It’s that time of year when I pick out my personal favourite pedals in each category - starting with the Boost and Overdrive ones. I weigh up each candidate on the basis of my own experiences, preferences and sensibilities - and include pedals also that I intended to get but did not quite yet around to acquiring during the year of release!

For this selection I personally own all but these 8 :

• Aleks K Production Honey Moon Sweet Overdrive V3
• Bleak District Slate Discrete Gemanium

I’ve always loved Mini Pedals - particularly those from Decibelics, Function F(X) / Pickdropper, Mooer and One Control, the latter two brands making up most of my mini pedal collection to-date - in fact you could probably add Wampler to the original list of 4 too - Brian makes some very fine minis - oh, as does MXR, and Ibanez even.. While for me at one time - Mooer was in the lead with 10 candidates in my mini pedal collection, while this latest exercise has pushed OneControl to the top of ...

So in the wake of my ’9 Notable Brazilian Guitar Pedal Brands’ article I had a lot of people contacting me (as intended!) to tell me I’d overlooked this and that brand. The first mentioned was obviously Cachalote Audio which I liked so much that I did a separate article on that.

While altogether we had another 9 notable brands suggested - to include in this separate feature. In fact there are even more - including StarDust Electronic Art - where I’m waiting until I get enough suggestions to...

So I’m falling a little behind on my Walrus Audio Overdrives - I’ve been meaning to get the 385 MKII for a while - where I think I prefer the black edition - that one just hasn’t quite happened yet - but will eventually! And now we have another essential one - very much an extended range Klone type, with some significant smarts onboard - so that one is a target for me also.

I’ve only fairly recently picked up a Walrus Monumental Tremolo, and just this Sunday I landed a Mako II Series [M1] -...

As part of ThorpyFX’s 10 Year Anniversary Celebrations (born on 2nd November 2014) - they’re encouraging everyone to get a ’caked’ version of any of the current pedal models. Thorpy is obviously making the most use of his new super-duper Roland 4-Colour UV Printer!

And I had a lot of fun creating this visual on a background of 100’s & 1000’s / Sprinkles!

Single pedal editions will be base-coat painted yellow - with the cake design on both outward facing sides. I personally think there ...

I’ve just recently covered the phenomenal Tavysh HARM Multi-Gain pedal, and thought I should look at which similarly potent multi-gain pedals I had in the reference collection. In fact while doing the preliminary for this I realised I hadn’t yet acquired the All-Pedal Devil’s Triad Essentials - which landed around a fortnight ago. I had to go to Thomann, as there were none available in the UK at the time. I actually really like using Thomann - it takes a little longer to get packages from there...

So Fractal Audio Systems has thrown its hat in the ring with its first non-modelling device / unit - the VP4 Virtual Pedalboard Multi-FX Processor - which is quite a departure for the brand.

It’s obviously gunning for Line 6 and Eventide in particular, but also looking to knock out Boss and Strymon Workstation pedals. It has several of its own advantages, but with a number of caveats too. Overall it’s well priced for what it delivers - but for my own preferences it’s still somewhat over-...

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 ...