When I first glimpsed the HARM pedal - it very much appeared to me to be the full-fat embodiment of my ’12 Degrees  of Saturation’ Methodology. Now that I’ve been road-testing it for 3 weeks, I can absolutely vouch for its potency, versatility, and prowess - its range of coverage is extraordinary!

This is the one compact pedal that can pretty much cover all your gain needs. That’s not to say it wholly accurately 100% replicates every gain pedal, while it most definitely gets well beyond the...

Another strong month for sure! A little dominated by Keeley Electronics, but some solid releases over the month - with a crazy flurry towards the end - to coincide with Europe’s largest Guitar Gear Show - Mannheim’s Guitar Summit. It seems evident now that Guitar Summit is an event I should really be at - and I will make a concerted effort to be their next year.

As it was I attended just one guitar gear event this month - EarthQuaker Devices Showcase at GuitarGuitar in Camden - where I got ...

So a number of readers had asked me to check out the NUX ’63 Diamond to see how it compared with my other favourites on the Brian May / Voxy slot. I of course decided to do a proper twofer feature - where I checked out the NUX Plexi Crunch as well. Both of those got a decent run in my pedal chain before I formulated my lasting impressions.

First impressions in terms of quality of manufacture and finish is very good - and I love how the Footswitches are slightly recessed into the enclosure -...

I’m going to start this month’s roundup with a couple of conundrums that I’m still kind of wrestling with.

Firstly about my old friends at Sinvertek, whom I can’t but think that they might have jumped the shark with their latest release. It’s another spin off of the Scream Honey line - the 4th or 5th in that series. Mr Wu seems to introduce tiny improvements each year, and every other year we get a price rise too. On this occasion the offering is two pedals - supposedly both slightly different ...

Readers will know that I’ve long since had a Vox type and Marshall type on 2 adjoining slots of my board / pedal chain - initially slots #17 and #18, but since a latter evolution - now slots #18 and #19.

This VS Audio pairing becomes the 10th such to feature in the chain - while there have also been some more incidental pairings which have not been brand-matched as such, and beyond the early incarnation of BearFoot Effects Emerald Green Distortion Machine, and MI Effects Super Crunch Box V2...

My good friend Panos first teased this Jangle Master pedal at the London Synth and Pedal Expo - which took place in the middle of March. Back then, the prototype had the same black knobs as the Platinum Preamp, while the production model features new custom commissioned magenta knobs - which really raise the profile of the pedal.

Getting the new knobs in caused the biggest delay to the launch - but for sure it was worth it.

The pedal is kind of split into 3 sections :

Controls : TOP...

Another totally mad month for sure - loaded with frenetic activity and peppered with highs as well as crushing disappointments. The first give-away for GPX didn’t quite hit the highs I expected (said give-away closes tonight at 23:59 BST). And there are some weird gaps in the entrants’ home countries - certainly no shortage from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, or much of mainland Europe. I’m active in a lot more countries than have so far entered the give-away, so I don’t fully understand why ...

I’ve long had a Vox AC30 style pedal on the board - slot #19 nowadays - where the Brian May Queen sound is one of the key tones in my arsenal. Not all those Voxy pedals are equal by any means - in fact a lot of them don’t quite quite reach the Top-Boosted Heights you need to cover Brian’s more searing riffs and solos. I’ve long sought out the perfect pedal to replicate those tones - and while I’ve come close on a number of occasions - I’ve never quite totally nailed it with just the one pedal -...

February can often seem a rather odd month after the hustle and bustle of NAMM Show January - where a lot of new stuff always gets announced - while increasingly outside the NAMM schedule - but certainly in and around it! Projects delayed from the previous year often get released in January, but this year those kind of seem to be more spaced out - with some not feted to happen until March / April. February always seems slow compared to January, and that sometimes extends into March too before ...