I do like my Reverbs, and have always been intrigued by the more sci-fi sounding variants. The Ricorda was originally down on my ’nice-to-have’ list, until I lucked out with my Chase Bliss Mystery Box - and got one as a bonus pedal!

Essentially you have a huge spatial ambient reverb with a smart granular delay, and then Freeze and Loop functions via the left Footswitch.

I had not fully appreciated the scope of capabilities when I did my original write-up. While this is every way a ...

It’s been a while since I covered loopers, and that topic is timely once more as there have been a number of very recent innovations.

I still feel that the TC Electronic Ditto+ is the one essential looper you need, while a number of the recent ones offer up some very interesting possibilities - in some intriguing formats. This selection focuses solely on ’Compact’ editions - so the Sheeran ones for example don’t qualify within that form factor. And a number of these combine a Drum Machine ...

A distinct and different departure for Rick Matthews with an entirely different brand personality. Great to see those arcade switches in place though - which I first witnessed on the Chase Bliss Automatone Preamp. The interface / topology is elegantly and clearly delineated with all the labels visible, while the secondary function labels look a touch small - so presumably difficult to spot from a standing position.

Note that there was a previous version of The Technician in and around 2019 ...

So we had the usual cryptic clues that something was about to happen - with various glimpses of the Dirt Bird pedal, as well as an older version of the Ayahuasca Trem-Fuzz. So even more cryptic than usual - while it increasingly looked like we would be getting a new variant of the Condor pedal.

When the reveal happened it all got a bit more complicated as this smart Mystery Box festive promotion was world-wide - where everyone pays the same $299 and equivalent for their mystery box (free ...

On first seeing this striking pedal you get instant Chase Bliss vibes - while this is an entirely new incredibly creative sort of glitchy circuit which Microlooper-style records its input into a buffer - where 9 x ’Playback Operators’ grab snippets from a 15 second Buffer and randomly play those back at different speeds and in different vector directions. The randomisation hits once per second where the 5 Playback Operator types get fired off randomly - i.e. some are played, some are not, and ...

As soon as I saw Tom’s artwork for this pedal it brought to mind a tropical reef - and I thought I would be able to do a pretty cool visual around that theme - which turned out somewhat high concept in execution - but beautifully contextual as far as I’m concerned!

Tom is the master of these kinds of signal manipulators and texturisers where I previously reviewed his Retroflect LoFi Tape Simulator / Modulator - which I really love too. The Flow Decoder is a similar pedal in its core utility...

I believe this is the first new DigiTech branded pedal we’ve had for this Cor-Tek continuation of the brand. Of course we had the Chtonic Dark Silicon Fuzz from that same group - back in November of 2023 - while that one was for sister brand DOD.

As soon as I saw the new JamMan Solo HD I thought it was very obviously a competitor for Boss’s enduringly popular RC-5 Loop Station. There’s a degree of similarity between the two - and they’re obviously direct competitors - with each having it’s ...

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...

I’m getting a little bit Beetronics syndrome here - as a warning to not necessarily acquire the first edition that comes along - as subsequent editions are typically prettier and more appealing.

It just so happens that I still quite like my sort of Original Lilac MKII, while it’s quite evident that the 10 Year Anniversary ’Birthday Cake’ and this recent ’Light Bright’ edition are somewhat more aesthetically pleasing!

I’m generally a huge fan of Chase Bliss designer Eric Nyffeler - and ...