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 ...

OK - so I’ve been ruminating on this one for a long time. I’m certainly not a looper pro - but have some experience of TC Electronic Ditto, and Ditto X2 Loopers, and Boss RC-10R, and RC-600 Loop Stations.

Ed Sheeran’s history with the Boss RC-20XL is very well known - that is to say his Chewie Monsta / Chewie 2 modified version of that - aided and abetted by his Looper Technician Trevor Dawkins.

For the longest part of his career Ed has relied on some Boss underpinnings for his key ...

I was a touch critical about the HX One - possibly overly so - as it’s really decent for what it delivers and how. While I could not be more effusively positive about this new POD Express!

For anyone starting out in guitar effects - you get everything you need in one smart little box - with intuitive and mostly surfaced control (vs Noise Gate).

If I was thinking of buying in my very first guitar effect pedal - then I don’t think I could do better than this. It contains 7 Amp & Cab ...

The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!

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...