Another super busy month for me - particularly towards the end - with numerous large scale articles out this week. That also coincided with my busiest week of the year for my other day job. Meaning that I was up until 4-5 in the morning every day - just to keep up with my commitments.

I was already somewhat shattered and burned out before I even got to this super busy period - and it’s a relief that all that work has now been completed on schedule.

I’m especially proud of my work on the Bucket ...

The Splinter Twin reminds me a touch of the Fjord Fuzz Loke, and Spaceman Effects Meridian - but with quite a few more bells and whistles, and variations onboard.

I simply just watched Ryan Burke’s video - and got instantly smitten, This to my mind is one of he most unusual Delay Line Modulators / Manipulators I’ve seen to date. Cosmodio talks of the Splinter Twin as being a Time Modulator - and Time is obviously the most significant control on the pedal!

"The Splinter Twin Time ...

A Bucket Brigade Device (BBD) is an analog electronic circuit (Integrated Circuit Chip) that delays an audio signal by using a series of capacitors to ’hold’ and ’pass’ tiny samples of the signal, much like a line of people passing buckets of water. The signal is moved from one capacitor to the next within each ’Clock Cycle’, and the speed of this transfer can be adjusted to change the Delay Time - typically regulated by a further ’Clock Chip’.

In accordance with this feature, the Max Delay...

I picked up the 4th and final pedal from the Ritual Devices Flagship Quadfecta at the recent Kempton Park Show. Those are all part of the acid etched and enamelled series - which features the EVOL Fuzz, Grimalkin Fuzz, Fay Phase Filter Modulator, and this Rainmaker LFO Modulator.

The MVP control here is the Texture one - which controls the Dry/Wet Mix in such a clever way - taking you from subtle rain-drop like pitter-patter, through pulsing / pulsating tremolo, and onto vibrant fluttery ...

I’m a little late to this one - in fact too late - as not many of these were made - and seemingly they’re all sold out now. These were priced at just $150 and were available direct from Hungry Robot. $150 is really exceptional value for a pedal which consists of 2 different Reverbs, 2 Chorus Modes, a Low Pass Filter, and a Distortion - and features Dual Footswitches too!

Controls - Hollow (Low Pass Filter), Bloom (Long Decay Pad Reverb), Layer (Octave Up + Down Reverb), Chorale (2-Mode ...

Rainger FX is one of the 3 Top Tier UK brands - alongside Origin Effects and ThorpyFX. David Rainger definitely ploughs his own furrow and is one of the Original Auteurs of the pedals scene - with ever distinctly different circuit designs.

Coming into this roundup I was short of a few Minis - where I picked up the Air Space Invader and Deep Space Pulsar from Macari’s, and the Echo X - from Andertons.

I don’t really have much need for the Deep Space Pulsar - that’s there largely for sake...

So I’ve had my eye on Ghost Note Audio for a while - where the main principal seems to be of Icelandic descent - his name - Valdemar Erlingsson is very Icelandic, and I see he’s been educated at the University of Iceland. Valdemar is usually written ’Valdimar’ but both are valid.

In any case - Valdemar has been delivering some killer pedals to-date - mostly of the larger preamp pedal variety - and all those are analog of course. I love how some of those sound - but consider them to be ...

I have long admired Gamechanger Audio - they are proper pioneers of the scene, while not all their pedals have been practically usable for me for a variety reasons - but mostly to do with size. The one pedal I have to-date is the limited yellow edition of Jack White’s Plasma Coils Distortion / Fuzzstortion - which sounds amazing - and runs just a little over-sized - while by a country mile the smallest of the Gamechanger pedals so far. Most of the Gamechanger pedals are just way too big to be ...

August turned out a little bit different than expected. Not so many releases - as expected - but really busy regardless - with a number of Marquee Events and Articles throughout the month. With the king of the crop being the Extended Capacitor Primer - to which I’ve just added a further section on Capacitor Lifespan. Obviously I hit 15,000 followers on Instagram - which is a significant achievement - a really killer month all-round with some big articles - meaning I’m a little bit burned out ...