End of Year Pedal-Chain Update - Final December Formation - Class of 2024
33 slots updated this year - #2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #9a, #9b, #10, #11, #12, #15a, #15b, #15c, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #22a, #22b, #23, #24, #25, #26, #29, #30, #31, #32, #33, #34, #36, #38, and #41.
There’s been a fair amount of re-routing and re-organising this year - which you should be able to pick via the pattern of changes. The introduction of the stereo Poly Amplitude introduced the biggest change to the board order - to get th most out of that format!
I try to limit acquisitions /...
2024 Best of the Best New Pedals of the Year
So this is the big one - all the top performers from the year in one selection.
We’ve already covered :
- 35 Boost & Overdrive Pedal Finalists
- 34 Distortion Pedal Finalists
- 32 Fuzz Pedal Finalists
- 38 Modutility Pedal Finalists
- 25 Delay and Reverb Pedal Finalists
Total Overall Finalist Selection of 164 Pedals!
Distilled down to the final favourites selection, where I own 27 of them, and will try to secure the final missing ones next year :
- Coffee Shop Pedals London Fog Tape Delay -
2024 Best New Modutility Pedals (Modulation / Pitch / Utility)
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 :
2024 Best New Distortion Pedals of the Year
Here it’s the turn of the new distortion pedals this year. Where I own all but 7 here :
- Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker Enhanced Full Stack Marshall style Preamp
- God City Instruments Brutalist Distortion
- Krozz Devices RoyalBreaker Extended Rat style Distortion
- Noise Engineering Dystorpia Fuzz/Distortion
- Soldano Super Lead Overdrive Plus
- UAFX Anti 1992 High Gain Amp
- UAFX Knuckles ’92 Rev F Dual Rec Amplifier
So of this selection of 34 I own 27 :
Finalists
- Audiostorm Grand
12 All-Time Favourite Modulation Pedals
2024 has been quite the monumental year for me as regards Modulations - with several of my all-time favourite varieties having been added to the reference collection this year, some very recently - including the slightly older Krozz Airborn and Strymon Lex V2 - which I could have gotten in sooner, alongside 3 killer modulations that were released this year :
Modulations added to the Reference Collection in 2024 :
- 2024 : Chorus : PastFX Kurt’s Cologne Small Clone Multi-Era Analog Chorus -
Celebrating PastFX's 'Queen of Modulation' Verlie - whose superior hi-fidelity compact Modulation pedals dominate Chorus, Phaser and Flanger disciplines
So PastFX’s Modulation quotient is up to 11 varieties now - 4 Choruses, 3 Phasers and 4 Flangers - all killer! And all very much favourites in my Reference Collection, where in fact I also have earlier editions of the Elastic Mattress, and Hot For Flanger - so I very much own a baker’s dozen of these!
- CHORUS - Chorus Ensemble Mini (DLX Boss CE-1), Stereochorus PX65 (DOD FX65), New Division (EHX Clone Theory), Kurt’s Cologne (EHX Small Clone).
- PHASER - Foot Phaser Deluxe (Foxx Phaser),
2024 October Pedal-Chain Update - Episode X - Tremolayed
So this incredibly busy month was supposed to be all about Tremolos, culminating with the Rounder Sounds Zebra-Trem Review and 30 Tremolo Pedal Overview. But we hit some snags along the way - the Zebra-Trem was mysteriously held up in customs for a week, and then got slightly lost in the local postal network. And when it did finally arrive - evidently it had been dropped a few times, as the screen was no longer working. After trying various obvious remedies with Bill over a few days - with no ...
PastFX's Kurt's Cologne Chorus gives you 3 decades of Small Clone and more, including all of Kurt Cobain's favourite signature sounds
One of the best known chorus tones of all time ’Come as You Are’ is one of the many killer voicings that this pedal delivers with ease - where its 3 ERA voicings deliver all of Kurt’s favourite chorus infused tones - and take you into even more extended and rarefied territory.
The classic Small Clone pedals have just 2 controls - Rate, and Depth, where the Depth is a 2-way High/Low Slider Switch - which Kurt pretty much permanently had in the Upper / High position - which corresponds with ...
32 Favourite Compact Rat Style Distortion Pedals - 2024 Ultimate Edition
I last did this exercise around 4 years ago now, and in that time have advanced my Rat style pedal collection to 44 units, where 29 compact editions of those are featured in this listing of 32.
From the listing I don’t yet have the NRG Effects 2024 Edition Gnawer, Oneder Red Ryder Distortion, or Walrus Audio Iron Horse. The last mentioned of those is the easiest to acquire, but I’ve not 100% made my mind up on that yet - there may be other more extended range Rats out there that I’ve yet to...
Reference Collection World Odyssey and other notable stats
Apologies that his is a little late - it took and age to research, compile and complete - and is filled with myriad wonderful fun facts - I sincerely hope you enjoy this one - as a whole heap of work has gone into bringing it to you!
So I spent the whole weekend working on updating my pedal inventory records to figure out exactly where I was at with the Reference Collection, the last time I did that exercise was a couple of years ago. I had kind of mentally estimated that I had around 1.300...
