Doom Metal has existed since the earliest days of heavy metal. A sub-genre of Metal, Doom has very close ties to other sub-genres such as Sludge, Stoner and Funeral Doom, and is identifiable for its trudging tempos (60-75bpm is pretty common), repetitive riffing and droning leads, and hints of psychedelia evident in band names, song titles, lyrics and album covers. Doom is all about taking you on a sonic journey. It incorporates aspects of fantasy which, like numerous other Metal sub-genres, can be at least partly traced back to Robert Plant's mystical lyrics on Led Zeppelin's hugely ..read more

I’ve been running businesses for as long as I can remember. There’s a story my parents always tell of a teacher breaking up a fight between two kids in the playground and both kids pulling out a little bit of paper with “karate licence” written on it. A short interrogation of the offenders later and a 7-year-old me is in the headteacher’s office for, apparently, being a genius. Ten Pence each I sold them for, exactly the price of a pack of crisps at break time. My punishment? I was put in charge of the tuck shop, running a team of 4, selling the crisps and drinks at break and doing the stock a ..read more

Garth from Whimsy Machines looks at the impact of parts shortages in the the guitar pedal industry as supply chain issues bite... Hi, I'm Garth from Whimsy Machines, a small, family-run electronics manufacturer specialising in analogue audio paraphernalia based out of Fredericksburg, Virginia. We started working on a line of guitar pedals in 2016, then went public in 2020 with our first 3 designs - Short Stack, Jeff & King Spark - and we're quite proud of them! In that time, we learned many painful lessons and made quite a few eye-watering mistakes. But the response has been ..read more

Want some advice on picking the right guitar pedals for various genres, including blues, rock and metal? You've come to the right place! Below you'll find our guitar pedal buying guide genre by genre. Although each musical genre has specific pedal requirements, there are some common pedal types used in most if not all styles of music - for example, compressors can be a useful tool in all genres to rein in any wayward volume spikes and even massaging and pumping the sound for musical effect. Find out more below in our genre-specific guitar pedal guide. You can also check out our ..read more

I've brainstormed the many ways musicians can make money using their talents and a bit of business nous, from livestreaming and recording new music, to offering mixing services and tuition. There are so many options out there these days, the only limit is how much time you wish to put into your passion! How Can Musicians Make Money? Livestream Your Set Develop a YouTube Channel Record New Material Stream Your Music Claim Your Royalties Mix & Master Merchandise Build Your Email List Exclusivity Music Tuition Flip Your Gear Livestream Your Set Livestreaming your set is a great way to ..read more

You'll see it written in a lot of our product descriptions - "true bypass". But what does it mean? Even if you have pedals on your pedalboard turned off, the signal from your guitar has to go through them on its way to the amp. And it's HOW the signal goes through a pedal that determines whether it will degrade before it reaches the end of the route. Avoiding Tone Suck With true bypass pedals, the use of a DPDT (dual pole dual throw) switch allows the signal to take a route around a pedal's circuitry when it's turned off, rather than having to go through it like it would when the pedal is acti ..read more

Putting a rig together is great fun, but it helps if you have a purpose in mind when buying guitar pedals. My guitar effects pedal buying guide below has the lowdown on the main types of pedals you might need for your pedalboard. Of course, it's only a guide so do what you feel needs to be done to get the sound that's in your head! Read on for my guitar effects pedal buying guide by pedal type; you can also check out my guitar effects pedal buying guide genre by genre, which highlights the different types of pedals you'll need for each of the main genres of music. What Are the Main Types ..read more

If you're looking for a list of boutique guitar pedal brands in the UK, you've come to the right place! Although Boost Guitar Pedals is a retailer of some of these UK pedal builders - including Fredric Effects, Raygun FX, Stompnorth and Zander Circuitry - this is a completely un-biased list. But I've made a concerted effort to list as many UK pedal builders as I can to make this a truly useful resource for everyone. Have I missed any? Probably! Let me know... Guitar Pedals UK: A Golden Age From super-high end build quality to forward-looking circuit topologies and eye-popping artwork, we’ve ne ..read more

Running an overdrive pedal in front of an amp is designed to push its valves into breakup for some sweet, sweet crunch or saturation. It's an ideal technique for those of us who can't - or won't - turn the volume of our amps up to 11. Gain Staging By combining these gain stages - firstly the pedal circuit, secondly the pre-amp tubes, and finally the power tubes - you are able to push the amp in such a way that you achieve overdrive without it sounding harsh, fizzy, or nothing like your original signal. Pedal Stacking A variation on the basic gain-staging technique above is to co ..read more

Duncan MacKinnon, founder of Stompnorth Pedals, knows a thing or two about valves (AKA tubes) in guitar pedals. Below, he dives into how they work and why we love them... My introduction to building guitar pedals was a Build Your Own Clone – ESV Fuzz. The ESV stood for Extra Special Vintage on account of its Phillips Ac127/01 germanium transistors. Its sound is amazing and is indeed as old school as its name suggests, but I wanted to take "vintage" even further, so I started looking for valve kits and soon found a booster that used a single 12ax7 valve. I loved the way it sounded and the respo ..read more