Looking for a great blues overdrive pedal?  Then check out the MI Audio Blues Pro Overdrive.  This low-medium gain overdrive provides great sounds for everything from a light blues to great classic rock tones.  The booster is very clean and transparent when you’ve got the gain down, but it certainly lights up when you add in more and more gain.  Then you’ve got the tone control, which gives you everything from a nice, tight sound to a mellow, smooth overdrive.  There’s no odd muffled tomes or any tinny sounds when you crank it to the extreme, either.  The Fuzz switch then gives you the option to move the Audio Blues Pro to Fuzz mode, a mode that focuses on tones from the 1960s. (more...)

The Dr. Z Stang Ray premiered in 2006, and within no time was already a good-to amp for a number of players.  One of the key features of the Stang Ray is it's ability to deliver a fat tone that is also still quite articulate.  It has a very full and defined sound with a nice, deep sustain.  The mids are very strong and aren’t pinched off at all, while the low end is rich warm and defined.

The Stang Ray (once named the Mantaray) is the result of Dr. Z collaborating with country superstar Brad Paisley.  The two had previously worked together on the Prescription Extra Strength, and they were eager to partner up again.  They set out to create an amp that provides a great pallet of great tonal possibilities and works along with the Prescription Extra Strength.  The output transformer was designed by Trainwreck’s Ken Fischer, who had worked with Dr. Z before on the Airbrake.  The amp gets at the classic British sound, but also has its own voice that is unique and different. (more...)

Looking for an incredibly responsive overdrive with a sweet warm tone?  Need this overdrive to be versatile enough to pair with any amp or guitar?  If so, then you need a Fairfield Circuitry Barbershop Overdrive Pedal.  This pedal keeps it's signature vintage sound with added gain, and it is super responsive.  The pedal will responds to the nuances of your pick attack, and it breaks up naturally, like a tube amp.  If you ease back on your picking, the pedal can be more transparent and just add some fatness so that the natural tone of the guitar will really come through.

The overdrive features a Sag knob to mimic tube rectifier sag.  By simulating Sag on an amp, the knob opens up many overdrive possibilities.  If you want spongey tones, just roll the Sag knob back a bit.  The more it’s turned, the tighter and more compressed your sound will become.  This pedal is all about subtlety and can really add variety and unique tonal shapes to your sound.  The entire pedal is made from a thick, unfinished metal case that is incredibly durable.  It’s powered by a 9 volt dc.  With this great amount of variety, you may think the Fairfield Circuitry Barbershop Overdrive Pedal will cost a lot, but it’s only $160. (more...)

Matchless Amplifiers has created a number of great amps, including the Independence, the Clubman, the Nighthawk, and the Spitfire.  The Cobra is another favorite.  Building on this amp, Matchless created the King Cobra, a 30 watt single channel powerhouse with both tremolo and reverb. The Matchless King Cobra features controls for master tone, tremolo sound and depth, reverb, volume, cut, and master volume.

While it is based on the Cobra amp and includes many of the same features, the King Cobra uses two EL34 tubes instead of the four EL84 tubes the Cobra amp uses.  It also features a EF86, four 12AX7s, and a 5AR4/GZ34.  You’ll find a speaker phase selector and a high/low power switch on the amp as well.  The King Cobra delivers some great distorted tones, but it is also capable of producing amazing clean sounds as well.  The tremolo and reverb are top notch, and the amp overall is very high quality, exactly what one would expect from Matchless.  Of course, you will pay for quality.  Even used, expect to pay as much as $3,000 for a Matchless King Cobra amp. (more...)

Big John is a pedal company located in Ghent, Belgium.  They’re known for creating some very unique and interesting pedals.  Their naming scheme is also certainly unique—you won’t forget the name of any of the Big John pedals!  Their pedals have been used in diverse outfits such as Nine Inch Nails, Beck, Macy Gray, and Paul McCartney.

The man behind the Big John pedals is bassplayer Jan Detremerie.  He graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels with a master degree, and while he primarily is a bassplayer, he also loves trying out different pedals and creating new sounds.

Big John has created a number of different pedals, each of which has something to offer.  There’s the Big John Granny Puker, for example.  This overdrive pedal lets you switch between overdrive, octave down, or a mixture of the two.  This gives players a huge range of options, especially since you can control the blending of the sounds to make your own unique tone.

Another Big John product is the uniquely named Big John Harry Balls Effects Pedal.  This fuzz pedal has a rich fuzz tone and a transistor boost that you can use with or without the fuzz.  It offers both clean boost and scratchy boost.  If you want some really nasty fuzz, this is the pedal for you.

The third and final pedal offered by Big John is called the Obama Wah.  It’s a distortion pedal that provides a lot of gain and tone, but it also has a switchable fixed wah mode that can create some very interesting textures. (more...)

The Matchless Phoenix 35 is somewhat similar to the DC-30 amp in that it features two contrasting preamps that give players some amazingly dynamic tonal options.  The preamp section uses two 12AX7s and an EF86.  The first channel uses a parallel-triode circuit.  The second works off the EF86 tube and a six position tone switch.  This allows for the high treble control to work with the master volume and the push/pull bypass feature to give a lot of tonal flexibility.  You'd be hard pressed to find a boutique amp that gives you quite as much dynamic control as the Matchless Phoenix 35.

In addition to these features, the Phoenix includes an effects loop, a speaker phase-reverse switch, an output impedance selector with 4, 8, and 16 ohms options, and two AC receptacles.  It makes use of two dissimilar Celestion speakers, a Greenback 25 and a G12H30.  The overall weight of the Matchless Phoenix 35 boutique amp is around 50 pounds, and the amp is small enough that it’s pretty easy to transport.  Of course, this is a Matchless product, and you know that means it’s not going to be cheap.  This quality amp will cost you right about $3,000 if you purchase it new. (more...)