gear giveaway

Special Features

Tone King Royalist Preamp

Following the success of last year's Imperial preamp, Tone King has unveiled the Royalist: a high-voltage tube preamp pedal that distills the sound of their Royalist MKIII amplifier into a compact, pedalboard-friendly format. Where the Imperial covered American cleans, the Royalist is a full-throated tribute to the golden age of…Click on the title for more

Tone King Royalist Preamp

Fish Circuits Astronomie Reverb

One of the most intriguing new pedal releases at NAMM 2025 came from a fellow Montrealese brand: the Fish Circuit Astronomie. It's a spring-style reverb/compressor circuit (in that order) with the company's signature chunky vintage look and very unusual controls. Notwithstanding the large footprint, the Astronomie doesn't have real springs…Click on the title for more

Fish Circuits Astronomie Reverb

Kinotone Ghost Chordal Resonator

Kinotone has quickly established itself as one of the most imaginative new makers in boutique effects, specializing in devices that recontextualize the guitar signal into something entirely new. Their flagship, the Ghosts, is the ultimate expression of this vision. Far more than a pedal, it’s a 6-voice physical modeling synthesizer and…Click on the title for more

Kinotone Ghost Chordal Resonator

Polyend Step Drum Machine Pedal

Integrating a drum machine into a guitar pedal isn’t a new concept, but the Polyend Step elevates it to a whole new level, drawing on the Polish company’s expertise in synthesis rather than traditional guitar effects. The Step is a stereo, sample-based drum machine in pedal form, controlled via Tap…Click on the title for more

Polyend Step Drum Machine Pedal

New Pedal: Alexander Pedals Error XP Multi-FX Pedal

Alexander Pedals took their glitch-centric Syntax Error, shrunk it down, and added more ways to break your signal. The Syntax Error XP is the Leap Series version - smaller enclosure, same digital chaos, now with stereo ins and outs because destroying one channel of audio apparently wasn't enough. Eight modes…Click on the title for more

New Pedal: Alexander Pedals Error XP Multi-FX Pedal

New Pedal: Umbrella Company Hume

The Japan-made Umbrella Company HUME is a spatial effects pedal designed to occupy the elusive territory between delay and reverb. It emerges from a simple concept: what happens when echoes stop being distinct repeats and start dissolving into atmosphere? The answer lives in the F&V sliders—the pedal's defining control. This…Click on the title for more

New Pedal: Umbrella Company Hume

Caroline Wave Cannon Zero Fuzzstortion

A revisitation of one of the South Carolina-based company's early unreleased prototypes, the Caroline Wave Cannon v2 is a bold distortion pedal that delivers everything from subtle crackles to heavy, chaotic, and even self-oscillating tones. Unlike pedals focused on subtle dynamics, the Wave Cannon v2 features intense gain and volume…Click on the title for more

Caroline Wave Cannon Zero Fuzzstortion

New Pedal: Wampler Golden Jubilee Dual Overdrive/Distortion

Brian Wampler looked at the 1980s and saw two kinds of fire-breathing monsters. California boutique amps—smooth, articulate, punchy, the kind of gain that lets you bend a note and hear every microtonal ghost in between. British high-gain stacks—saturated, muscular, that cranked-Plexi crunch that made the decade sound the way it…Click on the title for more

New Pedal: Wampler Golden Jubilee Dual Overdrive/Distortion

TC Electronic Bucket Brigade Delay

Judging from the fanfare of the intro video below, one could think that (once) Danish company TC Electronic (now owned by the Scrooge of the music gear world) just invented the BBD chip - which is pretty much the only chip you'll find in any analog delay pedal ever made.…Click on the title for more

TC Electronic Bucket Brigade Delay

Tone King Imperial Tube Preamp Pedal

One of the most talked-about pedals to emerge from the 2025 NAMM Show was the Tone King Imperial Tube Preamp, a two-channel stereo preamp with tremolo and reverb voiced after the company's namesake amp, and based on a circuit featuring not one but three 12AX7 tubes. Just like in the…Click on the title for more

Tone King Imperial Tube Preamp Pedal

New Pedal: Fuzzlord Doom Dweller V2 Reverb

The original Doom Dweller was a beautiful accident. One knob. One job. You twisted it, and the walls got bigger, the shadows got longer, the riffs started breathing like something alive in the room with you. Simple. Elegant. Dumb in the best possible way - like a sledgehammer or a…Click on the title for more

New Pedal: Fuzzlord Doom Dweller V2 Reverb

New Pedal: Fuzzrocious Grey Stache/Heliotropic Double Fuzz

Let's get one thing straight right now. You're looking at a box that crams two completely separate fuzz circuits into one enclosure and sells the whole mess for less than what the Heliotropic alone used to cost. One-forty-five for the Grey Stache, two-ten for the Helio. Now you get both…Click on the title for more

New Pedal: Fuzzrocious Grey Stache/Heliotropic Double Fuzz