The original Spaceman I first came out in 2013, with the much larger Sputnik II materialising in 2017, and then the mid-size Sputnik III arriving a few years later in 2020. I missed out on the Spaceman I upon its original release, but picked up a pristine Red Cyrillic version of that in 2018 - which eagle eyed reader will note is my favourite American fuzz (vis-a-vis The Fuzz Pedal Olympics!).

I had the opportunity to get the Sputnik II at the time of release, but always felt that its ...

Brazil is a fascinating guitar pedal marketplace - mostly inward looking, and mostly closed off from the rest of the world. I was the first European I believe to get Aura Amps and Tone Ink pedals shipped out of Brazil. Some of those brands have some experience of shipping up the landmass and into Central and North America, but little or nothing ventures across the waters in either direction.

Andy Timmons has long favoured the GNI/ NIG Music OctaFuzz (as pictured left of centre) - where I’ve...

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 ...

Tru-Fi’s Teddy Rasch has really pushed the boat out with this one - finding the perfect combination of Germanium Transistors to create the ultimate Germanium Zonk. The literature talks of 2G381 (TI) and Mullard OC75 black glass transistors. While in my unit I have the superb combination of AC125 + NTK278 + OC75 - for a weapons-grade searing harmonic output.

Here Fuzz is Gain, and Swell is Level essentially - there’s so much of both onboard that I don’t really take the Fuzz above Noon, or ...

I obviously have and love the original - with its external Bias control and super handy LED Bias Screen. The new one is simply an improvement of that already great circuit - with additional controls - and of course retaining that fantastic richly detailed harmonic germanium sound.

Silktone have also graciously maintained the price point - so you’re getting quite a bit more bang for you buck here. As before - I would of course have preferred this in a vertically oriented format, but since it...

So I attended a GuitarGuitar Camden 20th Anniversary EarthQuaker Devices Showcase Event last Tuesday the 24th! The guests of honour obviously being Pedal Power Couple - Husband and Wife team Jamie Stillman and Julie Robbins. This was actually only their second visit to the UK - the first being another whistle-stop tour in 2018 or thereabouts. This time around they were being chaperoned around by good friend of ours Tom Bodfish from Northern Europe EQD Distributor - Audio Distribution Group.

 ...

Readers of this site will know that I’ve long admired the extraordinary sound-design talents of Cohen Hartman - who’s best known through his SpiralCaster Plays Pedals YouTube Channel. In my opinion he is one of the very finest pedal demo artists there ever was. He has a way of teasing out some truly unique tones and textures from most pedals - and taking them places where others just don’t or can’t seem to venture.

He did a slew of particularly brilliant demos in the lead up to my February ...

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 ...

It was quite the deliberation - deciding which image should be the cover shot for this feature - on balance I think I made there right decision by picking the very first photo of the day - where Hello Sailor Effects certainly delivers that Technicolour Rainbow which looks so appealing. Moreover I snagged a one-off pedal from that stand - a few minutes before the show was officially opened - but more of that later!