THE BEST PEDAL OF 2025

THE BEGINNING OF THE END  

An Overview 

2025 was really the year of the Modeler coming of age.

Modelers are quite simple computers that make sound.

Compared to even a cheap cell phone they are crude. 

Yes the software from the pioneers was and is complex 

and extremely time consuming. The BIG BUT is  the  

topography to make even the software is freely available

even though the free part of it will be argued. 

 

The $80 Valeton GP5 put a lid on Modelers being precious.

If this was used to make a recording by one of the super 

stars who was famous for using a pricey modeler stars 

and no one new ...the guitar playing fans would be 

admiring the players great tone. 

 

My argument is that the humble analog pedal 

is the Stradivarius sound of a Sound-from-a-Box. 

The modeler is a disposable carbon fiber & stainless 

steel violin Sound-from-a-Box. _________________________________________________________________________________________

THE BEST PEDAL OF 2025 

This year there is a tie. One company made an OD with fine harmonic detail through its whole range of low to high gain. The other has accurately reproduced the Fuzz box that became the first game changer. Both are very small independent handmade makers.

 

RhPf Electronics Mosferato  #1  

It is is an Overdrive that can go from low to high gain. It uses FETS which as most know are the gods answer to a tint Tube/Valve. It has definition through its  whole range and sustain the does not feel compressed even when playing at bedroom volumes. It has a rich amp like character yet it is not suggestive of a particular brand of amp. It allows for tweaking to the highest detail. It is the Swiss Watch of OD's. oddly enough it is made in Switzerland, LOL. 

 

It is 110% a cork sniffers pedal but not the cork sniffers price.   

$180.00 USD 

...check out the May 24, 2025 for more.

TOL RED Germanium Fuzz #1    

Let me point out the small stuff first. It comes in a heavy steel enclosure that could go right through a wall if you tossed it and still work. The enclosure has that lovable sloped top of all vintage Fuzzes. It claims to be a Tone Bender Mk2 complete with vintage NOS transistors. So this is what you do. You take a real $1400.00 USD Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk2 and set it beside the TOL RED and you A/B them in a blindfold test. You then choose which one is the real Tone Bender. You have one minute to decide so you better have a coin to flip as you have just bet your guitar you can tell. Because WTF! You know it will be a guess! 

LOL.

I bought mine NEW for $130.00 USD 

...checkout June 12, 2025 for more

THE RUNNER UP

EARHQUAKER Devices Barrows Fuzz 

It is loosely based off of a Tone Bender but it has the vibe, sustain and control of a excellent Overdrive.

If anyone asked me to pick them a dirt pedal and I new zero about their needs, their tastes or their budget I would tell them to get this, bulletproof little Fuzz. 

...check out Sept. 22 & Sept. 29 for more 

FUZZ- FARMER FACTORY EFFECTS Fuzz-Tone___NEW___ Carlsboro Fuzz-Tone clone

FARM FACTORY EFFECTS · 

FUZZ TONE

$230.00 USD

In 1966 carlsbro a small Brit amp company brought out a Germanium Fuzz they knowingly called a Fuzz Tone without any rights to the name. it was not although the basic topography was needed to experiment with to get something going. Oddly enough with some creative trial 

and error and some luck they came up with a usable noise from their three OC71 transistors.

Farmer Factory of Douelle France is the builder have done a take on it. The layout is Volume and Attack. Attack affecting the tone primarily by tweaking the BIAS. 

           CONCLUSION __

It has a half decent sound. It is broad 

open and gritty but with an evenness 

close to an OD.

___THE UPDATER___JANUARY 2026___NEW GEAR NEWS___UPDATED 24/7

THE UPDATER

JANUARY 2026

Seperate those pedals that are a steal from those that are stealing from you 

at any price

IF IT IS WORTH KNOWING IT WILL BE HERE FIRST

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MY MONTHLY RANT

The only good thing is that Armageddon 2025 is over!!! Last time I checked the those that caused it still can't keep their f.-ing mouth shut from telling us we never had

it so good. 

YESTERYEAR'S  NEWS  

No I am not doing my Best Pedals of 2025 here. They will be in posts over the next few days. The BIG DEAL of 2025 were the Modellers. The big boys did updates and budget models. The smaller players all have stuff that have sonics that get at the very worse a 9.5 out of 10. In short if you heard them with a great player live you would be assuming you were hearing one of the big boys rigs and wouldn't even bother to ask. 

__________

A lot of reviewers are voting the best piece of gear of 2025 is the Valeton GP-5 that on AliExpress is $66.34 USD with free delivery.  In a blindfold test it could pass to your 

ears as a $1700.00 USD Fractal FM9 to anyone (but the guy who owns one), lol. 

 

TIME OUT TO SHOUT 

2015 to 2025

...selfie taken today

On December 30, 2015 I sat down and made a blog to give you what I thought would give maybe a few hundred at best a heads up on dirt cheap pedals that sounded Pro. I thought I would add a few posts over 2 or 3 months then call it a day. I fell off my chair when overnite it went viral. Here I am 10 years later having reviewed over 4000 pedals with up to 3000 players a day visiting to check them out There have been a total of 2,260,000 + . Yes over 

2 million visitors, It blows my mind.  

MY LIFE IN MINIATURE 

On Jan. 3 ...I will have crawled my way thru life and will be 79. I only play my original songs & have done that since I was about 23. 

I spent years in the West End of London UK playing the clubs that 99% of all Brit bands that ever became world famous played. 

My Prog Rock band Tallis once opened for Rush and at that gig about half the crowd  

there never heard of Rush and came to hear Tallis. 

I have met Hendrix 3 times, Clapton let me have his his guitar to check out. Ron Wood 

found me a new Marshall JMP 50 that I could afford, I hung out with Keith Moon and 

went to see Joe Pass play with Steve Howe. Every famous player I met I acted as a peer, 

not a fan. I introduced myself, and said only that I loved their sound and started talking 

about gear immediately. Every player gave me the same advice. Listen to others and 

learn but NEVER copy their style. In short do not learn their tunes. You can not 

un-learn them and they will show up in your tunes making those tunes second hand. 

Robert Fripp told me if I want to steal music ...steal it from Charlie Parker & Dizzy 

Gillespie's BeBop and from the composers Claude Debussy, Bela Bartok and Igor 

Stravinsky. I did just that! None of these guys played the guitar. I recommend the same!!  

∶∶∶

In a year I will be 80. my goal is to get a good live take of my best 35 tunes 

so I have a record that I even was alive. After 80 statically I am 

living on borrowed time.

 

NAMM 2026 

Already I am flooded with hits from gear manufacturers that they have reinvented the wheel 

with a new pedal I can not see unless I am at the NAMM show, starting Tues. Jan.20. 

  

 

TOYS FOR THE OLDER BOYS

Some old, some new

but all are cool !

WHEEBO JMP Drive

This MIAB has been around for 13 years. Yes it does the killer classic 'take no prisoners' power chords and leads. The BIG BUT is!!! You can also dial in the perfect Mark Knopfler Sultans of Swing tone. Or to the point a 100 watt cranked Marshall but set to a  hair before breakup sound. I figure I have easily spent over $2000 on pedals trying to find that sound. Many boasted they could give you the perfect Strat clean sound. All total bullsh@t. Eike Hintzen who designed and makes everyone of these pedal says nothing about it. 

Made in Hanover Germany and overbuilt with the best parts and  an obsession for quality. $200.00 USD & worth every penny!!!

UPDATED JANUARY 1, 2026 

Every day for decades I put in time daily practising, learning theory and writing tunes. 

A slow day is 2 hours, 4 is closer to minimum but 6 is no big deal. I do it scattering  

half hour or even an hour breaks with new posts of new pedals and to add to... 

THE UPDATER ...that can be morning eveing or 2 or 3 am at night

So check back anytime for more!!!

OVERDRIVE/FUZZ- SPELLCASTER FX Helmut Fuzzstortion___NEW___ a Fuzzy-Drive

 spellcasterFX  

Helmut

FUZZSTORTION 

$165.00 USD

A Fuzzstortion also called a Fuzzy-Drive is a high gain OD circuit blended with a Fuzz. The concept is just that. It is not just a thing 

you can do one way. In short one guy did not invent one and all 

others are clones of it.

See below. A visitor to SBS noticed this looks like Howard Gees, 

$300.00 USD KittycatFX Mohair Fuzzstortion. Both Howard and 

the 2 partners that constitute SpellcasterFX all worked at

Catalinbread, LOL.  

The company is from Portland Oregon. They make dirt pedals 

and with prices all under $175.00 USD they are a welcome 

newcomer.

The layout is Volume,Tone & Gain with Range adding more gain. 

A second footswitch adds a boost. 

˃˃˃˃˃

      CONCLUSION__

Well first thing is the pedals old school enclosure is dead cool. 

The price tells me it is likely an OpAmp hard clipper 

using a blend of softer or harder sounding clipping diodes. 

The tone is very dark and bloated. In my book it is simply 

muddy. It lacks bite and note definition. That 

said I have a few pedals That are too dark 

but I stack on other pedals to fix it.