So I’m not always the biggest fan of Signature pedals - as often they’re simply a re-badged version of a standard pedal - like say the EHX J Mascis Big Muff or EHX Andy Summers Walking on the Moon Flanger - with little or no direct artist input for that actual circuit. At other times they’re too specific in their scope - like say Jack White’s MXR Double Down or Paul Gilbert’s JHS PG-14 examples. And sometimes they’re out-and-out cash-ins - usually priced a little higher and made available in ...

For us proper Fjord Fuzz pedal fans - that have been there since the early days, what attracted us first to the brand - apart from the original striking Copper and Black Enclosures - were those raw and full-fat properly unfettered and wholly unlimited and unrestricted saturated fuzz sounds.

The Måne is a joyride in pedal format - where you most definitely need an expression pedal  - it’s an incomplete experience without one of those.

The controls are very simple here :

FUZZ SIDE } ...

So we’ve already had a Tube Preamp from Drunk Beaver before - the Ternopil from Pedal Drop #20 - that one was more of a tone-enhancer - added warmth and sparkle kind of thing - using a fairly unique Ukrainian 6Ж45Б-В Pentode Tube.

The Lutsk Deluxe Preamp is more typical fare in many ways - based that classic 5E3 Tweed Generation of Fender Amps. At its basic level it’s a reproduction of the Tweed Deluxe preamp section (Single Channel), while of course with Vitalii’s usual tweaks in effect. ...

I already teased this review in my recent Compact Rat Distortions rundown - where I stated that I much preferred the Alternative Rat setting - with the SD-1 Tone Stack. Often the distinction can be fairly subtle, but overall the SD + RT output profile is more punchy and articulate.

That said - that Rat setting is only my 3rd favourite voicing here overall - where the big surprise for me is the RT Tone Stack with the SD Clipping. That turns out to be a little like the TS808 with the ODR-1 ...

I would like to start my apologising that I got the previous One Knob Phaser article wrong - as I momentarily lapsed into thinking that the EHX Small Stone was a 2-Stage variant, where it’s rather the very first of the 4-Stage varieties. I’m so used to associating 4-Stages with the MXR Phase 90 - that it has always been my key benchmark, and until recently I’ve not been entirely clear on EHX’s illustrious phaser history - which I am now!

I still find it somewhat infuriating that you’re not ...

NOTE! - I made a mistake here - the EHX Small Stone is a 4-stage type - will need to re-do this article. Looks like I now have enough for a One-Knob 4-stage rundown - but so far can only find 3 One-Knob 2-Stage types - do let me know if you discover a worthy 4th!

I was originally going to focus on the Phase 90 4-Stage types, but could not find enough for a significant full house - while there seemed to be a lot more of the 2-Stage variety - which is what this selection consists of.

All ...

We’re back onto the fully similar pedals again - with 4 contemporary examples of a vintage 2-knob chorus. All of these sport the exact same chip set - consisting of the 3207 + 3102 Boss CE-3 style chipset - but using the CoolAudio V3207 and V3102 variants - versus the original Matsushita / Panasonic MN3207 and MN3102 variants. In fact there’s just one tiny difference here in that the Way Huge Blue Hippo has a different Chinese BL3102 variant of that chip type - but with identical values. Which ...

Noise Engineering is best known for its Eurorack and Modular Synths, where the Dystorpia is its first stompbox pedal as such. It is fittingly a synthesised DSP style Fuzz / Distortion pedal - and somewhat discordant in its output profile - hence the most befitting name! Actually quite a raw and spiky sounding distortion as a whole, and pretty far removed from most everything that has come before. Certainly not your typical Guitar distortion effect!

I would say it’s something of an acquired ...

I still love my SDE-3000 EVH Delay Workstation unit - that combination of pristine digital delay and uniquely flavoured modulation just sounds superb - and you can cover EVH and Andy Timmons delay patterns with ease. A significant advantage of the SDE-3000 is the precise digital screen - where you can easily set delay values in Milliseconds or Beats Per Minute - in actual numerical integers.

While the controls of the SDE-3 are much more analogue in their nature - and need to be guided by ...