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Warm Audio Warmdrive (D-Style Overdrive)

Now discontinued, the Hermida Audio Zendrive is still one of the most sought-after pedals inspired by the highly-regarded, hand and custom-made Dumble amplifiers, and the Warm Audio Warmdrive is a faithful replica of it, at a fraction of the cost... Click on the title for more

Warm Audio Warmdrive (D-Style Overdrive)

MXR Textures Granular Synth Engine

Most pedals take what you play and hand it back to you more or less intact. The MXR Textures does the opposite. It takes your signal, pulls it apart into tiny pieces called grains, and lets you rearrange them into something that barely resembles where you started. Inside the box are three modes: Delay chops your playing into cascading repeats — clean echoes, smeared trails, pitch-shifted ghosts. Auto-Freeze listens for what you play, captures it, and sustains it as an evolving wash that keeps moving under your fingers. Layers samples up to four notes or chords into independent buffers, each with its own fade-in and fade-out shape, so you can stack harmonies or build tiny orchestras out of single notes. The main controls shape every grain. Size and Overlap set the length and density of the grains. Pitch and Reverse flip the playback speed and direction. Delay and Regen push grains through time. Mix blends your dry signal with the granular wash. Each control changes character depending on which mode you’re in, so the same knob does different work in Delay than it does in Layers. Hold down the Reverse or Mode button while turning any knob and a second […]... Click on the title for more

MXR Textures Granular Synth Engine

New Pedal: Greer Mori Drive

Mori means “forest” in Japanese. The name fits — this one’s got a deep, woody midrange that feels like it belongs in the undergrowth of your pedalboard. Greer has been asked for years to build their take on that old vintage TS-style circuit with the famous mid hump. They finally landed on a set of tweaks that makes all their test amps sing, and the result is the Mori Drive. It’s been floating around as an artist-only pedal for a while. Now it’s for everybody. The circuit sits between a classic Tube Screamer and a Klon-style frequency range — that sweet spot where the mid hump hits in a sonically pleasing place without poking or disappearing. It uses a JRC4558 chip, asymmetrical clipping for more natural breakup, and a wide sweet spot tone control. There’s more output volume on tap than a standard TS, so it pushes an amp harder without getting congested. Greer stacked this thing with every drive they’ve ever built, plus a bunch from other companies, and claim they haven’t found a bad combination yet. Pair it with a Lightspeed and a Southland and you’ve got texture, tone, and feel for days. Classic mid-focused overdrive. True bypass. […]... Click on the title for more

New Pedal: Greer Mori Drive

DOD Badder Monkey Overdrive

Following a surge of interest spurred by a viral demonstration video, the long-discontinued DOD Bad Monkey overdrive has been resurrected in a significantly expanded form by its original creators at DOD. The Badder Monkey is far more than a simple reissue; it’s a comprehensive reimagining that retains the core green-voiced circuit of its predecessor while introducing a host of novel, and frankly eccentric, features for unprecedented tonal exploration.... Click on the title for more

DOD Badder Monkey Overdrive

GFI System Solis Ventus Delay/Reverb

Hailing from the Indonesyan brand that gave us the Specular Tempus (also a stereo, multi-algorithms reverb + delay pedal), the GFI System Solis Ventus expands on its predecessor offering a dual DSP engine, powered by two 32-bit ARM processors.... Click on the title for more

GFI System Solis Ventus Delay/Reverb

Jam Octaurus Fuzz

Born in (or at least near) the ancient Athenian caves where trapped men saw shadows hinting at greater truths, the Jam Octaurus is an octave-up fuzz pedal designed for versatility and creative exploration across diverse musical genres and applications.... Click on the title for more

Jam Octaurus Fuzz

New Pedal: EarthQuaker Devices Bellows Jr.

The EarthQuaker Devices Bellows Jr. is a two-knob wonder that does something most dirt pedals can’t: it sounds like an amp falling apart in the best possible way. Somewhere between tweed grit and fuzzy saturation, it covers everything from “I just turned my Princeton up past three” to “what happened to my speakers?”. It’s not based on anything in particular — EarthQuaker says so themselves. Instead, it’s a nod to the non-master-volume amps of yesteryear, capturing that vintage tweed-type breakup without mimicking any specific amp or pedal. The Drive control works like a non-master amp’s volume knob: lower settings give you wider, grittier breakup, and cranking it delivers blown-out fuzz territory. In between, you get every era of rock and roll, no vintage replica required. Originally a limited run, the Bellows is back in a mini enclosure because people kept asking. Two knobs. Top jacks. That weird, wonderful space where clean isn’t clean and dirty isn’t quite fuzz. It’s the sound of a tube amp being polite right before it loses its mind. Hand-built by a bunch of bearded dudes and a couple ladies in the comedic drama section of Akron, Ohio, USA — the heart of it all!... Click on the title for more

New Pedal: EarthQuaker Devices Bellows Jr.

Strymon El Capistan V2 Tape Delay

The Strymon El Capistan is a lush stereo emulation of a vintage Tape Echo device, in a cleverly simple box. It offers three Tape modes emulating different reading head configurations (Fixed, Multi and Single) and three ways to slightly tweak each one of them. Separate controls for Tape Age and Wow and Flutter. Sound on Sound mode allows you to use it as a looper.... Click on the title for more

Strymon El Capistan V2 Tape Delay

Updated Pedal: JHS NOTADÜMBLË V2 Pedal Kit

The original JHS NOTADÜMBLË was a beautiful disaster. JHS accidentally loaded the John Mayer BBC-1 preamp into the clean side instead of the intended “Box It Later” buffer. Josh Scott called it the biggest mistake of his career. Discontinued the pedal. Offered refunds. The whole thing sold out anyway because gear people love a collector’s item with a good story. Now the V2 is almost here. Drops around June 30th. This time it’s got the correct Box It Later clean section paired with the overdrive channel that was right all along. Two footswitches. An order toggle. An added effects loop. Still a solderless DIY kit, still $119. Meanwhile, if you want that BBC-1 preamp on its own, JHS released The Fumble earlier this month. $89. Fully assembled. Compact enclosure. Josh turned his biggest fuck-up into a standalone pedal and named it something self-deprecating. That’s either good marketing or genuine humility. Probably both. — JHS NOTADÜMBLË V1 Following the success of their first DIY pedal kit, NOTAKLON, JHS Pedals is launching its second build-it-yourself project—this time inspired by the legendary Dumble amplifier: the JHS NOTADÜMBLË. Known for its ultra-rare, highly sought-after tone, the Dumble sound has been famously used by artists […]... Click on the title for more

Updated Pedal: JHS NOTADÜMBLË V2 Pedal Kit

New Pedal: Stonegate FX The Figure Filter Fuzz

Stonegate FX is a Toronto builder we’ve been familiarizing with at our Canadian Synth and Pedal Expos, and the Figure Filter Fuzz is exactly the kind of pedal that makes you glad you showed up. Most fuzz pedals hand you a wall of noise and say “good luck.” This one lets you carve it. The fuzz circuit itself is rich and expressive—woolly, saturated, the usual suspects. But the dual active filters are what separate it from the pile. Mid filter sweeps 1kHz to 4kHz—the upper mids where guitars actually cut through a mix. High filter covers 9kHz to 14kHz—air frequencies, top-end sparkle, the stuff that makes a fuzz sound expensive instead of muffled. Each has its own Cut/Boost knob with a center detent, so you can scoop or shove those frequencies with precision. Active filters, not passive. That means boost as well as cut. Internal trimpots let you adjust the Q width of each filter. Clockwise narrows the focus, counterclockwise widens it. Set it and forget it. Pickup simulator means you can place it anywhere in the chain without tone suck. Top-mounted jacks. True bypass. Matte black sand texture with UV-printed art. Gold-plated PCB. Lumberg and Switchcraft jacks. Nothing cheap. […]... Click on the title for more

New Pedal: Stonegate FX The Figure Filter Fuzz

Way Huge Doom Hammer Fuzz

The Way Huge Doom Hammer Fuzz delivers thick saturation born from high-desert riffage and a '90s sonic palette. Its lineage traces back to 1998, when designer Jeorge Tripps modified a late-'70s op-amp fuzz circuit for the band Oranger. Prized for its less pronounced mid-scoop than many vintage fuzzes, the circuit was refined for tighter low-end response and reliable live performance.... Click on the title for more

Way Huge Doom Hammer Fuzz

Walrus Audio Highpoint Optical Compressor

The folks at Walrus Audio looked at the compressor section of a Neve console, realized nobody was going to tour with one, and built the Highpoint. It's an all-analog optical compressor that runs on a ±15V internal rail—double the headroom of most pedals, zero starved-voltage compromise. ... Click on the title for more

Walrus Audio Highpoint Optical Compressor