Some time late last year I identified that the Tremolo section of my Reference Collection was probably the weakest of the major modulation categories - and I determined to do something about it in 2024 to bring that fully up to scratch. I made 2024 my ’Year of Tremolo’ and set to the task of bolstering my own capsule collection. Seems like I slightly overdid it in the end - as I’ve so far added 17 to the collection thoughout this year, with a likely couple more still to come.
So as with all...
You got to love Filipe Pampuri’s innovative streak - always finding new and interesting spins on different circuit categories. And this time around it’s the turn of the humble Phaser - where Filipe doubles down on the flavour, and allows you to transition and morph between 2 different settings in a variety of interesting ways.
In terms of the layout and topology it’s of a similar nature to the previous Seabee and Zzombee pedals, but much simpler from a control perspective - with pretty much...
So this incredibly busy month was supposed to be all about Tremolos, culminating with the Rounder Sounds Zebra-Trem Review and 30 Tremolo Pedal Overview. But we hit some snags along the way - the Zebra-Trem was mysteriously held up in customs for a week, and then got slightly lost in the local postal network. And when it did finally arrive - evidently it had been dropped a few times, as the screen was no longer working. After trying various obvious remedies with Bill over a few days - with no ...
Beetronics have called this new budget pedal of theirs the Tuna Fuzz - while I’m being more literal and labelling it for exactly what it is. This is supposedly based on one of Filipe’s very original fuzzes - I can see Alchemy Audio sold one of those earlier versions a while back.
Felipe has evidently made contact with a canning factory - and I would think that the 3 transistors are are fairly mainstream silicon - otherwise there would be notes on their rarity or NOS status - so I would ...
As promised - this turned out to be quite a big month - we had 5 substantial pedal rundowns - where I hope you appreciate the time and effort put into those - they take a very long time to compile and write up! :
I attended just one show this month - but it was a great one - the #2 Alternative Guitar Show @ Hackney...
So this has been on the cards for a while, in fact I needed to get an update of both boards featured here, as the first version I had was almost a year ago now. The idea was always to feature reader’s pedalboards - which had been somewhat noticeably / significantly inspired by this very site.
And I’m delighted that Long-term GPX friend and pedal fan Cyril Demaegd, board game designer / developer (founder of Ystari Games) and touring musician, has been somewhat ’Inspired by GPX’ since December of...
So it’s been quite a while since I last covered this subject - indeed you have to go back to a August 2018 feature, which covered just 6 pedals. And where the then mentioned 770 Circuits seems to have wholly gone to ground in the interim, and there is no sign of its Komparator Trem-Fuzz anywhere anymore!
This time around I cast a slightly wider net - do note that these are a mix of LFO-assisted - therefore more Trem-Fuzz, and more natural feedback fuzz-oscillation. Essentially these are are...
So this project was first announced right on April 1st - in the middle of all the April Fool stuff - and part of me still isn’t 100% sure this is entirely real - even though the pedal is in wide dealer distribution by now.
It seems a little vanilla to be a full-fat Beetronics style pedal - but there are several smart touches here which make it worthy.
Controls - KLONE } Honey (Gain), Taste (Tone), Volume, Mode : 1 No Clean Blend / 2 Medium Blend / 3 Full Blend, Klone Footswitch; ...
Beetronics’ new fuzz celebrates the tones of Brazil’s 1970’s Tropicalia Movement. With 3 different flavours of Buzz, Fuzz and Drive across default Buzz or Tropical Mode.
The Flavour switch helps you define your core tone and texture - which you can then fine-tune with Hi and Lo knobs - and engage the Tropical Mode to shave off some of the low-end.
Controls - Loud (Volume), Flavour : Polen (sagged low gain buzz) / Nectar (round high gain fuzz) / Honey (sweet high gain drive), Buzz (Fuzz)...
The Modutility roundup combines Modulation, Utility and Pitch type pedals - it also includes Multi-FX and Multi-Modulation pedals of course. Some years this selection is relatively sparse - while this year it’s totally chock-a-block! In fact it was a struggle to whittle the Longlist down - and inevitably some pedals I wanted to feature did not make the cut - including the Endorphin.es Ghost Pedal Multi-FX and Subdecay Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter.
I still feel that this selection of 26 is...