modulations and effects that simply weren't possible before - so in theory this is the most high-fidelity and texture-rich spring reverb you could imagine - with lots of clever secondary effects. There is no price or availability yet - but let's face it - it looks pricey, and it's rather spacious as it contains a proper 3-spring Spring Tank at its core. It is supposedly using some special damping technology also to remove mechanical / enclosure noise from contact. I really admire the vision and engineering here - but for me the box is really not a good shape for pedalboard-friendliness - and with all those cool new sounds and options - you could really have done with some presets and a second footswitch! Still well deserving of its best-in-show awards but only useful for studios I feel. Update! Pricing will supposedly not be tthat steep as Gamechanger have said around $300 - I would have thought more - but we'll see.

I can't say enough about this pedal - having used most big box Modulation, Delay and Reverb units - all the classics - Strymon, Boss, Empress, Eventide, Source Audio etc. the Synesthesia is another game-changer not just in what it does but really in how it does it. Early on I got a touch frustrated in learning all the different button functions - turn, press, hold, twist and the different parameters they control - but the way the menu panel works in tandem - showing you every move and even telling you what that parameter was last set to if you inadvertently bump into something - it's frankly quite ingenious and you get used to it all soon enough and start questioning why other devices don't work the same. I'm still going through the million variations of 22 x 22 algorithms in all the different playback formats and combinations - there are sounds on this that just could not be easily reached if at all by any other device. I so love this pedal that I've made a determination that I will wait out for my next Reverb pedal for the V2 Specular Tempus - which I expect to follow the exact same form factor as the Synesthesia and hoping that it will appear in the not too distant future. Having 22 Delay and Reverb algorithms in the same kind of configuration would just be immense - and that excites me a lot more than any of these other still admittedly very impressive new reverb pedals featured here!

I've waxed lyrical about Jackson Audio several times before on this site and I've been an avowed fan right form the start - acquiring each of their flagship pedals - Prism, Bloom and Broken Arrow as soon as they were whispered into existence. I could not understand why the Broken Arrow wasn't more of a success last year - as I really love mine - the 4 clipping modes on the left footswitch, 4 boost modes on the right and 25% incremental Gain Cycling when pressing on both footswitches together - simply genius and right up there for Drive pedal of the year alongside the Demon Pedals Kondo-Shifuku and the Sinvertek N5+. The El Guapo actually takes things one stage further - having a 4-clipping-mode JCM800 style distortion on the left footswitch - with 6 control knobs including 3-Band EQ and Presence, and a 4-clipping-mode Tube Screamer style Overdrive on the right footswitch with 3 control knobs - the classic Volume, Tone, Drive. I spent ages retouching and compositing a suitable image for this pedal - it's one of several from the show that will go straight into my pedal-chain when released - albeit I will have to wait a while as Brad Jackson wants to give each of his new pedals some breathing room to develop their audience - which means the Golden Boy gets launched first - within the next few week, then 2-3 months later the Modular Fuzz + Octave, and then another 2-3 months before we see El Guapo - so probably late summer or early Autumn release for this one.

Another smart execution and very similar topologically to the El Guapo with 6 large / regular controls for the fuzz - including 3-Band EQ and Parametric Mids - and 3 mini-knob controls for the Octave element (Based on Foxx Tone Machine) and which is activated by the right-hand footswitch. There is no special clipping or mode scrolling here just standard mechanical footswitch function - the clever part and the 'Modular' part of the fuzz is that the core circuit sits on a small snap-in board / card - which can be swapped with other suitably analog fuzz modules at $39 a pop. By default the Fuzz comes with a 'Modern Fuzz' - OpAmp I would guess - while there are already options for proper transistor-based Big Muff, Fuzz Face and Tone Bender varieties - though not sure if Jackson Audio are going to get involved in the whole NOS parts thing - possibly that will be for limited edition snap-in cards. In any case I am determined to get in their early with Jackson Audio and establish a proper relationship - as I have been supporting them on this site from the very start.

The last mentioned here alphabetically, but first to be released is the Joey Landreth Signature Golden Boy Overdrive - which essentially takes the Broken Arrow concepts and swaps in a core Blues Breaker circuit in place of the core Tube Screamer one found in the Arrow. This should make for a slightly warmer and more elastic sounding overdrive which is likely even more to my liking than the Tube Screamer of the Broken Arrow - while I do tend to favour the Asymmetric Magenta mode in that. I love and already have a number of stellar Blues Breakers to my name - including the King of Tone, Wampler Pantheon, Snouse BlackBox and VFE Blues King - I would be delighted to acquire one more into that family unit!

This was one of the earliest NAMM releases - due to arrive in the UK this year if all that shipping holds up. Things don't always tend to go to schedule this early the year. In any case this is Paul Gilbert's Signature Distortion - the PG-14 refers to shoe size apparently, and the pedal also has Paul Gilbert in Japanese as the text on the trainer/sneaker illustration. The controls are a pretty interesting configuration with Parametric pre-gain Mids which have their own OpAmp and are thus boosted into the gain stage for even more searing and textured distortion. You also have a Push knob - so there are actually 3 controls for the Mids - the Mid Frequency, Mid Cut/Boost and the Mid OpAmp Push! Josh keeps referring to being able to easily attain that sort of Hendrix Fuzz Face into Marshall tone - which I'm looking forward to trying to recreate when I get this in.

This is another pedal that has appeared at 3 sequential NAMM shows - alongside the Automatone PreAmp and Wampler Terraform too - I guess that's how long it took to perfect those technologies. This was actually only officially launched at this Namm while it has been available since late December as far a I recall - in any case a fantastic Stereo Flange-Modulated Tape Delay - you may have seen it just recently on a That Pedal Show episode. It can do Chorusing and Flanging with ease - and when blended correctly with the trails it sounds just fantastic. There is an interesting head-to-head with the Walrus Audio Mako D1 - which is a similar white box, dual footswitch multi-mode stereo delay - but the pedals are quite different in use and tone actually. The Walrus Audio one is probably more usable and versatile overall on the delay-side while the Eccos has a built-in looper too, and has the most stellar of modulated delay as the core default - I've said before that it would be very difficult to pick a winner between those two - it really depends on what you're looking for in a delay - both are great!

I love it that this collaboration is happening and that the masses will finally get acces to this great 'transparent' overdrive. I have one of the compact originals in that sort of mottled purple and black colourway - and like 99% of all Timmy fans I keep the clipping switch locked in the middle position! This is the benchmark of the mini pedal revolution that I highlighted in a few articles in the lead-up to Christmas - no reason why the Timmy Mini cannot sound just as good as its larger original sibling - and it has all the same controls - including the cut / reverse nature of the Treble and Bass controls. This again is more of a nice to have for me as I already have this pedal - I would quite like to own the Mini too though!

This has been probably the most highly featured pedal from the show - even crossing into non-musical media for coverage. It's sort of novelty/gimmicky and more than a litter impractical - but it really works - and really works well actually. I just think the format could be better evolved with some sort of snap in capsules rather than having to clean and dry out the bowl/receptacle whenever you want to change Tone. I feel this will make an amazing inspirational pedal for players needing to spark off new ideas - but I don't really see anyone gigging with it in this iteration. Longer term I can see a carousel of snap-in capsules each with different liquids and properly labelled for style of overdrive - so you can quickly switch to that dark stout sound you need! Relatively reasonably priced means quite a few of these should be sold - it could very well be the new Korg Miku as such!

Another Adrian Thorpe / Mikey Demus collaboration for a really grinding fuzz tone with variable -2 and -4 octaves which you can blend together. It reminds me a touch of my Gamechanger / Third Man Records Plasma Coil which also sports dual sub-octave - but tonally they're somewhat different. This is a pedal that's exactly my sort of thing - 3-Band EQ, form factor, functionality and tones - I feel Redbeard Effects will sell quite a few of these. This is one of many here that will go straight into my pedal-chain.

While I really admire a lot of what Red Panda are doing - obviously their Particle V2 and Tensor are stellar - and the new Context is primed to meet that quality challenge. While there are a few things here that niggle me. I have actually struggled to get the TRS stereo out on the Particle 2 to work entirely satisfactorily, and the Context is using the same stereo enabling via TRS patch cables - which is just a messy solution and nowhere near as elegant as having separate jacks. Also in something of a muddle is the preset selection - with the Context only offering one preset onboard, the Particle 2 has 4, the Tensor none - albeit all work well with external midi - and all have presets selected by different means while they should really be footswitchable. I would have thought they would try and consolidate and unify functionality and platform / control topology to aid learnability and outward compatibility. Yet all 3 pedals in the same line operate someway differently which I feel has to be some sort of oversight. Sonically and otherwise feature-wise the Context performs and sounds great - I'm jus a little annoyed by the inconsistency and somewhat lack of best practice in certain areas - at least to my way of thinking. That said when viewed independently of the the other two pedals this is a great performer and deserves consideration - it's just not quite as perfect as I would have liked it to be - particularly with what the state of the art is currently and what is possible on other pedals!

I believe Mr Sinvertek is one Wu Nan who's based in Hong Kong and overseas both CKK Electronic and Sinvertek brands. I'm a particular fan of the Sinvertek '5' series Drives, now completing my trilogy with the N5 Plus - which was the last of my 2019 pedals to arrive - just before Christmas. You will hopefully have seen my infographic by now - which I believe is essential to understanding how this wonderful preamp style pedals works. Contrary to some opinions that there are too many settings - I find it the perfect combination of the sort of features you would expect to find on an advanced high quality tube/valve amplifier - this really should be seen as a miniaturisation of that. A proper Tube Amp style PreAmp with the full roster of pertinent settings - including brightness/darkness switches - Presence and Resonance. This thing really is immense and more people should definitely try it out!

As mentioned, this is the Adrian Thorpe / Dan Coggins Lovetone revival collaboration - where they are looking to re-imagine all those classic effects in smarter, more compact enclosures with the signature sound profiles and original circuit DNA's intact - yet much improved at the same time. This sees the sleek new black anodized aluminium chassis with dual footswitches - and where for both of the first pedals released - the right footswitch is a Tone Bypass switch which somewhat elevates volume - resulting in a sort of solo boost. The Bunker is of course the new Brown Source Intermodulation Distortion where the output of the gain stage is fed back through a second time giving you more harmonics and texture alongside richer distortion. This is a very slightly fuzz-edged distortion which gets you well into those sort of Marshall AC/DC tones and late 70's/early 80's rock - while the toggle switch changes the degree of Low end frequencies in the signal path. The degree of Intermodulation is controlled by the bottom-left knob which his titled 'Texture'.

Many player's favourite flanger now since it captures so well that early Mistress High Frequency Shimmer that so many of us love. I had to do a fairly major re-jig of my pedalboard to accommodate this - and it's so worth it. It just sounds fantastic on every setting and has range and delicacy and stridency in equal measure however you want to apply it. Everything about this is quality - and it's really easy to dial in too. Note that I've swapped around some of the coloured knobs to actively remind me which groups of controls are particularly interactive. As long as you're happy with the size - I can't see how anyone would not love this - the name, graphic, colour-choices - everything about the pedal is gold - it's the high water mark of ThorpyFX - but then again all of the Thorpy pedals are great. Across ThorpyFX and Redbeard Effects I will have 10 of those pedals, with 6 on active duty in the chain - as you will see in my next post.

This time around it's the Big Cheese re-version with similar control topology to The Bunker mentioned above. Right footswitch acts as Tone Bypass, and bottom-right knob adjusts 'Balance' of output while in Tone Bypass mode. The new Field Marshal gives you more volume and more crank to the fuzz - somewhat extending the range of the original classic. I'm a considerable Fuzz fan and really love the tone and timbre Adrian and Dan have squeezed out of this one. It will be interesting for me to see which of these two new Thorpy releases ends up as the bestseller - it's way too hard to call right now - I really like the pair of them - but I haven't really got to grips with them yet - so I will report back later on which my own particular favourite is - it may be that they are simply wholly level pegging!

My favourite of the 3 new Vs Audio pedals - where I actually like each in their own way, but would be most likely to acquire this and the Aftermath Distortion + Boost. The Alchemy is a gorgeous sounding analog BBD type Chorus using re-issued MN3207 chips to deliver those shimmery tones. The magic here is not just the tone of the pedal or the simplicity of control via just 4 knobs, but the fact that the second footswitch activates and lets you scroll through 6 presets. So while the pedal lacks tap-tempo which I love on my current incumbent - the Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl MKII - the 6 presets sort of more than meet that challenge with a versatility all of their own. I've been toying with rotating in a Boss DC-2W which I will definitely be getting in this year - now I might also be rotating in a Vs Audio Alchemy on that slot - we shall see.

Interestingly this has a $50 premium over the similar looking Keeley Eccos - which by and large is a very similar pedal. I feel both the Eccos and the Mako D1 are exceptional delay pedals at any size - and that they are fully stereo with various modes, dual-footswitches and presets is just category-leading for such a compact enclosure format. When the Keeley Eccos arrived I proclaimed it the outright champion in that form factor - but it has a real contender in the D1 which is its equal in most things and better in other areas - while the same thing could be said the other way around too. I much prefer the Walrus control topology - its version of secondary function control is much easier to comprehend and apply - and overall the setup on that pedal seems more straightforward - with the presets and 5 modes. The Eccos though has that amazing Flange style modulation which sounds so sweet on the repeats - you have probably the stronger core algorithm on the Eccos competing with the greater versatility and variety of the D1 - it's too hard to call - I've pondered on this for a long while and these two pedals are totally neck-and-neck for me - the obvious answer is get both, while other players will likely have specific criteria and preferences for one or the other - and of course the Walrus Audio one is $50 dearer too - control-wise though it probably is preferable - but overall it's still very much in the balance.