Now shipping from Catalinbread, the Montavillian Echo ($160). Inspired by big and warm tube-driven echoes, this ambient delay addresses some of the shortcomings of other echo pedals, while maintaining its own unique sonic footprint. Here are some of the standout features of the unit:
Headroom and stacking abilities: The Montavillian is designed to have a lot of headroom at 9V, but should you run out, the unit operates at 18V to really take care of business.
Cut Control: The Cut is actually a lowpass filter, with a knee that sweeps from 400 to 1500Hz, allowing you some control over the tone of the echo.
Loud Repeats and Self Oscillation: The Mix control is at unity when set halfway (when running at 9V), which leaves you a lot of room to boost the level of the repeats over the dry signal. This can be useful for creating some self-oscillation chaos, which the 'villian is designed to do with ease. The unit self-oscillates with fairly low settings on the repeat knob. and the cut control is helpful in determining just how piercing the meltdown will be.
KingTone is the company of Jesse Davey, the guitarist of the now-dissolved British Blues band The Hoax. His interest in engineering and effect circuits led him to start the KingTone after the band broke up, and - as you may have guessed - since then he's been laser-focused in creating gain pedals for the blues guitarist.... Click on the title for more
Texas' Jackson Audio is one of the few pedal companies out there that's been pushing the envelope in a direction that incorporates digital innovation in the traditionally analog-based niche of the dirt box.... Click on the title for more
The Blessed Mother: The Fuzz Assumption is a joint limited edition of a fuzzed-up version of the New Jersey-based builder's Blessed Mother overdrive.... Click on the title for more
Reverb.com and JHS Pedals just announced a limited edition version of the Bluesbreaker-inspired JHS Morning Glory Overdrive, a pedal so dear to Josh H. Scott that he dedicated an entire episode of the company's YouTube show to it (streaming below). The release is linked to the unveiling of the online store's unveiling of The Pedal Movie.... Click on the title for more
Ceriatone makes one of the best-regarded Klon Centaur clones (the Centura), and the Horse Breaker marries that same circuit with a Marshall Bluesbreaker clone, for a dual overdrive match made in heaven.... Click on the title for more
The 
KingTone is the company of Jesse Davey, the guitarist of the now-dissolved British Blues band The Hoax. His interest in engineering and effect circuits led him to start the KingTone after the band broke up, and - as you may have guessed - since then he's been laser-focused in creating gain pedals for the blues guitarist.... Click on the title for more
Texas' 
Italian stompbox maestro Mastro Valvola unveiled the company's edgier device so far: the 
Several pedals by the folks at 
The 
The death of Eddie Van Halen in October of 2020 has spurred a series of guitar gear releases dedicated to the influential musician. Italian Colombo Audio Electronics' way to pay tribute to the legend was to design a Plexi-style pedal inspired by the guitar tone in the first six Van Halen albums: enter the Eruption.... Click on the title for more
German emerging builder 
At the beginning of each month we look back at the best releases of the previous 30-day period with the publication of the Best New Pedals of 2021 article - welcome to the April edition! You can see the March 2021 piece 
