Suede·Social·Issue No. 31The archive·2026 · SEP01—The archiveEverything we've written.Hot takes, reversals, buyers' guides, and the occasional half-finished thought.Jason Colapietro27 piecesJohnny Suede44 piecesEST. 2026Suede Editorial Board0 piecesLead storyHot takesThe big one6 min read · by Jason ColapietroNobody printed a 3 in September.Thirteen scored gear reviews landed across five mastheads in the ten days to September 7. Twelve carried a score. The lowest was a 4. Here is the ledger, and what the cons boxes were willing to say.Jason Colapietro↗The archive43 piecesFeatured reviewsReviews9 min read · Jason ColapietroBlood for Blood.Fender’s new CEO says the brand has a moral duty to the players. Guitar builders say what they got was legal letters. We want Bud Cole out of the chair, whether the order was his or not. He is real. So is the demand.Hot takes9 min read · Jason ColapietroThe 5 best and the 5 worst MXR pedals.Fifty years of small metal boxes produces real classics and real dogs. I have owned enough of both to know where the line runs.Hot takes7 min read · Jason ColapietroThe cheap-gear renaissance the glossies can't afford to cover.Budget gear stopped being a punchline while the review economy looked the other way. Here is what actually hangs with boutique, and what is still junk.Hot takes8 min read · Johnny SuedeElectro-Harmonix: the best and worst of the weirdest catalog in pedals.Mike Matthews has been shipping strange ideas from New York since 1968, and the catalog now runs to hundreds of boxes. Here is what to keep and what to leave on the wall.Published articleshot takes · 8 min readNo. 01The case for the guitar press.A rebuttal to everything Jason has ever written, filed on the record this time. We built a machine to catch the glossies lying and it keeps clearing them. Somebody on this masthead has to say that in print, and it was never going to be him.Johnny Suedehot takes · 8 min readNo. 02The case against the guitar press.Our own ledger shows sixteen glossy reviews laid against the owner record: seven held, eight split, one collapsed. Johnny calls that an acquittal. I call it the crime scene, and this is the charge sheet.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 7 min readNo. 03Your band is unfindable, and the algorithm is not the problem.I spent a month trying to follow up on every band I liked at a show. Most of them had made it structurally impossible. An audience essay for guitarists who hate posting.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 5 min readNo. 04Fender's owner now owns a stake in Reverb. Nobody put that on the front page.Etsy sold Reverb in April 2025 to investors that include Fender's owner. Reverb says the partnership "remains unchanged." We're not calling that a lie. We're calling it a claim, and claims get checked here.Johnny Suedehot takes · 7 min readNo. 05How we read the guitar magazines (and why we keep the receipts).Every review the big mags print, laid beside what buyers said after the return window closed. This is the method, the Fluff Index, and the standing invitation to check our work.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 7 min readNo. 06The five most fluffed pedals of the year.Half the year is on the books and the feed has crowned its darlings. Every pedal on this list is good, which is exactly the problem.Johnny Suedehot takes · 5 min readNo. 07Why the guitar press can't say no (and why we can).The inflated review is not a conspiracy. It is a structure, and every part of it is working exactly as designed.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 7 min readNo. 08The 5 best and the 4 worst Walrus Audio pedals.Nobody does enclosure art like Walrus Audio, and the paint has been covering for more than it should. Five of these boxes earn the power draw; four are decoration.Top pickWalrus Audio Julia V2Sells firstWalrus Audio SloJohnny Suedehot takes · 7 min readNo. 09Some brands never get a bad review. That is the bad review.A decade of perfect verdicts is not a quality record. Here is what the streak actually measures, and how to shop around it.Johnny Suedehot takes · 8 min readNo. 10Quad Cortex vs ToneX in 2026: the honest version.Five years of firmware later, both boxes finally keep the promises the launch coverage made for them. Time to say who each one is for, and why the answer for most players is neither.Johnny Suedehot takes · 9 min readNo. 11The 5 best and the 5 worst Keeley pedals.Robert Keeley spent the 2000s hot-rodding other companies' pedals and the two decades since building his own. Here is which Keeleys earn the mod-bench reputation and which ones spend it.Top pickKeeley Electronics Compressor PlusSells firstKeeley Electronics D&M DriveJason Colapietrohot takes · 8 min readNo. 12The $399 overdrive is lying to you.A hand-wired drive pedal is about forty dollars of parts in an enclosure you could drill yourself. Here is where the other $359 goes, and when paying it is the right call.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 7 min readNo. 13The $300 first pedalboard that doesn't suck.Tuner, drive, delay, reverb, board, and power, with a real street price on every slot. Most of it used, on purpose.Johnny Suedehot takes · 7 min readNo. 14Every used listing says works perfectly. Here's how to tell when it's lying.Buying used is still the best deal in guitar. The listing itself will tell you when it isn't.Jason Colapietrogear review · 10 min readNo. 15The four amps every working guitarist should know intimately.Not own. Know. There's a difference. These four cover 90 percent of what walks into a gig.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 7 min readNo. 16The case for never owning a guitar wireless system.I've tried six. They were all worse than a cable. Here's why I think they always will be.Jason Colapietrogear review · 9 min readNo. 17What to look for in a used Twin Reverb.There are about four good ones for every fifteen on Reverb. Here's how to tell them apart.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 8 min readNo. 18I've changed my mind about TS-style overdrives.I called them mid-humped, boring, and overrated. I've been wrong for about a decade.Jason Colapietrorig diary · 6 min readNo. 19The five-minute tone fix that changed my rig.It cost nothing. It was the difference between a rig I tolerated and a rig I loved.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 7 min readNo. 20How to A/B pedals without lying to yourself.Almost every comparison video on YouTube is wrong, and almost every comparison you do in a guitar store is worse.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 8 min readNo. 21Single-coil vs. humbucker: a pragmatist's view.I owned a Les Paul for nine years. I sold it for a Telecaster and never looked back.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 7 min readNo. 22Why your fuzz pedal sucks (and how to fix it).It's not the pedal. It's the buffer in front of it, and the volume knob you're not using.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 9 min readNo. 23The six pedalboard mistakes I see at every gig.I've been the guy in the basement watching openers tear down. These keep happening.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 8 min readNo. 24The five things tone snobs are wrong about.I have been a tone snob. I am pushing back on the version of me from 2015.Johnny Suedegear review · 11 min readNo. 25Eventide H9 vs. Strymon Volante: a comparison ten years too late.I bought the H9 in 2014 and the Volante in 2018. Here is what I actually use them for in 2026.Johnny Suedegear review · 10 min readNo. 26Friedman, Diezel, Bogner: which high-gain head is for you.Three amps, three different ideas of what high-gain even means.Johnny Suederig diary · 8 min readNo. 27What I learned modding a Tube Screamer for six months.I rebuilt a TS-9 four times. The pedal got better. I got worse.Johnny Suedegear review · 8 min readNo. 28AC30 hand-wired or reissue: which one is actually for you.After three of them in five years, I have an answer that will annoy both camps.Johnny Suedehot takes · 9 min readNo. 29Why the BigSky is overrated (and what to buy instead).The BigSky is a fine pedal. It is not the pedal you think it is.Johnny Suedehot takes · 8 min readNo. 30Five tone myths I used to believe.I was wrong about most of these for at least a decade. Some of you still are.Johnny Suederig diary · 7 min readNo. 31Pedals I keep meaning to sell (and why I don't).Five pedals I have listed on Reverb at least once and pulled down before anyone wrote.Johnny Suedehot takes · 10 min readNo. 32The most overrated pedals of the boutique era.A short, partial, deliberately unkind list of pedals that got more credit than they earned.Johnny Suedegear review · 9 min readNo. 33What the Klon Centaur actually does (and doesn't do).After twenty years of $5,000 listings and Discord theology, the pedal itself is almost a relief.Johnny Suederig diary · 8 min readNo. 34Why I sold my Helix and went back to a pedalboard.Two years with a digital rig that did everything I asked. I still hated it.Jason Colapietrohot takes · 9 min readNo. 35The 7 best and the 7 worst EarthQuaker Devices pedals.Akron's most prolific boutique builder. Every catalog has a few unrepeatable masterpieces and a few pedals that needed another round of revisions. EQD has both.Top pickEarthQuaker Devices Avalanche Run V2Sells firstEarthQuaker Devices Special CrankerJohnny Suedehot takes · 7 min readNo. 36The 5 best and the 5 worst Boss Waza Craft pedals.Boss's premium line takes the classics and polishes them. Sometimes the polish is the point. Sometimes the original was already the point.Top pickBoss BD-2W Blues DriverSells firstBoss SD-1W Super OverdriveJason Colapietrohot takes · 10 min readNo. 37The 8 best and the 8 worst Strymon pedals.Strymon is the company everyone tries to copy and almost nobody manages. The catalogue is mostly hits, which makes the misses interesting. Here's the line.Top pickStrymon BigSkySells firstStrymon CompadreJohnny Suedehot takes · 8 min readNo. 38The 6 best and the 6 worst Chase Bliss pedals.Joel Korte's catalogue is the audiophile shelf of the pedal world. There's a version of the company that gets called Goyard for guitarists. Half the catalogue earns the price. The other half is real estate on the shelf.Top pickChase Bliss Audio Mood MKIISells firstChase Bliss Audio Wombtone MKIIJohnny Suedehot takes · 9 min readNo. 39The 7 best and the 7 worst JHS pedals.Josh Scott's company has put out something like a hundred boxes. Most are great. Some are filler. Here's where I think the line is.Top pickJHS Pedals Morning Glory V4Sells firstJHS Pedals Cheese BallJason Colapietro
