gear giveaway

Does the Type of Battery You Use Affect Your Pedal’s Sound?

Blame it on Eric Johnson, the multigenre American guitarist known for being OCD when it comes to his tone. Years ago, Johnson inadvertently gave rise to the suggestion that the type of battery used to power a pedal can make a difference in its sound. To be clear, what he…Click on the title for more

Does the Type of Battery You Use Affect Your Pedal’s Sound?

SoundBrut DrVa Gets Premier Guitar’s Award

Premier Guitar just issued a "Premier Gear" award for this intriguing looking (and sounding) drive + boost from Swedish builder SoundBrut, called DrVa. Currently, this is the only pedal produced by this manufacturer. Although its drive section is quite transparent, the Drva shines in delivering tones that are full of character, thanks…Click on the title for more

SoundBrut DrVa Gets Premier Guitar’s Award

True-Bypass vs Buffer: Which Do You Need?

If you use several pedals in your signal chain, you’ve probably found that your guitar can sound muddy and lifeless. Guitarists refer to this as “tone suck,” the result of your signal passing through numerous circuits and cables as it makes its way to your amplifier. For years, guitarists have…Click on the title for more

True-Bypass vs Buffer: Which Do You Need?

Best Stompboxes of 2017 according to Dennis Kayzer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBI0pJEaObQ&t=310s Ladies and gentlemen, we've got one more "Best of 2017" list of pedals for you, this time coming from stompbox videographer Dennis Kayzer, who is obviously a kind of guy who enjoys weird sounding shtuff (and heavy fuzz!). Here are the top ten pedals on his list, each thumbnail links to Dennis' video of the…Click on the title for more

Best Stompboxes of 2017 according to Dennis Kayzer

Ibanez announces the NTS Nu Tube Screamer

The Ibanez Tube Screamer is undoubtedly one of the most popular and successful overdrive pedals of all time. The company launched the line in the late Seventies with the TS808 and currently produces seven different Tube Screamer models. Now the lineup is about to get a new flavor. Ibanez has…Click on the title for more

Ibanez announces the NTS Nu Tube Screamer

Top 10 Stompboxes of 2017 according to The Pedal Zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbNOTtnc-44 Hey, hey we are not done quite yet with the "Best of 2017" lists! Stefan from The Pedal Zone just posted this uber-intriguing list of edgy stompboxes and - as usual - we are breaking it down for you so that you can examine each device more thoroughly. Get…Click on the title for more

Top 10 Stompboxes of 2017 according to The Pedal Zone

High Waisted’s Gear & Creative Process

The Brooklyn-based quartet High Waisted is a fierce garage pop band that dwells in sunshine surf vibes. Though they draw from the sound of the mid-'60s, the four musicians are fearless in their determination to put their own quirky spin on each one of their tunes. The band is fronted by the formidable…Click on the title for more

High Waisted’s Gear & Creative Process

Best Selling Overdrive Pedals of 2017

Those wondering why there are so many emulations of the Ibanez Tube Screamer should find a final explanation in this chart of the best selling overdrive pedals of 2017: 35 years after its launch, the green stompbox known as TS9 is still the best selling guitar overdrive on the market,…Click on the title for more

Best Selling Overdrive Pedals of 2017

Best 10 Pedals of 2017 according to Livingroom Gear Demos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIso5qj4_lg One cool thing about Livingroom Gear Demos' "Best of Pedals" lists is that they always feature more than one unexpected stompbox - overdrives in particular. Here's Eirik's list of his favorite pedals of 2017 (from the video streaming at the bottom of this page). It's organized in our usual…Click on the title for more

Best 10 Pedals of 2017 according to Livingroom Gear Demos

BestGuitarEffects.com’s Best New Guitar Effects Pedals of 2017

Our friends at BestGuitarEffects.com just published two comprehensive lists of the best pedals of 2017 according to them and their readers - you can read it here!Click on the title for more

BestGuitarEffects.com’s Best New Guitar Effects Pedals of 2017

Husbandry’s Gear and Creative Process

Brooklyn's post-hardcore/metal quartet Husbandry sounded pretty darn heavy on 2016's debut full length "Fera," but the 2017 EP "Bad Weeds Never Die" takes things to an entirely new level, with metal influences seemingly taking over emo and post-punk ones. Their distorted guitars, in this new record, are a lot more explosive…Click on the title for more

Husbandry’s Gear and Creative Process

Smallsound/bigsound Pretty Years Distortion

This blog and its blogger have seen a fair amount of gear in their lives, but an outboard rack effect that deals with distortion (not just saturation or subtle "warming") was missing from the list. This changed today, when, while looking into PA-based pedal builder smallsound/bigsound, we realized that its…Click on the title for more

Smallsound/bigsound Pretty Years Distortion