Pedal Highlights at the 2019 Birmingham Guitar Show

I did not connect with anyone at the stand, but there was plenty going on here with plenty of pedal brands on the roster - featuring the cool new Peterson StroboStomp pedal (much cooler in person that the video demos), I think I saw a Rêver from Old Blood Noise Endeavors and the new Neuron from Neunaber - also the new and fantastic REVV G4 and new Two Notes products - not sure I saw the latest Caroline Guitar Pedals announced or the Catalinbread Coriolis - but there certainly was no lack of options on the stand - possibly a little bit option paralysis to a degree as so much in a relatively compact area. The trestle-table design of these basic booths does not really compare with the stand furniture of bigger events like NAMM - where it's generally easier to demo the products - here it's often tricky to see what's going on - and the cacophony of noise makes things really difficult - so do the typical headphones with really short leads! All in all a really impressive array of pedals - that could have done with a little more breathing space.

Boss actually had a really cool stand with all the old Roland Tape Echoes in a display case, along with all the amps, recent pedals and the new slightly pricey WAZA Tube Amp Expander - which currently holds little interest for me. There was plenty of traffic on the stand - to such an extent that I was wholly unable to pin down main UK Boss/Roland Rep/Ambassador Matt Knight - better luck next time I hope. Boss is the brand I have most pedals from although not necessarily on active duty, while I still have a number of Boss pedals on my wishlist including last year's heavy hitters - the new MT-2w and DC-2w which I will undoubtedly add to the collection this year.

I spent some time chatting away with the very informative Mario Van Helden of leading European Distributor for Beetronics and Walrus Audio Pedals. They had a much better stand here than at the UK Guitar Show - which was little more than the corner of a table. Here they had properly separate pedalboards / rigs for both brands - albeit no Beetronics Swarm - much to my disappointment, and one of the reasons for my being at the show! It sounded like the only two prototypes available were then ones at the NAMM show - and neither one made it over the Atlantic. The good news though was that the brand new / forthcoming Walrus Audio Monument V2 Harmonic Tremolo in sleeker compact enclosure was on full display - with all the features intact from its bigger predecessor. My criticism of the recent Lillian Phaser was that it did not have tap-tempo - not sure why Walrus chose not to emulate the greatly received format of ARP-87 and Fathom - which they have of course used again for the Monument - I feel all pedals with a time/speed element can benefit from a separate tap-tempo footswitch!

UK distributor for lots of great pedal brands - but no Empress Zoia or Wampler Terraform in evidence. I made a slight mis-step here in acquiring the Massive Unity TAE 1964 PreAmp - which is quite a hefty pedal, and I was expecting it to deliver slightly more dynamic range and harmonics than my already excellent Bearfoot FX Emerald Green - but I found that alas not to be the case - for me the TAE 1964 does not perform in my rig at either the level of the Catalinbread Galileo or the superior Emerald Green Distortion which remains my Boosted Vox / Brian May style pedal of choice. I had heard several decent demos of the pedal's predecessor, so I'm not sure what the issue with this version is - there's quite an output disparity between drive and boost stages, and the former does not seem to have quite enough juice on tap, nor the same degree of chewy harmonics as my other pedals of this type. In any case lots of great pedals on display, but some notable exceptions too.

I may have somewhat overlooked this stand but on the few pass-by's I did - I did not spot the recently launched trio of Black Country Custom pedals - all of which I rate - the Monolith, Secretpath and Steelpark. They may have been there though just not super obvious - I'm sure someone will let me know in the comments.

I was lucky to bump into head honcho Simon Keats right at the start of the show - before he had to head off for a family engagement. We briefly discussed my provocateur (suggestions!) piece on the forthcoming Compact RevivalDrive - he promised to formulate a full response, but did say that the Ghosting effect circuit took up so much space that it just wasn't practical for the smaller compact format. As for my Mids suggestion - I feel that may be something for a later custom version. The key clarification I was able to obtain though was that the Compact voicing is a mix of or somewhere between the Silicon and Valve Rectifier voicings - so there is no rear switch - or plans for separate pedals for each channel. The Compact prototype seen at NAMM was not in evidence here either - so obviously some further R&D is ongoing here. I ran out of time to ask Simon about the release date and what else may be coming down the pipeline - hopefully he will furnish those details himself fairly soon.

I feel like I've known Adrian for far longer than I really have - he is such a warm approachable soul. I of course featured his Deep Oggin Analog Chorus in my Best of NAMM overview - and he had the exceptional Chris Buck on hand to demonstrate just how great that pedal can sound - I still want a tap-tempo footswitch though! My Thorpy collection is up to three pedals - with the Peacekeeper next in line for acquisition, no doubt I will set a new target once I have acquired that. I was sorry not to see Georgia on booth duty - especially after her brilliant showing at NAMM - I intend to interview the happy couple at their workshop at some stage in the near future - Adrian and I just need to agree on timings. Adrian also let slip that there was plenty more coming from the Dan Coggins collaboration which birthed the Deep Oggin - so we have some further interesting modulations in the pipeline to look forward to.

I was delighted to touch base and properly meet Alex Millar for the first time - I've had my eye on Zander for a while now but not yet pulled the trigger on an acquisition - there are several pedals I am interested in including 3 of the full-range Fuzz pedals - American Geek, Foxxton Woods and SiClone. I love how Alex features 6-way clipping options and dual-footswitches on nearly all his pedals - that is so down my street. Moreover he had 3 new pedals to announce at the show - the Siva Dual-Gain OpAmp Fuzz, Terra Firma Dual-Gain Sunn Model T Style Power Amp Distortion, and Junipero 8 Mode Aqueous Soundscaper Modulation Workstation with 5 onboard presets. Much like Brian Wampler's Terraform pedal - Alex sill has to decide the final flavours and types of modulations for the Junipero - but the 4 footswitches give you plenty of control for live performance. It's interesting times for Modulation Workstation with Strymon's Mobius and Boss's MD-500 now being challenged by the like of this Junipero, Wampler's Terraform, Joyo's R-09 Vision, and GFI System's forthcoming and as yet unnamed Modulation Workstation - plenty of tasty options for pedal fans.