It’s been quite the epic journey for me to get to Lichtlaerm Audio - which goes all the way back to February of 2020 - where I believe I was the first Pedal Blog to feature Daniel Ringl’s original first incarnation line of pedals - which had white graphics onto black facias , on top of wine-red gloss-finished enclosures (Update! - looked like white print in photos, but Daniel says - "the old line-up was silver prints directly on smooth black enclosures - the photos looked a bit white but it was...

This V2 Edition moves on significantly from the previous V1 - going from 7 to 10 Controls - and introducing a whole load of more colour into the proceedings - both figuratively and literally.

The V1 Controls consisted of - Regen, Rate, Volume, Depth, Univibe / Phase 90 Switch, Phaser / Vibrato Switch, Waveshape : Ramp Up / Ramp Down / Square / Triangle / Sine / Lumps / Random / Stepped, On/Off Footswitch, Tap Tempo Footswitch.

While the V2 Controls are - Envelope, Rate, EXP Switch : ...

So scanning through this month it seems to have been mostly about Guitar / Pedal Shows, Japanese Pedals, and Pedals Delayed and Missing in the Post!

The Guitar Shows have been pretty fast and furious for March - with two of the most significant ones of the year, along with a fledgling grassroots one : The Guitar Show (Cranmore Park - Birmingham / Shirley), London Synth & Pedal Expo (Studio 9294, Hackney Wick, London), The Alternative Guitar Show (The Fighting Cocks, Kingston).

I of ...

This article was actually inspired by the recent Fjord Fuzz SOL Fuzz-Vibe feature - where I got to thinking about extended range Fuzz Face style pedals. To my memory there is only the Carl Martin Purple Moon and Fjord Fuzz SOL in that compact Fuzz-Vibe format. I then recalled the Keeley Electronics Monterey - but realised there weren’t a whole lot of pedals in the extended format category - for Fuzz-Vibes - so I expanded the remit to cover ’Fuzz Face+’ pedals - essentially expanded feature set ...

The SOL Fuzz-Vibe is a very personal pedal - both for Daniel himself, and all Fjord-dwelling Scandinavians in particular. In those jagged fjords the sun never manages to rise far enough above those craggy peaks through the depths of winter (which in some parts can be almost half the year!) - the first hint of spring is the sun finally cresting those fjord peaks and releasing the land from darkness. We Icelanders call this fabulous natural phenomenon ’Sólarkaffi’ - when the first appearance of ...

I’m a huge fan of the Uni-Vibe / Vibe format of modulation, and Krozz Devices’ Murilo Carozza has created a very special and supremely versatile take on that format here in it 2nd evolution. You can immediately pick out the core Uni-vibe controls - of Level, Depth, Rate (Pulse), and Dry-Wet Mix (central toggle-switch).

But then we also have two very unique output shaping controls - labelled Spectrum and Shadow. The Spectrum is a core voicing / character control which accentuates Mids ...

Interestingly this is SolidGoldFX’s second take on a 2-Stage VibraPhase pedal - where it originally had the Athena VibraPhase out back in 2019 - which seems to have been discontinued for a while now. I’m not sure how much overlap there is between the two - while the new Aurras seems to be more of a carte blanche re-development than a straight-up evolution or iteration.

The text for the Athena does not mention the Optical components / Opto-Isolators - while both are described as being sort ...

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...

Here follows an in-depth look at the ALABS Audio Adam Adventures Series NovaDrift 9-Mode Modulator.

A pretty decent mix of algorithms - Vibe (Uni-Vibe), Chorus, Multi-Chorus, Phaser, Filter, Rotary, Flanger, Tremolo and Ring.

In my opinion really only missing the Roland/Boss Dimensions Chorus and Harmonic Tremol for a full house!

Generally I cite the Wampler Terraform as the Modulator which has the most perfect mix of Algorithms for my preferences - Auto-Wah, Envelope Filter, ...