London International Guitar Show, Kempton Park - Pedal Highlights / The Kings of Kempton!

https://flattleyguitarpedals.com | www.instagram.com/flattleyguitarpedals/

I don't think anyone attends more of these shows than Paul Flattley does as he doesn't just thread the various UK venues - but he's frequently active across the continent too. Freshly back from a great show at Guitar Summit - with a brand new version of the pedal genre that he first made his name with - the Wah Pedal. In terms of the 'Kings of Kempton' theme - Paul can very much said to be the King of Wah - and his newest one is inspired by the classic vintage Coloursound one - which was supposedly the first to use this kind of Twin Resonant Filler style  of wah. Which is Tight, Articulate, Vocal Sounding with very even sweep and exceptionally balanced output - slightly more mellow / less strident that inductor style Wah pedals.

And in contrast to previous Flattley Wah pedals - there are no User adjustable controls - whatever internal controls there are - are purely for Paul's initial setup and calibration. This is a very distinct Wah pedal - both in function and output, and of course its Platinum Series hydro-dipped metal flake sparkly artwork with base-place halo lighting! A cool and unusual Wah for sure!

Featured Pedal : Twin T Resonant Filter Wah

ASDB - Audiostorm Modular Daughterboard System

https://audiostorm.uk | www.instagram.com/audiostormeffects/

We will dub Sean The King of Innovation and Iteration - who is finally into the final release cycle of his magnificent Grand Classic High Gain Distortion pedal - after he's wholly revised that, introduced a new automated manufacturing process, new Modular snap-on Daughterboard 'second effect' circuit which works in conjunction with a modified and bypassable AKAI style expression pedal - as pictured. This allows you to have a secondary effect onboard the pedal which can be engaged wholly dynamically. The first of which I believe is a Low-Pass / Wah Filter Module!

I've been in on the Kicksterer project from the start - and it's been one helluva ride over the last 12 months - with the first production edition finally at the show (Circuit + Internals) with Sean aiming to have all the Kickstarter pedals, and hopefully quite a few more delivered by Christmas - exciting times ahead!

Featured Pedal : Grand Classic Distortion with Modular Daughterboard and Bypassable Expression pedal

Controls - Level, Amp (Voicing) : EL84 > EL34 > 6L6, Drive, Mids, High, Lo Mids Boost, Growl Boost, Crunch Boost.

https://theberryfx.co.uk | www.instagram.com/theberryfx/

This was my first time meeting George Berry - and his Dad for that matter - surely King of the Racing Stripe here - with a particular nod to the Orange and Blue liveried 1966 GT40 MKII Le Mans edition - and with beautifully apt die-cast model on the stand along with parts of a Scalextric track - to suitably underpin that theme.

A really cool selection of vintage inspired effects - with some genuine innovation on display with different sizes of enclosures - some larger 3D printed ones, and plenty of those compact racing stripe editions - including George's 3 most popular formats - the GT40 Chorus, The TubeDVR, and the Twin-Transistor The Stacker. He also had a couple of special 'Keef' Richards lower gain TubeDVR types I think it was - up for sale!

Featured Pedal : Limited Edition Le Mans GT40 Livery CE-2 style Chorus

Controls : Rate, Depth

https://buzzingbugsfx.com | www.instagram.com/buzzingbugsfx/

Lovely to meet up with Dan again - and his Dad for the first time! Dan has been at most of the same shows as me this year, and was soft-launching his brand new BB03 Lo-Fi Chorus - mostly inspired by but totally distinct from Joel Korte's Instant Lo-Fi Junky - design while he worked for Zachary Vex, and the forerunner to his later Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl.

As we shall see this Friday - Dan's new Chorus has a couple of rather unusual controls - all will be revealed this coming Friday the 3rd of November - there are a couple of leaser glimpse posts on his Instagram, but no sound samples / trailers yet - those will surely come this week in the lead up to the big Friday reveal - where I will of course be doing a launch feature too! Another really smartly engineered pedal for sure!

Featured Pedal : BB03 Lo-Fi Chorus

Controls - Room, Depth, Time, Mix, Age.

https://www.fredric.co.uk | www.instagram.com/fredric_effects/

I don't think I've met anyone as consistently at these events as Tim Webster - feels like I've known him forever - and it's always great to catch up. I'm planning to visit his new Studio some time in the new year - and do a more in-depth feature on some of his key pedals.

He's still going through the process of converting a number of his compact pedals to the new really cool wedge enclosures - while the larger wedges pretty much still just sell themselves!

Featured Pedal/s for this show were the vintage style Super Unpleasant Companion - with the controls on the rear of the pedal - including a super rare White edition from the Regent Sounds White Limited Edition run. That last remains one has the tiniest of dings on one of the top edges - and is going very cheap - for whoever is lucky enough to snap that one up. That run sold out incredibly quickly a couple or so years back!

Featured Pedal : Super Unpleasant Companion White Regent Sounds Edition (Last of the line)

Controls - Volume, Tone : 1|2, Mode : FY-2 / FY-6, Expander.

https://funnylittleboxes.co.uk | www.instagram.com/funny_little_boxes/

Andy Ilgunas was in infectiously upbeat mode - so well is his new Queens of the Stone Age inspired Skeleton Key Distortion going that it looks set to repeat the phenomenal success of the 1991 Pearl Jam inspired Dual Overdrive / Distortion.

Collaborator Matt Webster scored a real coup for the project when he managed to get QOTSA Album Artist Boneface involved  - another properly on-theme pedal project at that super attractive nay killer £99 price point! A super simple classic 3-knob Drive/Distortion - but it's again calibrated just right!

Featured Pedal : Skeleton Key Queens of the Stone Age in a box

Controls : Gain, Tone, Volume.

https://www.goliathfx.co.uk | www.instagram.com/goliath_fx/

It's alway fantastic to catch up with Matt 'The King of Crackle' he really is the best at those craquelure paint jobs - and is forever adding mastery in new paint effects - including swirl and spatter now too.

I'm delighted that he's heeded my advice on how best to incorporate a logo / brand mark onto his pedals - in the form of a uniform striped style brandmark which is very close to being perfected now. As soon as that happens there will surely be some extensive coverage of his range - which is already shaping up superbly - including of course the featured pedal on this occasion the icy Blue and White IceDrive Bass Overdrive. Available in 3 versions currently - with the compact version looking to go with Dual Footswitches, while the slightly larger edition featured accommodates an XLR DI Out.

Featured Pedal : IceDrive Bass Overdrive with XLR DI Out (evolved from TS9)

Controls - Mids, Tone, Volume, Clean Blend, Variable LED > Silicon Clipping, Drive.

https://www.hamsteadsoundworks.com | www.instagram.com/hamsteadhq/

Two Kings of Elegance here - Circuit Design GeniusPeter Hamstead and Virtuoso Guitarist Brian Love - still full of secrets about their 2 new projects - which are due to go live around Spring of next year. I will be visiting the Cambridgeshire-based Studio. / Workshop around that time.

The new Stereo Harmonic Tremolo is now near enough complete - while the Top Secret Artist Collaboration is still in development - and that apparently needs to be launched first - for reasons to be revealed at the time!

I'm certainly very excited to find out what the secret artist project is all about - and to see if any of my suggestions ended up in the final version of the Harmonic Tremolo - really looking forward to the reveal!

The featured pedal on this occasion is one that seems to have passed under the radar for most - I covered It myself back in June of 2021 - and while I was dazzled by both the Odyssey and Subspace  - I probably didn't give the Comet enough due attention. Probably time for everyone to revisit that pedal - perhaps an interim collaboration is on the cards with Hamstead - before the two new projects emerge next year!

Featured Pedal : Comet Interstellar Drive / Fuzz

Controls : Level, Bass, Treble, Gain, EQ>DRV (Fuzz), DRV>EQ (Overdrive).

https://reverb.com/uk/shop/hello-sailor-effects | www.instagram.com/hellosailoreffectsofficial/

Great to see good friend Joe Halliday back on the show circuit again - fully loaded this time with new merch - and about 3 or 4 of his usual weekend pedal drops spread out across a Royal Navy Battle Ensign - everything as usual very thematically on point.

Joe is for sure the King of Crafting - in fact for this show the 'King of Wrap' even on this occasion as so many of what I thought were metallic paint effects or similar were rather really clever wrap materials - expertly applied - with not a single 'bubble' or blemish. I really liked the new felt / velour editions and the purple leatherette ones - in fact so much of what was on that table had the most superb detailing and the most perfect of decals!

I was very keen on a 2-knob Anchor Drive edition with Dual Stacked Gain on the left-hand-knob - but someone got to it before me. Would have been nice to own that version - but I'll just need to make sure now that Joe makes me an even better one. That's definitely the next project - one of his Anchor Drives, then followed up by a proper kitchen sink dual switchable Ge/Si Transistor Rangemaster - with so many options that it should kind of look like a hedgehog of toggle-switches!

Alas there is no demo available of the new behemoth variety of Abbey Road Fuzz + Rangemaster - that's the HSE pedal that was most in circulation that day - also the as yet to be named High Gain Distortion pedal - which I'm definitely interested in. Someone who shall remain unnamed stated that it had 'too much gain' which we all know is impossible! You cannot have too much volume or gain range on a pedal - it's all about of you deploy it!

Featured Pedal : Limited Edition Rebel Rebel Leia Felt / Velour Edition Abbey Road Fuzz + Rangemaster

Controls : ABBEY } Volume, Fuzz, RANGEMASTER } Range, Focus, Independent Footswtiches

The full spread on Royal Navy Battle Ensign - early on in the show.

https://www.pedalborn.com | www.instagram.com/iampedalborn/

I'm not even sure I saw Ben Hartley's Pedalborn on the original show roster - and while he was the only one I encountered who had not yet experienced the fabulous world of Guitar Pedal X - it was still a delight to make his acquaintance.

His new Stormcaller evolved Silicon Fuzz Face essentially is available in several editions - Black and Red with Black or White knobs, and with or without Parallel FX Loop - which feature kind of explains / justifies the size of the pedal.

There's no one totally unusual or unique thing here - while the combination here certainly is - and the way those transistors are socketed is pretty unique - in being screw-fixed as such. I own several Fuzz pedals in particularly which have socketed Transistors and / or Diodes - and some of which come with a bag or small box of spares / alternatives that you can swap in yourself.

For Bass Players this is the Fuzz Face they were waiting for as it has a Clean Blend front and centre. And if you connect something into the FX Loop - then you can Blend that with the core fuzz voicing. So it's pretty innovative overall. While there's typically not that big a use of the actually component swapping ability - as unless you have 2 channels - it's very difficult to remember the exact nuances between one part and another - where there is a long gap between swapping out the old and swapping in / screwing in the new variant. In any case you do have a handy internal Bias trimmer to adjust were you to go for alternative Germanium varieties. Ben probably needs to offer up some options / multi-packs of transistor to make that side of the pedal more viable longer-term!

So many of my builder friends have introduced DIY and customisable features into their pedals - while the uptake and use of those particular feature still tends to be alas relatively low - for some of the reasons I've already mentioned.

Featured Pedal : Stormcaller Socketed 2-Transistor Fuzz with Blend and Parallel FX Loop

Controls : Volume, Clean / Loop Blend, Gain, Parallel FX Loop, Unique Socketed / Switchable Transistors, Internal Bias.

https://www.pedalpatch.co.uk | www.instagram.com/pedalpatchuk/

Phil and his Brother would not comply to hold up something they were pitching at the show - so I will choose for them - and my choice is those cool Brith Onion Pedals Patchbox collaborations to the left of the stand - those are definitely new since my last visit.

Where of course Solderless Patch Cables will always be front and centre for this brand - as of course used by Guitar Legend Chris Buck most recently.  Really sharp stand as always - and cool to get a full stereo / double vision effect with the two banners x two brothers combination!

Featured Pedal/s : Bright Onion Pedals collaboration PedalPatch branded - 2 & 4 Gang Patchboxes

https://www.rhodiumelectronics.co.uk | www.instagram.com/rhodiumelectronicsltd/ | www.instagram.com/tanquelab/

Another first acquaintance here with the highly prolific Antonio Rubio - who presides over 2 brands - the more converntional compact edition Rhodium Electronics, and the more experimental Tanquelab - which enclosures really need to be seen up close and personal - how those dual-hued boxes are constructed and put together.

And most unique of all is Antonio's Tanquelab ODD-1 Drivestortion - a totally unique gain pedal of Antonio's own devising - where some internal circuit magic splits out the key frequencies and applies separate gain to each - via the Drive and Distortion controls.

You can really get some incredible output in how you combine those two in particular - a really glorious bluesy overdrive at its core - with superb dynamics and whose expansive range takes you easily into Fuzz and Distortion too.

I also really love Antonio's custom aluminium knob design - a proper quality outfit for sure - which I will surely collaborate with in the near future!

Featured Pedal : Tanquelab ODD-1 Drivestortion

Controls - Tone, Volume, Drive, Distortion