Mission accomplished - my second Mystery Box Onward has been swapped for a Clean!

This year is off to a fantastic start! I’ve picked up 3 pedals so far this year (4 including this Clean!), and I already had a number come in during December - the January board is pretty much done already!

My most recent arrivals are the Origin Effects Deluxe 55 as already reported, and then today (Thursday as of writing) my Hamstead Redwing Analogue Stereo Modulator and Subdecay Noise Theory Parallel Wave-Folding Fuzz landed - I will be reporting on both of those next week! Finally, I met up with my now good friend Cyril Meleiro - who saw my Mystery Box Swapsies article, and offered up his Mystery Box Clean for my Onward. The exchange was arranged to take place at my local Victoria Pub over a couple of drinks, and we had good 4 hours chat in total - that’s usually what happens when you convene 2 pedal enthusiasts in the same room!

Cyril actually already had an Onward on this main board, but wanted another for his breakout board - and this evidently was the perfect opportunity to sort that out. Cyril is an expert electromechanical engineer by day, as well as a proper gigging musician.

He’s part of London prog-rockers ’Of Petra’, who now perform as a trio. Check out their eponymous album on Bandcamp. They should be releasing some new material fairly soon too! 

So Joel Korte and his Mystery Box Project is the gift that keeps on giving! - I eventually got a Clean, an AC Noises Ricorda, and a great new friend out of it. Cyril actually had a fantastic Mystery Box too, as he got a fabulous Collision Devices Crushturnal out of that - as a second guest (Friends of Bliss) pedal.

Cyril is a kindred spirit, and almost as keen on pedals as I am! He very much reminds me of my other great ’Cyril’ friend - Cyril Demaegd, whom I did the first ’GPX Inspired’ article with. I’m pretty sure they could be great friends too as they both share a similar passion for music.

Cyril Demaegd is currently on tour in Europe as part of the ’Telling Lies’ Tribute to David Bowie. Further dates should be announced soon!

The addition of the Clean makes that my 19th Chase Bliss pedal to date - as per the below visual. I still need to acquire a CXM 1978 at some stage, and I’d still quite like a Billy Strings Wombtone - but those on sale on this side of the pond have ludicrous scalpers fees attached - so that nice-to-have probably won’t happen for a while - I’m never going to pay that much over the odds - I already have the MKII Wombtone, and the Beetronics Larva is my ultimate all-time favourite Phaser in any case - and already on the board.

There’s no hurry on the CXM 1978 currently, as the Strymon BigSky MX and AC Noises Ricorda are only fairly recently onto the board. The next Reverb will likely be the somewhat delayed Paul Davids signature Cornerstone Nucleo Reverb which is surely imminent now!

I might ask my good friend Joe Halliday (Hello Sailor Effects) about modding my existing Chase Biss Condor. My understanding is that the Dirt Bird is just a badly mis-biased original Condor. But ideally I would like that option on some kind of optional switch - as I already really love the core overdrive sound of the stock original Condor. I’m sure someone could add a slider switch or similar to the chassis, and incorporate a mini circuit to accomplish that - albeit space is incredibly tight. But Joe Haliday is nothing if not dogged and determined - so I’m pretty sure he could come up with some kind of solution if I gave him that task. I will mention it to him when next we meet!