Indie pedal maker Fromel Electronics has a pair of new stomps in the offing – a boost and an overdrive. The boost, dubbed ‘Great Day for Up!’, sports three control knobs. ‘Great’ controls the overall greatness, ‘Day’ controls how much of your Day gets to be Great, and ‘For’ is the prepositional control to tame the signal when you are having a really really GREAT DAY. Company’s words, not mine! The drive stomp, called GO!, is dynamic drive with two controls – Thing One and Thing Two. There is something very Seussian about both pedals, as the maker confesses, but the price is right. Both Great Day for Up! and GO! are priced at around $120.

Swedish bass pedal gurus EBS will unveil their first signature pedal in the company’s 20-year history at the upcoming NAMM show. The EBS Stanley Clarke Signature Wah-Wah is a true bypass pedal that works in four different modes: Low-pass, High-pass, Band-pass and Boosted Band-pass. It also features adjustable controls for Bandwidth and Frequency range. The footswitch is flexible and can switch between Wah/Bypass or Wah/Volume. The wah will be officially release at the EBS booth at NAMM. Stanley Clarke will appear for a meet-and-greet at noon on Friday, 16 January.

Another new pedal to be showcased at the upcoming NAMM show in LA is the Toadworks Ajax phase inverter – a two-channel mixer with a split/stereo output, with the ability to invert the phase of one input and one output. According to the company, it can be used as a basic buffer, a splitter for creating stereo signal paths, and a summer for mixing two signals together such as two guitars, a bass and a keyboard, summing a stereo signal, etc… But there is more! A stomp switch will invert the phase of one of the outputs and a mini-toggle switch inverts the phase of one input. These can be used to correct phase problems or create some wacky sounds. More to come…

New York-based Pigtronix has released its long-awaited Mothership analog synthesizer featuring VCO, Sub-Octave and an intelligent Ring Modulator. According to the company, the Mothership has incredibly fast note recognition and enormous analog sound making it ideal for use with guitar, bass, horns, vocals or any other musical instrument. At the heart of the Mothership is a new note detection circuit that achieves high-speed and accurate pitch to voltage translation. The true-bypass pedal is a true analog mono-synth with a vast array of tuning options between its voices. The other-worldly Mothership is available now.

Plush FX Pedals,​ a division of Fuchs ​Audio ​Technology, will unveil three new effects pedals at the upcoming Winter NAMM convention in LA. The “Noxious” is the Nick Catanese (Black​ Label​ Society and Speed ​X) ​signature pedal. It sports a full complement​ of amp style​ controls:​ gain,​high-​mid-​low, ​and master volume and provides the kind of organic high-gain searing metal​ drive ​and amp-like feel. Next, the “Verbrator”​ combines an all tube effects loop with a studio grade​ 24-bit digital reverb in a compact pedal​ size package. While​ it runs on a 9V adapt​or, ​a switching power​ supply runs the tube on the proper high voltages that tubes ​crave.​ Lastly, “The Pure Gain Plus” combines two ultra​-​quiet ​Pure Gain modules with an A/B box. When used with two guitars it allow​s the player to both boost​ or buffer and match​ their levels.​ When used with a single guitar, ​it will provide bypass and two distinct gain and/or buffer settings.​ Look for more on these stomps in January!

Danish pedalmasters T-Rex Engineering are taking over the construction of the three ‘Gristle’ series pedals borne from a relationship between pedalsmith Tim Jauernig and guitar player Greg Koch. Time is almost up if you want a hand-wired version of these classic overdrives. There is backlog building for the Jauernig-built stomps, so you’ll need to contact Tim about availability. The transition to T-Rex starts in January. According to T-Rex, the Gristle Luxury drive, the DGTM and the Gristle King have been ‘adopted’ by the company and are now official members of the T-Rex pedal family.

The crew at Barge Concepts is welcoming a new addition to its blend and bypass product line – the DVB-2 Dual Variable Blend Bypass Looper. The new pedal – originally announced in June – is a fully buffered, non-feedback, true bypass loop with two front-panel clean blend controls. Each of the Clean Blends is fully variable from 100% dry to 100% wet, and the Blend A/B switch lets you select between your two blend settings on the fly, with a bicolor LED indicating which control is active. You can switch between two different blend settings for chorus and verse passages, different songs in your set, or for different devices being used in the loop. The DVB-2 is available now!

Spanish pedal maker Thundertomate has a new medium gain silicon fuzz pedal in the offing – a sibling to its now discontinued The Cow silicon fuzz. According to the company, the new FZ Rev A pedal will have an adjusted bias current versus The Cow so that the effect offers a very natural decay, avoiding the ‘noise gate’ abruptness of other models. Thundertomate adds that the new true bypass stomp cleans up well when rolling off the guitar’s volume knob – to the point of sounding ‘almost completely clean’ if necessary. The pedal is priced at $142 at current exchange rates and is available now on their website.

Pedal makers Fromel Electronics is prepping a new optical compressor stomp that it touts as a good compressor for those guitarists who hate compressors. The Velvet Vice has three knobs – Compression, Release, Level – and is ‘amazingly quiet’ even when the compression is set pretty strong. According to Fromel, the knee is pretty soft and never really gets spanky. The pedal can be made in a skinny box or standard box with the jacks on top or on the side. The Velvet Vice will add a little butter to your tone for only $139 shipped.

Zvex Effects will showcase the first two in the company’s new Vextron series of new lower prices pedals at the Winter NAMM show next month. The Disortron is the distortion side of the company’s popular Box of Rock stomp with added gain boost and subs switches, while the Mastatron is a ‘bastardized’ Hendrix silicon fuzz using the 2N2222 transistor. According to Zachary Vex, the stomp has a ‘bumble bee’ quality that stays solid for all settings. Pricing for the new Vextron Series is an attractive $149. Both new pedals are slated to be available in April.

The crew over at Fuzzhugger will be releasing its Algal Bloom fuzz pedal next month. FH(fx) describes the stomp as a thick, nasty, searing new fuzz whose name is inspired by its tone… thick, choking, destructive… but very alive! The pedal is a true bypass Silicon diode and transistor based fuzz. Controls include Trim (Choke), which like the choke on a carburetor will adjust the amount of signal that reaches the heart of the pedal. The Gain (Bloom) knob is designed expand and push the fuzz tone. The Level knob is the master volume control, which is overdriven. You can check out a video demo of the upcoming pedal after the jump!

The pedal gurus at Denmark’s T-Rex Engineering recently presented Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti with the a copy of his new signature phase shifter stomp shipping to stores during the first half of 2009. The box has four knob controls – Bite, Level, Depth and Rate – and a two-way toggle that switches between four-stage and eight-stage phase allowing vintage tones versus more modern swirl. T-Rex plans to officially launch the new pedal at the Winter NAMM show in California next month. Check out a video of Mark sampling the new phaser after the jump.

Hello gang! We took a few days off this week to recharge before Christmas, and while it meant fewer posts it doesn’t mean we haven’t been working! It is mostly quiet now due to the proximity to the Winter NAMM show, which is just four weeks away. Many companies will wait to show off new goods in LA and yes, we will be there posting from the show floor. So during this quiet period, we’ve been demoing a ton of pedals in preparation of the launch of our Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV) Pedal Reviews next month. We know all rigs take pedals differently, so YMMV reviews are designed to be no frills, non-bias looks at the latest in stompage! Sound cool? We hope so!

For almost a decade, former Galactic Cowboys bassist Monty Colvin has been based out of Kansas City, Missouri churning out new material as the chief songwriter and guitarist for his band Crunchy. Last year, he put out Crunchy’s third record, Loserville – an original collection of fierce rock riffs and punk pop melodies. When he’s not bringing the rock, Monty gets his artistic fix through painting and is responsible for the art on the Crunchy records as he was with most of the Galactic Cowboys albums. He’s also found a new hobby in podcasting. WTDP? spent a few minutes with Monty recently to get the low down on all things Crunchy.

The pedalsmiths at Barber Electronics gave the green light to their Custom Shop specialists to make a suped-up version of the company’s popular Direct Drive overdrive stomp. The result is the Super Sport – a Direct Drive with a plethora of internal controls and race car paint job. The pedal has internal controls for note shape, harmonics, bass, mid-range and presence. Externally, the Super Sport has Volume, Tone and Gain controls sitting atop a smartly painted sparkle blue enclosure with white racing stripe accents. The Barber Electronics Custom Shop Super Sport carries a price tag of $139.95.