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So right at the end of last month Rob Chapman posted up a YouTube video of a rundown of his all-time favourite guitar pedals. He initially states he’s going to name his 10 most favoured ones - but goes on to mention 20 - which I’ve fully included here.

Rob has a great ear for tone - as countless of his own and Anderton’s videos have proven time and time again. And I really love his everyman approach to guitar gear. I’ve encountered him in person 2 or 3 times now over the years - and he’s ...

This is the 4th of my recent ’12 Degrees’ Series - this time moving beyond the boundaries of gain / saturation into the area of modulation. There are of course many more than the 12 modulations I have selected here - there are aliasing, ring modulation and lo-fi signal degeneration effects as well as more complex multi-combo effects, splicers and complex pattern modulators - including for instance the excellent recent Big Ear Albie. Of course the more obscure the category of ...

In my recent coverage of Eddie Van Halen’s Signature Pedals I indicated that I had none of the usual suspects Overdrives/Distortions - or namely MXR EVH 5150, Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe and Seymour Duncan Diamondhead. While in fact I have well over 20 Brown Sound Style variants in my collection of various different sizes - with the vast majority being compact enclosures as featured here. I make no secret of the fact that the compact size format is my faourite and particularly for these sorts of ...

This article was another triggered by a number of recent ’Best Chorus Pedals’ posts out on other sites - which I didn’t feel adequately covered this category. Initially I didn’t used to be that much into Chorus - but being a huge Prince, Nirvana, The Police and The Cure fan amongst others - the Chorus was always going to feature there in the tonal reference library - and besides, I soon discovered how to do all kinds of other cool things with Chorus - for instance just adding a touch of sparkle...

This is a direct follow-up to my Pedal Primary Colour Wheel article where I noted the direct correlation between the colour Red and Marshall-style Drive and Distortion pedals. I named 6 that fitted the bill then, and I’ve found a few more to complete an elegant colour-matched grouping. The post was triggered by the original article, but also my recent acquisition of the Sitek Wuffy Distortion.

Note that these pedals vary between Plexi and JCM-800 styles of drive - some cover more territory,...

I’ve only just very recently provided a list of my 20 favourite Marshall Style Pedals - and obviously some of those have been separated out into the heavier High Gain category - but when you focus on distortion you can’t really get away from Marshall to a large degree - such is its influence on these types of tones. In fact 14 pedals are retained from the Marshall article and 10 more somewhat different varieties have been added.

If you’ve recently read the Marshall ...

After doing lots of more individual flavours of drive pedal overviews recently - it’s time to do another roundup of that most eternally favoured of amp distortion tones - the many flavours of Marshall. There are a few here that are based on JTM45 sounds - but generally I’ve separated the Bluesbreaker style pedals into their own category. Most of these are within that classic rock heyday range or sort of Plexi through JCM800.

I’ve tried to indicate most relevant Amp ...

I have to confess that I used to be a touch confused between Chorus/Vibrato and Vibe/Uni-Vibe effects. In certain pedals there is a degree of overlap, but generally a genuine Uni-Vibe pedal is actually a sort of phaser / phase-shifter whose effect is generated by bulb-driven photocell modulation. The original Shin-Ei Uni-Vibe was developed in around 1967/8 to replicate the Leslie / Rotary Speaker sound. While it did not come nearly close enough to achieving that effect, it did nonetheless ...