Wishing You a Happy Xmas and a Wonderful New Year! And thank you for sharing the journey!

I’d like to start off by apologising for how long it often takes me to respond to comments and inquiries. I do of course have a very demanding day job - meaning I’m tied up a lot of the time - and I really do my best to keep up to date with all your comments and messages - while some weeks are obviously a bit of a struggle depending on prevailing workloads.

Some of you don’t realise that Guitar Pedal X is but a one man operation - and that I do this on top of several other activities - meaning lots of late working on Weekends and into the wee early hours each day - I frequently have to get by on less than 5 hours sleep overnight - so please exercise some patience - I will get back to you eventually.

I’m always surprised when I get to the end of the year and recap on everything that has happened - just how relatively smooth everything has been really. Of course we’ve been beset with all manner of logistics, delays, extra paperwork, strikes and the like this year - but everything has made it through eventually. I just encourage people to have a little more patience in these trying times. People are far too quick to chase up refunds for failures of delivery - when the package then arrives one or two weeks later. I myself often forget about this - but you really need to give it at least a month - and then add 10% on top of that.

I remain enduringly lucky as I very rarely receive something damaged in the mail - less often than the fingers of one hand in total really. The fact that everything has turned up in good order eventually really is a blessing.

Generally I encourage people to have a little more consideration all-round - same goes with testing out pedals - where people decree all to soon that a pedal is not for them - often within a day or two of receiving it - some pedals are proper ’growers’ and you need to give them circa one month at least for you to warm to their charms - after that you’re welcome to decree said pedal isn’t for you.

I’m really here - as Guitar Pedal X - to give you more informed options / choices and possibilities for what is out there in the wider world. I don’t expect you to like all my choices and recommendations - while you need to trust that everything featured on Guitar Pedal X has passed quality and due diligence tests. I really only feature those pedals I would be happy to have on my own board - and would in fact in real life actually have on my own board.

No disrespect to my fellow pedal sites - in fact several of whom are friends - shout out to Paolo De Gregorio in particular at Delicious Audio / Stompbox Exhibit who is so vital to this scene. Most of those sites are just kind of Press Release Resources though. Unlike me they don’t run an active board, and mostly don’t get proper in-context experience of using those pedals. For all of my articles there is a definite methodology in place - underlined by the Scientific Method process of detail-oriented observation and evaluation.

It’s been quite hairy and stressy this year at times - but hopefully it was mostly fun for you. I do tend to have a kind of artistic temperament at times and can unfortunately get emotional every now and again - while mostly it’s just nose to the grindstone.

Overall it’s been a lot of fun this year - and I hope you have enjoyed the journey so far.

Wishing you all a serene Christmas time - particularly my friends in Kiyv. Hopefully you have a wonderful 2023!

The GPX Journey continues in the new year - see you on the flip side! ...