So January 2025 sees a momentous milestone - where we have the peak possible number of pedals in the chain - which now numbers no less than 52 Pedals. It’s an incredibly tight squeeze - and all the available space is now fully used up.

I’ve re-flowed the main visual - where I used to try to have a fixed format arrangement - but now have re-numbered the slots entirely corresponding to the number and order of those pedals. Last January I noted that I was going to switch out my 2 Friedman ...

I first clocked Verso’s Folded Sheet Metal Guitars (Steel) late last year, while I’ve not paid to much heed to the Circle Guitar up until now. There was an earlier iteration of the Circle Guitar back in 2020, where that design has been massively refined and honed in the interim. Originally the spinning disk had 128 slot for different styles of picks / plectrums, while the newer model has a sort of modular system of 16 slots and 16 controls - including those 6 individual string faders. I believe...

So when I first covered the HammerOn - alongside the MonoNeon Whammy release, I hadn’t fully gotten to grips with what this pedal was overall about. I think that at my time of writing there were no demos out at that time - while a few brief NAMM snapshots have emerged since - particularly around the 2-5 Note Sequencer and Trill Auto Repeater functionalities.

As the proud owner of the HammerOn’s adjacent siblings - the Drop, and the Whammy Ricochet - I thought I would break it down in the ...

I’m a little late with this - even Josh Scott beat me to the punch here - while I had always intended to do an overview article for Pedalnetics - this is just when I finally got to that task!.

Pedalnetics in the main makes various switching devices which wholly fit with the profile of the target pedals they are intended for, it also makes pedal-risers and patch-bays, as well as colourful replacement knobs for Halo Devices. The switches are either stand-alone and simply connected, or consist...

Intriguingly - so just after EXH revealed its 50th Anniversary Small Stone, MXR now has its own 50th Anniversary Phase 90 - while I’m not aware the latter comes in a wooden box! - which you seem to pay around $100 extra for - for the EHX Model - that and an additional Color Slider Switch and of course original Chip. The Small Stone 50A being sold for $300, where this Gold Phase 90 will be at $199 and equivalent.

Supposedly these are officially out in March - and so will be available for pre...

I’m a huge fan of the original Bixonic Axentrix I Expandora take, and I’ve been championing that right from the start! I’m not always a fan of pure DSP circuits - while the Axentrix I sounds fantastic, and delivers an amazing feature set - with incredible tones - the Fuzz voicing in particular is magnificent! And the LED-centric display is really smart and intuitive.

So for 2025 the Axentrix has been reworked and rebooted - where the latter 3 modes appear to be the same as for the Expandora...

So Browne Amps has a cool new Analog BBD Chorus (BBD not specified!) with special abilities - which include the ability to retain low end, no volume drop, and access to faster “rate” speeds.

Browne describe it as :

"With the ability to do everything from slow, lush, ballad inducing chorus, to Leslie-esque rotary tones, all the way to pure, warm & beautiful vibrato the SSHAC gives you access to anything you can dream up."

Controls - Speed, Depth / Intensity, Blend : Wet Mix.

This...

David Rolo always makes distinctly unique devices, and this Kiwami is no exception - in uniquely combining a Dual Resonant Filter (bi-directional) with Ring Modulation, Flanging, and Aliasing.

You have quite an extensive control topology to help you get the most out of this format - which essentially takes Resonant Filtering into new and interesting textural areas.

Controls - Decay (Effect Fade), Envelope Sensitivity, Gain, Volume, LFO Rate, LFO Depth, Frequency Range, Resonance, Wave ...

I’m not sure who announced these first, while we have a cool symmetry in that both Marshall and Peavey have announced 5 new guitar pedals based on their best loved amps - all at around the same time.

In fact the Peavey varieties are closer to what I would have expected from Marshall - where those more fully represent their original source amps - with the full complement of expansive controls. While Marshall stuck to just 4 controls on each. In some ways the Marshall ones look more ...