November has been a crazy month! With such a flurry of activity from around the middle of the month onwards. So many companies took full advantage of Black Friday promotions - and the smartest of them started early, and extended their campaign through to the 2nd or 6th of December - in order to be able to take advantage of 2 pay packets!

If you started your Black Friday sales with just a week to go or less - then alas you’re bang out of touch with the new paradigm shift. The early bird ...

There are 2 significant changes to the Kaluna 250V Tube Drive. Firstly it gets a new 3-way Structure switch - which allows you to select the stock ’V1’ voicing of the predecessor, as well as a ’Hot’ Higher Gain voicing, and a ’Low’ Lower Gain voicing.

Secondly the Kaluna now has an over voltage protection circuit which safeguards the pedal in case you inadvertently connect it to a power supply which exceeds the maximum 9 Volts.

You of course have everything that made the the original ...

So we’ve already had a Tube Preamp from Drunk Beaver before - the Ternopil from Pedal Drop #20 - that one was more of a tone-enhancer - added warmth and sparkle kind of thing - using a fairly unique Ukrainian 6Ж45Б-В Pentode Tube.

The Lutsk Deluxe Preamp is more typical fare in many ways - based that classic 5E3 Tweed Generation of Fender Amps. At its basic level it’s a reproduction of the Tweed Deluxe preamp section (Single Channel), while of course with Vitalii’s usual tweaks in effect. ...

There’s been quite the trend for Tube Preamp pedals of late - what with Friedman’s IR-D and IR-X, ThorpyFX Electric Lighting, Tubsesteader Lightkeeper and Magnesium, obviously some fairly large format solid-state types too like Thermion’s Freeway. And longer-term players too like Kingsley and Victory Amps. There’s never been more choice! And so much of what is now available is fantastic.

This new Tsakalis Mothership is another really smart take on floor-based tube amp / preamp with 2 ...

I’ve gone a little bit movie poster on this one! The saga of the forgotten Top Gun :

’The Bluesman!’

I’ve long been a fan of Chris Buck - and indeed named him as one of my favourite 25 Guitar Heroes back in a 2022 article. His incredibly expressive touch is second to none! And he can wring out the most impressive detail and nuance over several bars - from just a single note!

So it’s entirely fitting that Thorpy has built him an equally dynamic and expressive pedal to match Chris’s ...

The #20 Drunk Beaver Pedal Drop is a major milestone in that series - utilising a special small format Pentode Tube - with the purpose of warming up your core signal, and adding some magic and sparkle to the final output!

There seems to be something of a vogue for tube-powered preamp pedals these days - with each builder seeking rare and unique small format tubes. Vitalii has discoverd a stash of fairly rare / unique Ukrainian small format tubes - including the 6Ж45Б-В ones featured here - ...

So a couple of years after the Valvenergy Series launch - Vox has 4 more NuTube candidates for your consideration, where the template has supposedly been somewhat refined and simplified. I believe the first 4 were originally priced at around £169 (c. $215), where currently they go for £119 / $129.

The original quartet consisted of VE-CD Copperhead Drive Distortion (Plexi), VE-CE Cutting Edge Distortion (Tight Metal), VE-ME Mystic Edge (AC30), and VE-SD Silk Drive (Fender Black Face). Of ...

So in my recent ’Guitar Elements’ series it’s finally come to Amps now - where I list out what I believe are the most historically significant and therefore Iconic amps. A lot of you are still conflating Iconic with Vintage, and discounting some of the more recent models - while Iconic does not necessarily infer a long term history and provenance - just that said item or element is a major marker or step forward in the evolution of that device - whatever it may be.

I’m not the first to do ...

I’ve long considered getting in one of these Tube-Powered overdrive / preamps - I’ve had a few Kingsley Amplifiers Pedals for instance on my wishlist over the years, and I’m well aware of all-tube brands like Effectrode - whose pedals sound amazing but are just too large for my preferences and not at all pedalboard friendly. With the current status being that I don’t have any kind of tube-powered pedal in the collection yet. I’m partly conflicted for Eco / Sustainability reasons too - as Tube ...