Ryan (Clarke) of Dr Scientist is actually responsible for this article for the most part. He mis-identified my previous ’World Odyssey’ article as a Fuzz roundup - and referred to it as the ’Fuzz Pedal Olympics’ - which it really wasn’t although Fuzz as probably the biggest overall category / genre in that roundup - or 7/25. In any case I decided that for Ryan’s sake - we had better have that ’Fuzz Pedal Olympics’ proper - which this finally is! And obviously the 7 Fuzzes from the previous ...

Apologies that his is a little late - it took and age to research, compile and complete - and is filled with myriad wonderful fun facts - I sincerely hope you enjoy this one - as a whole heap of work has gone into bringing it to you!

So I spent the whole weekend working on updating my pedal inventory records to figure out exactly where I was at with the Reference Collection, the last time I did that exercise was a couple of years ago. I had kind of mentally estimated that I had around 1.300...

I’m a huge fan of richly textured gain pedals - and have a particularly liking for super potent firecracker mini pedals with huge sounds! - for which this Paddy Whacker Distortion certainly seems to fit the bill. The distortion circuit is designed by Ryan and Neil at Dr Scientist Sounds. The Enclosures are individually hand painted and assembled by Patrick, in-house, at Leprechaun FX in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

I love those ’Landgraff’ style swirly paint jobs - while Leprechaun note that ...

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...

Ring Modulation is most definitely something of an acquired taste - the sound of early synths to a degree - and indeed the sound of sci-fi - through extensive use in that genre - including Forbidden Planet and Dr Who soundtracks and sound effects. To my ears it can occasionally sound like a cat being tortured. But there are different degrees of Ring Modulation and some of those emanations can actually sound fairly sophisticated - particularly when delivered with some degree of panache.

The ...

This article has been a long time coming - where I originally started this ahead of the Mini Edition - which went live on January 24th. I was waiting for a couple of new pedals to be released - while the article has been iterated around 20 times now with a number of recent additions.

And the pedal I was waiting to launch still hasn’t quite happened, while the builder has authorised me to tease it in advance of its official release. And if I were to do the same exercise tomorrow - no doubt ...

A reader asked me to pick out some of my all-time favourite fuzzes - which are legion actually - just far too many to include in a single rundown. So we settled on doing somewhat less well known favourite fuzzes - under the guise of ’Secret Weapon Fuzzes’. These are mostly somewhat under the radar classics - several of which are discontinued, but all of which deliver distinct superior tones.

Beyond these being Secret Weapon Fuzzes there was no other specific theme - so we get a variety of ...

So this is the first selection here where I only own a handful of the candidates - it’s easier to say what is in the reference collection than out :

• Boss RE-2 Space Echo Compact - $249
• Boss RE-202 Space Echo Deluxe - $399
• Chase Bliss Generation Loss MKII Stereo Magnetiser - $399
• Chase Bliss Habit The Echo Collector - $399
• Meris LVX True Stereo Modular Delay System - $599
• Old Blood Noise Endeavors Screen Violence Stereo Saturated Modulated Reverb Pedal - $279

Of those the Gen Loss II ...

Back in June of 2020 I did a best of Dr Scientist roundup article (pictured below)- which featured a number of classic discontinued models - including the Cosmichorus, The Heisenberg Molecular Overdrive, Sunny Day Delay, and Tremolessence among the current crop of pedals too. And where I have 5 of those 9 in the reference collection - including probably my favourite all-time fuzz - the Frazz Dazzler.

Said article sparked off all manner of dialogues and in fact several people petitioned Ryan...