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 is the second time I collaborate with my good friend Oriol Domingo and his El Garatge brand of superior miniature expression devices - following on from my last article on his trio of really smartly engineered diminutive Expression Knob, Echo Knob (Oscillating Expression), and own 3D-printed Magnetic Dust Cover for the Chase Bliss Automatone series. All of which I love and still use regularly - and which are pictured below : ...

So Doug Tolley’s / Chase Bliss’s 2nd Witney Pedal Party took place yesterday on Guy Fawkes / Bonfire day - in Witney’s Corn Street Fat Lil’s Venue.

I attended the inaugural event at Witney’s Truck Music Store back on July 1st, and I will surely be at the 3rd one too - around spring of next year!

Thanks to Doug Tolley for organising this all again - on this occasion we had 7 participating brands (in order of stand arrangement - clockwise) :

• Reeves Electro
• Blind Panic Devices
• Holy

This exercise has totally underlined just how much of a tone genius Andy Timmons is. His pedals are selected incredibly carefully and deliberately - and don’t just have that certain glorious sound about them - but beautiful dynamics, harmonics, smart guitar volume gain clean-up and an abundance of musicality. 

Andy wrings magic out of each and everyone of these pedals - and his Halo Dual Echo algorithm / preset is amazing - and can sit under anything and make it sound at least 50% percent ...

Another healthy selection - Modutility covering Modulation, Pitch and Utility pedal categories - for one of the strongest selection to date. Some of the pedals here are truly stellar, and I have a little over half here already in the collection.

I’m unlikely to ever get all the pedals featured here, but there are several already earmarked for acquisition in 2023 - with the Eventide H90 at the top of that list.

The ones I don’t yet own, or may never own even - include :

• Chase Bliss

This is another article that has been a long time coming - mostly impacted by recent updates to some of those featured pedals. Fortunately we are now in a stable position and able to do a rundown on these most handy of Expression pedals - each no larger than compact enclosure - and ranging in price from $49 to $325. Funnily the most complex and potent of these is also one of the smallest.

I’m of course a huge fan of handy sized pedals, and for utility types some of those can really take up ...

So there’s actually a lot more to Boss’s new FS-1-WL than you might be aware of at first glance. It’s obviously some sort of Bluetooth and MIDI enabled Foot-based controller which gives you 3-button control over a variety of devices and functions.

Boss’s Waza Air and Waza Air Bass 3D Headsets are a shoe-in here, as is the Pocket GT Effects Processor, Katana Air Amp, and GX-100 Multi-FX Processor - all either with Bluetooth onboard, or Bluetooth capable via Boss’s Bluetooth Audio MIDI Dual ...

Each of the months this year has been pretty exciting in several ways while we’re still facing various unprecedented delays in getting our hands on new pedals. I’ve had numerous talks with industry insiders this month and it seems that the order cycle for certain components - particularly in any sort of quantity - is as much as 18 months now. Shipping costs are still near an all-time high, while some of the container shipping is starting to come down a fraction - but still nowhere near pre-...

And here is the turn of the combined Modulation, Pitch and Utility category - which I affectionately label ’Modutility’. Obviously as frequently mentioned -  2021 was ’Year of the Phaser’ - so 8 favourites of those here, alongside 4 choruses, 3 flangers and a couple of stand-out Amp and Cab sims. 

Some genuinely innovative pedals here - and particularly handy new expression controllers in the guise of the Chase Bliss Audio Expression Roller, and Cooper FX Expression Generator. Free the Tone...