Fuzz is a subjective thing, really. Some folks dig it while others don’t. We’ve always been partial to fuzz around these parts… so many different pedals, tonal options via build style: original… versus clone… versus clone with upgrades, etc… We first took notice of the Earthquaker Devices Tone Reaper when it was a limited edition (30+ pcs) pedal. The Reaper is a vintage style fuzz based on the three-knob Tone Bender. It is a silicon/germanium hybrid capable of producing a wide range of tones with careful tweaking of the tone and fuzz controls, according to builder Jamie Stillman. Once the Reaper entered the regular production line, we jumped to land one.

At our first New York Amp Show last year, we knew we’d miss some stuff bouncing from room to room, checking out all of the boutique amp goodness. When we returned to Houston and checked our show notes, there was one page that just said ‘Sommatone!’. We couldn’t quite recall the context of that scribbling, but we were obviously excited. When the Nashville Amp Expo rolled around a few months later, we made it a point to check in with Jimmy and Danny in an attempt to jog the memory of our previous exclamation. That trip laid the groundwork for the crew sending us their latest combo – the Overdrive 35 – to review. But would it inspire the same NYC excitement?

The Internet is a wonderful thing. Not only does it give ideas like WTDP? a platform to exist (thanks, Internet!), it gives folks like us the ability to cast a much wider net when it comes to gathering up knowledge on the plethora of smaller pedal making shops scattered across the globe. I can say with little doubt that without the Internet we would have never heard of Israel-based PiggyFX and certainly never had been able to get our hands on a Schweinefleisch fuzz to review. But we did! The only thing left was to figure if this wild boar was made of straw, sticks or bricks?

It dawned on us towards the end of last year that we needed to shake things up a bit on the pedal and amp review front. Firstly, we felt the need to change our amp platform from a great, but out-of-production combo – the Reverend Hellhound – to a more traditional, readily available model – the Fender Princeton Reverb RI. We also wanted to bring in more tonal standardization by using one set of high quality cables for pedal reviews and another for amp reviews. We now use Lava Clear Connect cables for all the pedal reviews and Analysis Plus cables for amp test drives. Cool? Yeah… we thought so too!

Right before the big NAMM show in California last month, we were contacted by Rachael Becker at Heavy Leather NYC to gauge our interest in reviewing a couple of her company’s custom leather guitar straps. Now, we’ve always been big on guitar accessories here, but never that big on the non-electronic variety. However, given our efforts to branch out a bit in 2010, we agreed to take a look at her offerings. We ran into her at NAMM, fresh from delivering a new strap to Slash, where she said we’d be getting a handmade Black Beauty and Ballroom Blitz in the mail soon. And now that they’ve arrived, we’re having a hard time letting them go!

The second pedal sent to us by Montreal-based Solidgold Soundlabs was a dirt box honestly titled the Rock Machine – an overdrive/boost stomp with a vintage bent. The OD sector of the boutique pedal market is awash with pedals, most derived from vintage Tubescreamer circuits while others like the Rock Machine, bring something a bit different to the party. I was thrown a bit by the Rock Machine at first due to its appearance – one knob and one toggle… hardly standard issue for an overdrive, but once I got into the pedal, the logic of the controls come forward. But does the Rock Machine deliver on its promise of vintage classic rock and blues tones in one package?

Amp maker Mark Sampson is a bit of a legend in the US boutique tube amp world. He along with Rick Perrotta formed high-end favorites Matchless Amplifier Co. in the late 1980s. He later went on to build amps for Bad Cat and even later, around 2004, started producing new lower-watt tube amps under the Star Amplifier moniker. Star currently produces five different hand-wired point-to-point amps ranging from the biggest – the 30-watt family of the Blues Star, Sirius and Celestial to the smallest… the 5-watt Star Nova. Its small stature and low wattage is aimed squarely at the home recording market. With that in mind, we decided to rev up the Nova and see what we could find.

One of the stand-outs at this year’s Summer NAMM show in Nashville, Tennessee was the toneful simplicity of the quintet of effects shown off by relative newcomer AbovegroundFX. The brain-child of Francisco Pena, Aboveground offers up a handful of understated tone tools that are not as interested in making sounds you’ve never heard as they are helping craft the tone you already have. We managed to talk Francisco into sending us a pair of his new boxes – The Venue reverb and the Tone Control. Each box is straight-forward enough… but are they the right tools for the job?

Tennessee-based Visual Sound stirred up a lot of interest (and controversy?) earlier this year when the company put together an overdrive shootout tossing some of its offerings into a mix of very high-end boutique drives in a sort of blind taste test with a studio audience. The results of the test were… interesting. The performance of the Visual Sound pedals in the shootout reminded us that we had been pursuing getting a couple of the company’s overdrive offerings into our shop for review. When we touched base with Visual Sound recently they sent us the latest in their V2 line – the new Open Road drive and Vans Warped Distortion.

California-based BMF Effects has become a bit of a go-to pedal pusher for the likes of some pretty damn good blues players… like Marc Ford and the guys in The Steepwater Band. While the Purple Nurple looks to be the company’s flagship, we were keen to get our hands on another, perhaps lesser known, BMF offering… thus we were hard pressed to say no when our friend Phil Vickman from Fat Tone Guitars offered to send us a BMF Great Wide Open distortion stomp for review. We were curious to see if this one-knob dirt box was a bolt from the blue, or an overdrive without a clue?

Strymon Engineering burst onto the pedal scene a little earlier this year with an unique-looking brushed aluminum golden box dubbed the OB.1 – an optical compressor and boost pedal that promised studio quality effects in a compact, dynamic package. Intrigued, we sought out Strymon and a chance to put the OB.1 to the test. Since that time, we’ve come to learn the company is working in concert with the minds at Damage Control to bring a new line of effects to market starting with a delay and phaser offering. The OB.1 has garnered praise among the forum and magazine crowds, so we were eager to see if it would live up to its tone enhancing rep or not.

With a name like Marion Henry Electric, we really didn’t know what to expect when we reached out to Alex and Co. in an attempt to get a loaner pedal to test drive from their hand-wired, hand-painted and super-colorful line. After some discussion, including how the pedal maker now had the guitar slingers for Umphrey’s McGee using their gear, MHE sent us their two-knob fuzz – the Fuzz Bucket. Like the crew says in their propaganda, the Fuzz Bucket is a drive pedal with a fuzzy nature that offers up broad range of analog fuzz tones. Eager to test drive, we dove right in.

Dennis at ProTone Pedals has made a name for himself by introducing face-melting, metal-styled pedals with names like Dead Horse, Body Rot and Ram’s Skull. Heck, even his chorus – the Raven – looks intimidating, thanks in part to the fantastic enclosure art by Felix LaFlamme. So it was curious when ProTone chimed in with news of a set of three premium overdrive pedals they had in the works. Even more interesting, their classic and reserved enclosure finish. Obviously a different animal, we bribed Dennis with beer and cookies to send us one. He obliged with the Red Label Premium Overdrive.

Tennessee-based Creation Audio Labs released the Holy Fire distortion pedal in 2008 and has just recently updated the look of this fire-breather by offering up a limited edition chrome finished version – presumably to go better as a matching pair with its shiny MK 4.23 Boost stomp. We nagged and nagged Sarge and his crew for a chance to take the Holy Fire for a spin… and, after a few misfires, the squeaky wheel finally got the grease and a pedal landed on our doorstep. We had heard the stomp previously at the Summer NAMM show, but we was curious just how versatile it could be. Did we find a horse of many colors or just a one-trick pony?

When we had the chance to meet Bob Reinhardt this summer, we were curious about his recent move into the pedal world and more specifically about his first product – the Willard distortion pedal. He told us that he was a big fan of the old 1980s vintage ProCo Rat sound, but had foolishly sold his off a while back. In a desire to reclaim that tone, Bob set out to build what became the Willard – a suped-up tribute to a pedal he loved. He was nice enough to send us one in the mail recently and we put it through its paces. But did we find a Super Rat or just a hunk of 80s cheese?