I was looking for a small amp with built in effects for travelling and for readily moving around the house, so the Positive Grid range came up on my radar pretty quickly. I eventually settled for the Spark Mini at the end of last year and have had some time to sit with it. So what have I found great about this amp? One of the things that I really like about the Spark Mini is that user amp profiles are uploaded to the app and voted on by users, with the highest rated rising to the top – this way I find that I am constantly finding tones that suit the application that I need it for. Some of the ..read more

I haven’t been to see live music in a while and holy shit was it a revelation when I returned. I have loved Alexisonfire for a long time, from Crisis through to the Switcheroo series with Moneen, it’s all great. Unfortunately, I was out of the country during their 2017 tour of Australia and never got a chance to see them. So I was naturally going to check out vocalist/rhythm guitarist Dallas Green’s project ‘City and Colour’ when he returned to Australian shores with a little taste of Wade MacNeil (vocals/guitar for AlexisonFire) and Doom’s Children supporting. Doom’s Children (with Wade front ..read more

There are plenty of great pedals out there, but sometimes you want something to experiment with, or you don’t have the cash at the moment, or a thousand other reasons. Here are some great brand alternative pedals that you can pick up on Amazon. OCD by Fulltone Mike Fuller from Fulltone has recently wound down operations, so that means that his pedals are either going to be hard to get, or start to go up in price. Never fear though, as the best alternative to the Fulltone OCD has been around for a little while now. The Joyo Ultimate Drive has been a highly reviewed drive pedal from Joyo since i ..read more

Donner Pedals have properly hit our shores now with their online store at Donner Music. In the past they have definitely been available from a lot of places, however we seemed to be constantly paying the Australia tax. These pedals that people in the States were calling ‘budget’ were often priced at almost $100. Now, with an Australian warehouse, we are looking at more like $50-70 on each mini-pedal (a few like loopers are more than this) with an exclusive Australian Guitar review discount (at the end of this article). Donner contacted me recently to become an affiliate and I jumped at the op ..read more

I’ve been out of the scene a bit recently, COVID has been a major hit on my down time and ability to get to posting. I have been noticing though that Artist Guitars have been releasing some great stuff over the last little while. So here are the things that I am looking forward to: Seafoam Green Stratocaster – Seafoam has been one of my favourite of the standard Fender releases and if this one lives up to other strats that I have played from Artist then I am very much looking forward to trying this one out. Headless Multiscale Fan Fret 8 String – Maybe this isn’t what I am looking for in parti ..read more

I just wanted to revisit the review that I gave to the Artist TC59 a few years back especially to look at the quality of company that Artist Guitars are and where they are at right now. Just to recap the review, I think that the Artist TC59 is one of the best pieces of gear that you can get for a budget. The Quality Assurance is top notch and you are going to get a lot more bang for your buck from this than you would from an entry level Squier. Throughout the lockdown(s) it becamse obvious that Artist are a company that cares about the people they are selling to. They made massive efforts to e ..read more

I have been looking for the ideal Reverb for my playing and have gone through a few of late. The EHX Ocean’s 11 was a little too much reverb for my liking and the Matthews Astronomer was a little too specifically shimmery for me. I’m not a massive user of reverb and just wanted something that would do the job for a little bit of ambiance and maybe a bit of weird stuff along the way. When I came across the Joyo Atmosphere Reverb from their Revolution range I thought that I might be expecting too much from the pedal, but I suppose could I really go wrong at $139? The answer was no. Joyo, and sim ..read more

Joyo Ultimate Drive – you may have heard of the OCD, a classic overdrive pedal that may people have on their boards. However, it comes with a high price and some issues with customer service.. The Ultimate Drive is almost a perfect replica of the OCD with a tiny price point. You will can pick this one up for around $60 EHX Soul Food – Many people are looking for a transparent overdrive which gives them drive but doesn’t taint their tone too much. The ultimate here is the Klon, however you are looking at a $2k price point for that. Of the Clones of the Klon, you can’t go wrong with the EHX Sou ..read more

Reverb is somewhat of a necessity for many boards, it adds that extra little oomph to your sound and makes you sound bigger (and maybe even better) than you are. So being such a necessity, why the hell are so many recommendations for pedals that are over $350? I thought it would be good to look at some pedals that fit a budget range and are affordable to more people. TC Electronics Sky Surfer – (less than $110) With their move affordable Behringer(?) rebuilds, TC really hit it out of the park, I have used the Prophecy delay myself and would highly recomment it. The pedals ar built like tanks ..read more

We are back! 2019 was a crazy year and Australian Guitar review has been a bit of a passion project that has had to take a back seat over the last little while. However this pandemic has meant a lot more time at home and ability to plan and work on the things that I feel are more important. So from now on, more regular content will be hitting the page, as well as some exciting new projects that I hope that you will enjoy. As always, if you want to help support Australian Guitar review without any real cost to yourself, you can always click through on our affiliate links. I receive a small comm ..read more