David Greeves has always had a great touch with fuzz pedals, and his new one is no exception. What we have here is the most exquisitely textured fuzzy-drive / fuzz preamp unit - with a fantastic palette of sounds in a really neat and simple package.

One of the things that makes this really special is that this OC201 Preamp / Fuzz has the earliest Mullard Silicon Transistor onboard - the OC201 variety - which looks unerringly close to a Germanium variety, but is in fact rather Mullard’s very...

There’s an incredibly rich mix here of no less than 38 killer Modulations, Utilities and Pitch-Shifters - no one does rundowns quite like me! I always dive in at the deep end of things - and give you maximum expansive scope!

There are several here that I don’t have yet, in fact some hat I’m somewhat unlikely to ever have - for reasons of rig compatibility, size and overall sensibilities, practicalities, and preferences!

These 19 are still to be acquired or eventually overlooked :

So we were back in Bristol once more for the superb Wassup Nerds!? 2 Show - much expanded and in new BIMM Institute Venue in the Stokes Croft area of that city. Said area, is a little way out of the centre of the city, and consists mostly of take-away restaurants seemingly, a few pubs, and is heavily saturated with Vegan and Vegetarian options - so will likely suit the more fussy eaters!

Unusually for me, I hadn’t done any research on that area in advance - where for my lunch break - I ...

Showrunner extraordinaire Phil Steere above (at the show entrance), AKA PedalPatch Head Honcho.

What a wonderful show!

Just as good as the inaugural one, in fact by several measures even better!

These shows are really like family reunions for me nowadays - I know most everybody on the pedal scene now and seemed to be mostly warmly welcomed into their company. I was up really early on the Saturday - in fact when I walked in at 08:15 only Boss and NRG Effects were close to having set ...

I’ve worked up another selection of fuzz pedal pairs - a couple here may be a touch more tenuous - while there is solid logic in all the choices - even those that look a little differentiated! As before - there are some magnificent combinations to be found here.

The first selection was mostly about Fuzz Face pairs, while for this second roundup, we have a larger contingent of Big Muff types.

Expresso FX puts in a second appearance here - while all the other brands have not featured ...

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 ...

The XO Variable Crossover essentially allows you to combine the Lower Frequencies of one pedal with the Higher Frequencies of another - blend them in parallel, and create entirely new textures and tones through that specific pedal combination - and by varying the centre point / mix of each side.

So you have in effect a High Pass Filter on the Right Channel - which shaves off all Lower Frequencies beyond / below the Threshold / Centre Point you set on the Crossover Frequency Knob, and the ...

Where the Birmingham Show was a little sprawling and chaotic for me, I very much felt more at home at the Studio 9294 venue for this year’s London Synth and Pedal Expo. As Media Partner for the show, the second year in a row, I was of course in for the entirety of both the day, and actually in very early in particular on the Sunday.

I thoroughly enjoyed the two days -I love having the #90 Bar & Kitchen next door - for some very decent lunches - superb burger on the first day, and Sunday...

And so to what is often my favourite category - the many wonderful flavours of fuzz - and we have some hugely innovative pedals in the selection this year - one of these may even be my pedal of the year!

So there are 24 in this year’s selection - where I’m just missing the Collision Devices TARS, Fender Shields Blender, JAM Pedals Octaurus, KMA Machines Mandrake, Reeves Electro Facet IZ, and Unsound Circuitry Kato Glitch Fuzz - where I will attempt to add most of those to the reference ...