Just last year, a new boutique pedal brand called Pogo Pedals launched with the release of a mighty, vintage-inspired overdrive effect called the Zen Ray. Less than a year later, Pogo Pedals is now unveiling five more brand-new pedals that make up the new Harmony Series: a Compressor + Boost, Analog Phaser + Vibe, Vintage Tremolo, Octavia, and Modern Fuzz. All of the pedals are fully analog and, even better, are super compact and affordable.
"When we set out to create the Harmony Series, we had very specific objectives in mind," writes the brand. "The intention was to provide boutique sound by using all analog circuitry for the very experienced guitar player, with controls that were easy to dial in and work well with other effects for the beginner guitar player."
Like the Zen Ray, all of the effects in the Harmony Series were inspired by beloved vintage specimens while modernizing the full package with features for today's players. You can likely guess what the Octavia is based on, but not all of the inspirations are what you might expect.
The Modern Fuzz for example, was inspired by the very early wedge-shaped Tom Oberheim FZ1-S from 1972. One notable design evolution is that the original's FZ1-S slider switch was replaced with a D/B (dark/bright) voice switch that has been re-EQ'd for proper guitar and bass signals. It also features six high-gain/high-current NPN silicon transistors in a parallel "clean" mix control, which ultimately allows players to better blend clean and effected signals.
Another pedal designed with both guitarists and bassists in mind is the Compressor + Boost, with a compressor circuit inspired by that of an early '80s solid-state Ampeg amplifier. This simple but unique circuit is both sensitive and musical, mixing the clean and compressed signals together through an op-amp mixer stage.
The Analog Phaser + Vibe (which stands for vibrato and not Uni-Vibe) uses two hi-fi quad op-amps for its versatile LFO circuit, which results in delightfully lush and shimmering phase-shifting tones. And lastly, a vintage 1960s Schaller Tremolo TR-68 was the platform on which the Pogo Pedals Vintage Trem was built, but while the original circuit only used four lower-gain NPN silicon transistors, the Pogo Trem features five high-gain, high-current NPN silicon transistors.
Be sure to check out the full video above, and check out the Pogo Pedals Reverb shop to pick up any or all of these five new effects for your pedalboard. If you're hoping to pick up more than one, Pogo Pedals is also offering some special bundles of three pedals at a discount right now: the Modulation Bundle (Compressor + Boost, Analog Phaser + Vibe, Vintage Tremolo), Psychedelic Bundle (Octavia, Modern Fuzz, Analog Phaser + Vibe), and Vintage Bundle (Comp + Boost, Octavia, Modern Fuzz).