____ BEST 12 PEDALS FOR 2022 ___ yes, my personal narrow minded faves :-)

 BEST PEDALS 2022 

For those very few that do not know my choice is always based on a pedal being a pedal that any Pro can use playing in a band doing a live gig whether you have a small audience of less than 100 or like me your band was the opening act for Rush with an audience in the thousands. It must transfer to Pro recordings. It must enhance a song. It can not be the damn song. In short it can inspire you to write a song but not dictate what you can or worse of all can not play.

VALETON GP-200LT Multi Effect Unit

I hate modelers. Why? The main reason is playing one 'feels' like when I have recorded a tune in a very good studio and the engineer did his magic using every artificial but clever audio plastic surgery procedure in the book to make it sound perfect and I am sitting there with my guitar not plugged in and miming along to my recorded track.

That said what I do like about them is all the plastic surgery is done in the box so you can easily make a world class recording stupidly cheap.

If you can not get a world class recording with this Valeton it 

is your composition and/or playing ability not this box.

At a price of $280.00 USD this is mind blowing. 

Yes, I said $280.00 USD.

SOLDANO SLO (Amp-in-a-Box)

When Mike Soldano designed and built his amp Metal tones were

created by ALL of the best 'Shredders' on the planet with a hot rodded Marshall and a few pedals. He manged to eliminate all that in a single amp. An amp that checked all the boxes and still never lost the rich harmonics and overtones of a Plexi. All others like Peavey 5150 and the MESA Dual/Rec contrary to popular myth did not start their designs from an actual Marshall. They simply ripped off his designed as their starting point. The pedal clones the amp with incredible accuracy and at an average price for most brand name and gourmet OD's at $230.00 USD

WALRUS AUDIO EONS FUZZ

It is basically a Fuzz with multiple clipping diodes filters and exceptional EQ so you can literally shape the tone of the Muff Fuzz types, the Tonebender's, Fuzz Faces and any of the many modern Fuzz types. It does a scary good job. I manged to clone 3 different Fuzz pedals I already owned and got a better sound than those 3 pedals gave me. I am down sizing my board so it has already paid for itself. It is $230.00 USD. I got almost that from selling just one of the Fuzz pedals it replaced.

MXR SURPER BADASS DYNAMIC DISTORTION

This pedal covers everything from a low gain transparency to a near transparent sound when pushed into near high gain. It has excellent dynamic range and follows the personal dynamics of your pick as you strike the strings hard or softly or anything in between. 

It also doubles as the best clean booster pedal I have ever owned.

It is especially impressive with semi acoustics guitars like a 

Gibson ES 335 where it keeps the clarity really 

needed when using a lot of full chords.

It is easily as good as the many transparent OD's that 

sell from two to three hundred yet it is $130.00 USD.

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES SPECIAL CRANKER

This pedal was meant to be a near novelty pedal. The idea was to give you the sound of a small practice amp with the volume dimed and the speaker was inadequate to handle it and was always on the verge of complete failure. 

Yes it does that convincingly. 

BIG BUT

With the treble and gain dimed, the voice switch switched to a germanium diode and the master volume at unity gain ...which is at a very low 9 o'clock a miracle happens. 

Plug in a Strat and it sounds like you have two amps on at once. One is a silver face Fender with a Surf music clean sound where you get the bell sound chime of a Strat pickup that is as clear as glass ...but on another amp beside it puts out a sweet old Tweed distortion. It is my dream sound for a Tele or a Strat and the damn thing sells for just $100.00 USD. It should have been named Special Paradise.

KEELEY HALO ANDY TIMMONS DUAL ECHO

It is loosely based off of the original Electro-Harmonix DeLuxe Memory Man. It adds true stereo, modulation, memory and more bells and whistles than Andy will ever use. The BIG DEAL is it is in a category of its own. You can get a good ol' vintage just turn on the echo and shred or you can get modern ambiance like sound. The thing is you get that modern sound by just hitting a switch and not being forced to use tap tempo so you can even use it. In short you can write a tune not using it and then when you play that same tune ..turn on that Sci Fi movie sound and just play. With ALL those other ambient delays it is not possible to do this. You need to have the tap tempo match the modulation or for example if you play a chord or a note it may ring out over your next one drastically dissonant. This forces you into constantly finding a compromise in the duration of your repeats. In short the delay writes the tune you do not. It is a case of the tail wagging the dog. 

It is a $300.00 USD sound for a $300 price. Forgivable but for many of us it will have to be forgettable. The price is $70 over maximum, putting it well into WTF territory. 

 

LPD PEDALS FIFTY 5 

Lawrence Petross is known among MIAB pedals lovers for making 3 of the very, very best on the planet. I have all 3 of the standard models but there are 3 Deluxe models each having 2 channels. 

The '55' is different. Not a MIAB. It is switchable between the old Fender Bassman and a Tweed. I know a couple of great players that use newer Fender amps and one of them uses it as his 'Go To' for OD and the second guy uses it as an 'Always On' pedal. 

Yes, many claim to use the best parts in their pedals but LPD part for part do. I am talking about parts at the 'Ouchy' prices. All hand made by Lawrence himself with many hours needed to finish your pedal. $200.00 USD is more than fair for a 'keeper'. Once on your board. Always on your board.  

 

BLACK STAR AMP1

A 100 watt pedalboard amp. You can get great Marshall and classic Fender sounds or run it straight thru to amp up a Modeler. It has memory and you can foot-switch channels. The basic sound is easily a 9 out of 10 against a good Tube amp or a modeler so it is a killer backup amp or even to be your main amp and wait for the day you can afford and feel a strong need for a Dream amp. Pete Thorn tours using one as a his backup amp. At only $500.00 USD it has zero serious competition. 

 

JHS SERIES 3 HARMONIC TREM 

A good tremolo is a reasonable thing to get right with a $100.00 pedal but to do a Harmonic Tremolo is probably a non starter. To do one that is equal to the best and better than most is impossible. OOPS! Apparently not, 

Tremolo is when the volume is modulated between loud and off.  

A Harmonic Tremolo is two units running in parallel. One sweeps the highs and the other sweeps the lows. The effect is very rich yet not overbearing. Some guys will use this as an always on.

 

HARBY PEDALS CENTAURI

It's a Klon clone. There are hundreds so WTF do we need another. First it uses the 1M34A clipping diodes. When a real Klon is put beside a clone it is the fairy dust that tells you you are hearing a real Klon from the get go even if you never heard a Klon in your life. They create a glassy sound that hangs over the tone. It is like the real Klon has a state of the art reverb on but clone does not. In short a subtle but easy to hear difference.

In my opinion if a $7000 original and authentic Klon gets a 10 out of 10 this gets at minimum a 9.5. 

The damn thing is $150.00 USD ...No that is not a typo.

 

WAMPLER PEDALS PHENOM DISTORTION

It is Brian's take on a pedal with a Peavey 5150 vibe. This pedal sells for just $100.00 USD which considering it use cascading FETS to give it a real tube like sound and is not the usual OpAmp pedal is amazing in itself.

Pedals this good both inside and out these days sell for $220.00 USD

 

 

  

JV EFFECTS TRANSMISSION PREAMP

It is a clone of the Hudson Broadcast Pre. Quite simply a modded Radio

Mic Pramp used in the 50's by small independent Radio stations. They were as small as a guy with a single Pre and a cheap high impedance mic in a small office with a transmitting antenna on the roof to broadcast to the locals in a small town. You can kick it into a self destructing Fuzz like tone. To me it is when at just past very low gain so it's completely clean but just past it's headroom a meat clever bite kicks in. The result is a a dead clean sound with balz. Beyond killer! Hand made by a guy in Malta. Best of all $95.00 USD

FUZZ- MXR M103 Poly Blue Octave ...Fuzz, Phaser, Octave pedal-in-a-Box

MXR| M103 POLY BLUE OCTAVE FUZZ 

$200.00 US

An Octave fuzz is not new. many have come out this year or at least released as a new version or Ltd. Ed of their old one. Even MXR re-released the Octavio and a special Slash Fuzz. 

What is new is putting an Octave poly pedal in with sub octaves. This one is an all bells and whistles model it even has a famous MXR Phaser circuit built in.

The layout is Gain, sub 1 and 2, a control for modulation as well as a control for one octave up and another for 2 octaves up. 

CONCLUSION

It is indeed impressive and you get a lot for your coin.

I prefer buying these 3 effects separate and have 

I have had all 3 effects for years. 

 

OVERDRIVE- TKOG Oxford Drive ...impressive Marshall Shredmaster

TKOG| OXFORD DRIVE 

$235.00 USD

The King of Gear is oddly enough a guy from New York with a passion for Radiohead that wants to make pedals to capture their sound. This is basically the old Marshall Shredmaster pedal but with more volume and gain. The layout gives you volume, gain, bass and treble and boost, cut sweep for the mids. A toggle lets you choose clipping diodes including asymmetrical (Tube Screamer) type clipping, silicon more tube like and LED that 

adds a bit of the nastier. A second toggle give you two voicings.

CONCLUSION

In spite of all the blah blah about the old Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal when 

these pedals were available it was a very poor seller. The 'Shred' was the 

hot pedal to have!!! The Oxford is an improvement on it's weaknesses  

without f.ing with it's sound. The extras good or bad can be ignored 

so WTF. In short this is a great take on a Classic. 

 

OVERDRIVE- WESTMINSTER EFFECTS Knox v.2 ....MIAB ?

WESTMINSTER EFFECTS| KNOX

$150.00 USD

Good ol' W.E. is in my mind the Boss Pedals of America. Pro but affordable never thrilling but gets the job done. Not a thoroughbred but a serious workhorse. The Knox is supposedly a take on a MIAB. It leans towards a JTM 45 Marshall's first amp that was a modded Fender Bassman. Internally it is probably a nicely voiced hardclipper like a Boss SD-1. Arguably, it has a lot more attitude than a Boss. The layout is a simple volume, tone and gain.

CONCLUSION

Well made, hand made and fairly priced. It lacks character or a twist that gives it personality and it is not anywhere near the most convincing MIAB. The best MIAB pedals like the amp give you a full tone stack and presence.

It does however have a Brit vibe and is voiced to get to have 

bit of that 'larger than life' thing. It is dead easy to 

tweak to a good basic sound.

OVERDRIVE/FUZZ- LATENT AUDIO LEMON Hurts ... a classic perfected

|LATENT AUDIO LEMON HURTS | 

$215.00 USD

The company was founded in 1989 in Hastings UK. They make several pedals based from old redundant pedals that were original designs but not necessarily big sellers in their day. 

In the 70's a rather eccentric electronics repairman Ed Guise made a dirt pedal he named the Harmonic Percolator that is like no other where it was both OD and Fuzz depending on who you asked including Ed, lol. It used 2 transistor. One was a classic germanium and was the more recent silicon and sold them from his shop and to a very few stores in and around Milwaukee. He refused to expand or to sell or licence his pedal. One day he moved and was never heard of again.

The 'Hurts' is their take on the pedal using the NOS original transistors but a 

lot of updates for better build, operation and reliability. This pedal is Mick from 'Those Pedal Guys' favorite OD. According Mick he has never had an OD he 

could call his favorite until this year he stumbled on the 'Hurts'.

The layout is gain, BIAS, and volume. A toggle boosts the bass and 

another lets you choose either germanium or silicon clipping diodes.

CONCLUSION

It is what it is. It definitely has its own sound. I have always 

wanted one but every time someone brought one out it was 

out of production when I found it, LOL.

starts at 16:15

OVERDRIVE- SUMMER SCHOOL ELECTRONIC Science Fair ...Rat/Screamer cocktail

SUMMER SCHOOL ELECTRONICS 

SCIENCE FAIR

$165.00 USD

Take a Rat Circuit and a Tube Screamer and put them in Cocktail Shaker then shake 

well and pour into a Hammond 'B' type enclosure. Done.

Both pedals are OpAmp based with clipping diodes. This pedal is not to distinct circuits 

but a blend of both into one sound. The layout is Rat Drive, output volume, 

Tube Screamer Drive, Tone for Rat voice, Blend of both voices and Tone for Tube Screamer voice.

CONCLUSION

It sounds excellent but how different from a Tube Screamer 

pedal stacked on a Rat? Maybe but not better or cheaper. 

A Rat II is $80.00 USD & a 

Caline Emerald Night (ts9) is $30.00 USD. 

So, $210.00 USD gets you two pedals of both 

a quality build and sound that can be used 

together or separate. 

 

 Added video May 2023

GUITAR- PURE SALEM La Bruja ____NEW_____ killer sound!!!

PURE SALEM GUITARS|

LA BRUJA 

The company borrows ideas from American and European guitars from the 50's and 60's but does not clone them. Their guitars definitely have retro vibe but build quality play-ability, hardware, and pickups are not just a modern spec but a lot of effort is to make them sound killer.

$1145.00 USD

 

A good example is the La Bruja. The Gold Foil PU's Humbuckers. They are not branded as such but could be Curtis Novak GTX-HMB Humbuckers.

                                       SPECS

OVERDRIVE- ELECTRIC EYE AUDIO The Thrasher ___NEW___ thump!!!

ELECTRIC EYE AUDIO|THE THRASHER

$190.00 USD

I'll tell you the obvious. It's an 80's Thrash Metal dirt pedal. I am a big believer 

that a pedal should do just one thing ...but do it it well and without compromise. 

Does it???

Lets got to the layout. It has volume, gain, treble mid and bass. A toggle labelled 

New York & Bay Area gives to the voicing of both the East and West coast sounds.

It definitely captures the sound of it's genre. On nice detail is it gives you the 

'thump' of a classic cabinet stack's resonance.

CONCLUSION

I don't play anything literally Thrash but I am really, really impressed with the sound. You get a massive sound with balz and aggression to spare. It even keeps a tube amp vibe avoiding any Fuzz like thing. There are Amp-in-a-Box pedals that were used to recreate the amps that spawned the original genre that are impressive and pedals that are meant to shape and tighten your sound that you dialed into your amp etc. but I do not know of a pedal that is aimed to simply nail 'the sound' that you can put thru a clean channel of any amp big or small and nail the sound.  

This is a 'game changer' 

 

REVERB- TC ELECTRONIC Sky Surfer ...basic pro transportation ...less than cheap

TC ELECTRONIC|SKY SURFER  REVERB

$50.00 USD

I have said a hundred times. A good plate sound for your reverb is all you need. 90% of every classic record used one on those recordings players coming up have been listening to since 1957. Most digital Spring Verbs are total crap to squeaking by. Good ones cost as much or even a lot more than the real Accutronic that Fender uses. A good Hall reverb will get you through anything even 'Ambient' especially if you use your delay with it. That isn't a problem because they are more important than Reverb so you will be buying that first, LOL.

First this is the new smaller version of the pedal that they have upgraded the 'chip' from entry level to pro due to decreases in chip prices. There are now two new generations of better ones available. Even so the chip used on rackmount studio ear on classic Rock records was not as good as what is in this pedal.

A LITTLE HISTORY 

TC Electronic were the first. In 1985 they started making budget rack mount studio processors starting with delay. The first player to jump on board to use them live was David Gilmour back when no one made a Reverb in a pedal at any price. The most expensive thing 

in a Verb is the algorithm/program that makes the sound. The hardware and even the chip is not stupid 

expensive any more. My point is that TC can simply use killer algorithms they invented decades ago so 

they can make new effects sound great cheaper. 

CONCLUSION 

The bottom line is that you get a pro level sound cheap. Other pedals like the JHS and Fender Verbs in the hundred dollar range give more control over your sound and those controls are really useful so it it is worth the exta. But the sound in this pedal is 'there'. It certainly has my attention since I have been thinking seriously about adding a low end but pro verb along side my Boss Space Echo pedal that has a usable 

Spring sound built in but I much prefer a Plate. You will note that the guy in the second video says he 

uses the plate and sometimes the hall which tells me that I can trust his judgement that this is pro, 

sure first rung of the ladder pro but pro all the same.

 

the fine print

Straight up ...I am damn impressed. I always use my delay and Verb together and on most tunes I use them to kill off any edginess and to frame my straight guitar sound. I only need one sound but it does not need drama only breadth and even 

a lot of pricey Verbs are big sounds but they have no density. It is why for example out of 7 different Boss pedal delays 

all that leapfrog the last one with a better spec chip do not sound as good as the first one.

OVERDRIVE- BISPELL AUDIO Saxon JFET OD ___ NEW ___ versatile MIAB

$195.00 USD

BISPELL AUDIO|

SAXON OD 

This is yet another MIAB. There are many some good some bad, some near indistinguishable from the real amp. Others are impressionistic and tend to lean toward a theatrical sound that we are all convince that a real Marshall classic amp is. I have a Plexi. I would never part with it but it is as near larger than life that you or even I thought in the beginning. 

So lets go to the layout, it has volume, treble, mid cut, presence and bass. You also get a switch to voice it between a JTM 45 or a Plexi. Another toggle switches on a bright switch that the late model Plexi added for a bit of serious bite. There are internal dip switches to match the pedals overall sound to work well with your rig.

CONCLUSION

It has the right amount of sag and saturation one looks for with any MIAB. The voicing for the tone is fairly accurate. Made in Brit with the usual quality 

build. It is however a bit distant and dark with some loss of detail in the 

harmonics. You might want to pass if you have a very dark amp.

Anything in this league these days is another $50.00 USD. 

Definitely worth considering.

the fine print

If you are just generally looking for a great in your face fat, aggressive pedal with a 

Brit vibe you should check out the  Caline High Peak Distortion. The tone is much more 

Orange-in-a-Box but the damn thing takes no prisoners and is just $40.00 USD.

OVERDRIVE- TUBE SCREAMER ____shoot out !!!

TUBE SCREAMER

The true King of all OD's for 43 years. 

The biggest selling OD every year going since introduced in 1979. At the moment the number one selling version that is bought by most Pro's is the current version of the $110.00 USD Ibanez TS-9. Yes only a very few use some gourmet or vintage ts.

WHY?

It's most popular use is for something that it indeed does really well. It acts as both a boost pedal and an EQ in one. When put on an amp or another pedal that is being used to create your initial distortion it tightens up the lows creating definition and it boost the upper mids at about 1k which is the natural point with a guitar for it to sing and sustain to the point it transitions up an octave higher and with just a bit of feedback from your amp does indeed scream.

SHOOT OUT

The video is not a shootout but a calm look at both an original ts compared to the best of the most recent popular alternative gourmet 

variations.  

I confess to be a reluctant user of a ts but I was blown away by how 

well the Wampler handled the lows, the smearing and loss of detail  

and probably the most impressive is how easy it is to get it to do 

it's sustain with lift off thing.

OVERDRIVE- VICTORY AMPS V1 The Copper Pedal ...classic Vox vibe

 VICTORY AMPS| V.1 THE COPPER 

$250.00 USD

Yes this is Victorys take on their own amp of the same name. To get to the point the pedal is a Vox AC30-in-a-Box . So I will go straight to the layout. It is a straight forward volume gain, treble, mid and bass. They wisely have kept it simple. The Vox AC30 is hard to nail in a pedal. With other pedals they take the approach that you can get more out of it by giving more toys to mess with the sound. The trouble is a Vox has very exacting specifics and shades of grey to get right so if you want a damn convincing sound it has to be nailed in the circuit. Only the smallest of tweaks can they allow and those should be just so it can work with your rig. The pedal is designed and built by Thorpy Pedals so it is overbuilt to the extreme. 

CONCLUSION

The amp screams early Beatles sound when the gain is not pushed. They left the Brian May extras out of it. If you want that then buy the BMG Electronics KAT. It's Brians own brand with the 3 voices of the different treble boosters he used over the years.  

I have 'never' heard a more realistic Vox AC30 sound than that with The Copper.

OVERDRIVE- SOUNDBOX WORKSHOP 1993 Over Drive ...Tim isn't Tim ...maybe Bob?

SOUNDBOX WORKSHOP 1993OVER DRIVE

$160.00 USD

An odd name for a jacked up Timmy. 1993 is best known for the year 

that the Boss SD-2 arrived.

As for the 1993 the layout is volume, tone and gain with a switch for a choice 

of clipping diodes standard and a quasi Brit tone. A second switch is a low cut.

It sounds good but it isn't a Timmy any more. 

I like this much more than a Timmy. It is a really interesting take on an old style hardclipper that can give you low gain sounds as well as thru to higher 

gain. It has a nice open sound with a lot of character. It would be great to 

back vocals. Full but not competitive.

CONCLUSION

It's the kind of pedal I call a 'tool' When nothing 

works on a tune this will.  

It is from an Australian builder with creative

ideas and great sense of humor.  

It has it's own thing. How refreshing 😊

 

the fine print

It is already sold out but there will be 

more soon. The site is worth a good look

so check it out.