OVERDRIVE- SOLODALLAS The ComanDrive 65___NEW___ Secret Sauce-in-a-Box

SD SOLODALLAS

The ComanDrive 65 (CD65)

$345.00 USD

The video goes into all the detail. The big deal for most buyers 

is this unit is the Preamp part of Angus Young's of AC/DC fame 

wireless system. It changed his sound so much that he recorded  

all those famous early recordings with his wireless, never a cable.

It literally exaggerates the dynamic range before compressing 

the sound. The result is the sound is sustained but never 

squashed. 

    CONCLUSION ___

It is damn pricy but it has a preamp, a 

compressor and a compandor all in the 

same pedal. Each is set to work as one 

perfect circuit. A near impossible task 

since a compandor is a device made to 

do the exact opposite as a compressor.

OVERDRIVE- DECADES PEDALS Multijam Distortion ___NEW___ Multivox clone

 DECADES pedals 

MULTIJAM Distortion

$250.00 USD

Multivox in the mid 70 licensed some 19 pedals MIJ to sell as budget pedals. This is a take on the Big Jam Distortion model. It like the 

original uses the 741 OpAmp and the clipping diodes are the 1N60 Germanium. The layout is Volume, Gain and Tone.

A toggle switches between a modern or to the original vintage voice. 

A second switch fattens the lows. Inside the box you can cut highs or lows and set the boost level.

     CONCLUSION ___

It is loaded with character and that germanium diode takes me

to dirt heaven. The cosmetics are great. they captured the look even though we are getting an industry standard Hammond B. 

box. $250.00 USD  ain't cheap but it has become the standard 

price from most small handmade pedals.  

__<>^ quack

A bit of trivia ...Oddly Hammond are no longer made in 

China, but not brought back to the U.S. But made to 

original U.S. spec in Canada.

OVERDRIVE- GIZMO AUDIO Sweet Breakup ___NEW___ MIAB? Bassman/Dumble?

gizmoaudio 

 S|B  sweet breakup 

$300.00 USD

The company is a bit ambiguous but with Marshall 

amp knobs on the pedal I'm calling it a MIAB. But?

The layout is Volume, Treble Bass and Gain. Another 

knob is called Bite meant to give you a tight choppy attack. A Fat switch. It lets you cut or boost lows. Internally you have both a lowpass and highpass filter. 

A second footswitch brings in a boost.

    CONCLUSION __

It sports the right look. It isn't even close to those making a MIAB that can ace a shootout against the real amp and score scary close. 

It is closer to a few Bassman/Dumblish efforts. For

those you have a lot of choices. I find both the 

J. Rockett pedals are much more satisfying.

OVERDRIVE- RED MOD PEDALS Soviet ... Sovtek MIG50-in-a-Box

$340.00 USD

RED mod pedals 

SOVIET guitar preamp 

A rather obscure Italian builder. This is his ...Sovtek MIG50 

amp-in-a-Box. It is a FET based clone of the preamps circuit. 

In one form or another Electro Harmonix has sold it for decades. 

The layout is Volume, Gain, Treble, Mids and Bass. 

            CONCLUSION __

It sounds like the amp. Nasty, nasty. 

It has a lot of character. I love it. 

... but not at the price!!!

REVERB- EARTHQUAKER DEVICES Towers ___NEW ___ anti-shoegaze ambient verb

$300.00 USD

EarthQuaker Devices 

 Towers   

The big deal about this is yet is not just another shoegaze, Star Wars soundtrack ambient Reverb. You could actually play tunes 

on it without being in completion with pedal telling you by the second what you can or cannot play. It does not turn what you want to play into a massive audio flatulence. 

 

            CONCLUSION __ 

Musical. Not another crash and burn.

Reasonable priced as there is literally 

half a Moog Synth under the hood. 

 

OVERDRIVE- CITADEL ELECTRONICS Overtuber ___NEW ___ damn impressive but ...

$500.00 USD

CITADEL ELECTRONICS

OVERTUBER

A medium to high gain tube OD. The layout tells the story. 

You get the usual Volume, Tone and Gain. Body is a low end Bass boost. Girth controls the saturation ratio & compression of the Lows without interacting with the Gain. It gives you 

a massive low end without mud.

     CONCLUSION___

The overall sound has a luxurious mass to it. Just saying 

its fat does not do it justice. It however needs a full EQ 

of Treble, Mids and Bass to justify its heavy price tag.  

 

HEADS UP ___

 HEADS UP  

Lots of new sh@t on THE UPDATER Post

.

____Detailed list of best selling gear. 

____A new guitar from Danelectro with 

       killer P90 PU's & a video ... 

 check it out!!!   

FUZZ- BEETRONIX Pollinator___NEW ___ delay/modulation & Fuzz ???

BEETRONIX

P O L L I N A TO R     

$350.00 USD

This is not 3 separate effects that can be addressed like 3 

separate conventional units. If you think all that sounds 

very Shoegaze then congratulations, you are right. As 

always their pedals are luxury items of build and cosmetics.

     CONCLUSION __

It is a novelty pedal that has minimum use if any 

on a single tune you know or perhaps are playing 

in a band. With a conventional Modulation, Delay, 

and Fuzz you have an endless palette that used 

together you can go for a different 'weird' on 

any tune yet use them to cover thousands of

conventional tunes. Add to that this pedal 

is all digital. With separate pedals you 

can use all or a mix of both.

   

AMP- KEMPER PROFILER MK 2 ___NEW ___ is it past its Best Before date?

KEMPER PROFILER   

The Kemper has been around since 2011. 

The 2026 has updated specs but otherwise 

is the 'same old'.

CONCLUSION ___ 

Has it past its 'BEST BEFORE' date ???

BIRMINGHAM ___THE GUITAR SHOW 2026 ___Feb.28 & Mar.1

THE BIRMINGHAM GUITAR SHOW 2026    

The show is not just a show but a market where many makers will 

sell you the guitars they are displaying. It is just 2 days and although  

it is open to any company to display and/or sell their gear it tends to 

draw in a lot of small builders from the UK and Europe. This may be 

your only chance to see some dead cool gear. I will add more videos 

from the show as they pop up. 

SHOOTOUT ___TONE KING ___IMPERIALIST vs. ROYALIST

 Tone King   

___ THE UPDATER___MARCH 2026___NEW GEAR NEWS___UPDATED___24/7

THE UPDATER

MARCH 2026

Separate those pedals that are a steal from those 

that are stealing from you at any price.

IF ITS WORTH KNOWING ITS HERE FIRST

____________________________________________________________________________________

MY MONTHLY RANT

Tarriffs off ....Tariffs on. 10% then 15% then who knows WTF!!!

TIME TO SHOUT

Like most of you the budget is a more than a bit strained. My wife will be out of the country for a month so Muggins here will be doing all the household buying which for the most part will be groceries at the new eye watering prices. 

New pedals have slowed down. No one knows when to buy the parts etc. as they may overpay and won't be able to recoup the costs and no one is shipping the parts for transportation is all over the map with prices and delays etc. is also in a mess. 

 

FENDER 

....is going to fire 250 workers in May. They have kept creeping up the prices and no one is buying. Amps new at $2000 are literally easy to find used and even mint sell 

for $1000. Last week Youtuber Phillip McKnight bought a  Fender Hot Rod amp and was 

shocked at the difference. He said he found 3 under $1000 in just seconds of looking. 

.....Double back here over the month as I will keep you updated with all the whatever, lol. 

 

ACCORDING to REVERB  

___The Best Selling Guitars are Strat, then LP then Tele, then SG and
lastly Jazzmaster. Many other guitars are selling at a healthy amount but they share the market with dozens of others. If it was a car race then the 5 big sellers have lapped them twice,

You must add in the inflation but once you do prices and quantities sold are basically now at pre Covid levels. They are expected to stabilize and 

neither go up or down. 

___Amps outsell modeler type units 4.5 to 1. Keep in mind amps come in tube, or solid state and digital/modeler types. 

___Pedals are doing the same as all gear. In fact all gear is back to 2019 plus inflation prices. The exception are rare pedals. They go from high to stupid to beyond sanity every year. The BIG BUT is if you bail out you make more so it is literally like having use of it for free. Used multi sound pedals have nosed dived by 20%. I am not surprised as you end up loving one sound and hating the other.

___The biggest seller in Modelers, Capture & Profiler units is the
Neural DSP Quad Cortex. The cheaper makers share the market and the other high end makers are just to damn difficult to use. User Friendly is a monstrous biggy. The Quad has a very fast learning curve and an intuitive layout when compared to all else.   

Pretty much all of these units are not holding their value. They are Music computers and like all computers become redundant when new units come out that are both better and cheaper. 

The good news is like laptop computers 99% of us do not use more than what we can do on a 10 year old one. Todays modeler/profiled etc sound will show up on some hot but obscure players recordings years from now and none of us 

will notice something is not quite right. 

 

TOYS FOR THE OLDER BOYS

Some old, some new, all cool !!!

 

TC ELECTRONIC MOJO MOJO-Paul Gilbert Ed.

Sold as a medium gain OD it is really more like a low gain OpAmp Fuzz. That said it 

is damn effective as it can cover both a low gain Fuzz and OD. It has a chunky balzy 

sound yet it has excellent definition and articulation. 

At $75.00 USD any risk it does not meet your needs is not a big ouch. 

 

JHS PEDALS MORNING GLORY CLEAN

The standard morning Glory is Josh's biggest selling pedal. A BluesBreaker clone that every upgrade took from a transparent Drive to a mediocre mid gain pedal. This one is his original v.1  but with a knob to add cleans. I had the standard one for 2 years. Garabage! If I pulled it back where I wanted it ,it had nasty artifact like an extra cheap Chinese OD. The clean version is easily 110% better. If the one I had was this I would still own it.

Wait for it!!! WTF only just got out of bed!!!!  

Come back in an hour or 2 for more sh@t _______________________________________________________ 

 

DANO the Dano O. Mano

              made by Danelectro 

                 $600.00 USD  

 ... DANO is The brand name of The new budgeT guiTars 

 ...This one has P90 PU's. THE guiTar is handmade in Korea  

 ...THE Sound has a Gibson ES 330 vibe because IT IS HOLLOW  

 ...YOU GET A SEMI buT WITHOUT THE BULKY BODY OR FEEDBACK HASSLES