HomeToneBlog.com – Tone. At Home.

1st August 2025

New Arrivals: July 2025

This month’s theme was going to be “retro”. I’ve picked up one of the o.g. Klon klones from before they were a thing, and (effectively) a re-issue of the original Honey Bee circuit.

Then, towards the end of the month, I had the opportunity to get two more pedals from Origin Effects (the one brand that I planned to explore this year). That has added a distinctly modern vibe to go alongside the “retro” theme.

28th July 202527th July 2025

First Impressions: BJFe Honey Bee OD Retro

Earlier this month, I picked up one of my holy grail pedals: a Honey Bee OD made by BJFe.

This is a photo of three guitar effects pedals on the author's pedalboard.

On the far-left, is the BJFe-in-your-hand series Honey Bee Overdrive by One Control. It's a distinctive warm honey colour, with four control knobs on the top surface.

In the middle is the BJFe Honey Bee OD Retro, by BJFe. This pedal is a lighter shade, almost yellow. It has three control knobs on its top surface.

On the right-hand side is the Klone v2 by Arc Effects. This pedal has a metallic gold finish. It spots the Klon's distinctive control knobs.

What do I think of it? Read on for my First Impressions.

8th July 20255th July 2025

First Impressions: One Control Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Standard

I recently bought the Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Standard, from One Control.

This is a photo of three mini-sized guitar effects pedals on my pedalboard

On the left, in blue, is the One Control Blue Bee OD 4K Mini (BBOD4K-mini for short).

In the middle, in yellow, is the One Control Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Standard (HBOD4K-mini-standard for short). This review is about this pedal.

On the right, in a crimson red, is the One Control Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Custom (HBOD4k-mini-custom for short).

Each mini pedal has four control knobs, for Volume, Gain, Bass and Treble.

Although all part of the same family, and based on the same circuit design, all three pedals sound quite different.

What do I think of it? I’ve made my photo of it the wallpaper on my phone …

6th July 20255th July 2025

#CoffeeAndKlon 42: Can I Learn To Love My RYRA The Klone?

#CoffeeAndKlon is my (irregular!) Sunday morning magazine series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind right now. There’s always coffee, and there’s normally chat about the Klon and its many competitors.

I’ve had my RYRA The Klone pedal longer than this blog’s been going, so why haven’t I featured it at all until now? Why hasn’t it had the love from me that its fan base says it deserves?

And is that about to change? Can I learn to love my RYRA The Klone?

3rd July 2025

New Arrivals: June 2025

There’s … a definite theme to the new arrivals this month, shall we say? 😁

I managed to find two of my bucket-list pedals, both of which I thought I’d never get the chance to try. While doing the background reading for their blog posts, I ended up stumbling upon another rare pedal that I didn’t even know about. And then I grabbed one of their cheaper cousins too, because the opportunity was there.

Dear readers, June has been One Control month.

21st June 2025

Studio Diary #61: Remastering My Original Pedal Platform Presets For Axe-FX 3 Firmware 28.05

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

I spent most of Spring dividing my playing time between the pedal platform patches that are based on the DRRI and using my real Tweed Deluxe amp. When I came back to my original 57 Vintage and 65 Modern presets, I could hear a stark difference – and not in a good way.

So, before I finally wrap up this series on the pedal platform patches, I want to go back and re-master those two original pedal platform presets. There’s been some recent Axe-FX 3 firmware updates that make this easier to do and sound better than ever.

3rd June 20252nd June 2025

First Impressions: Tone King Imperial MKII Synergy Preamp Module #TweedTone

Synergy have just released the Tone King Imperial MKII preamp module.

This is a photo of the Imperial MKII preamp module in a (dusty!) Synergy SYN-1 housing.

On the left of the module, there are two rows of three pots, one row per channel.

The top row of three controls are for the Lead channel (the tweed-voiced overdrive channel). They are labelled Volume, Tone, and Mid Bite.

The bottom three controls are for the Rhythm channel (the blackface-voiced clean channel). They are labelled Volume, Bass and Treble.

Next to them are two large, fixed stepped controls. These are the Attenuation controls, one for each channel.

There's a mini toggle switch nestled in between the two large controls. This enables a high-frequency cut.

On the right, there are two more toggle switches, to switch on the built-in, valve-driven tremolo. Next to them are two more pots, for controlling the speed and depth of the tremolo circuit.

I found one in stock here in the UK the day after launch, and ordered it straight away.

Now that it’s here in a very dusty Hermit’s Cave, what do I think of it? Here are my (very positive) first impressions.

31st May 2025

(Belated) New Arrivals: March 2023

I’ve had computer troubles, which stopped me posting anything for a while. And, unfortunately, I didn’t manage to make a blog post about this pedal before the computer troubles began.

31st May 2025

New Arrivals: May 2025

They say buses come in threes. After a quiet couple of months, I’ve had three new (to me) tweed-tone preamps all arrive within 48 hours of each other.

Sadly, I won’t be keeping them all …

26th March 202525th March 2025

#PlexiTone: Synergy Plexi Module + Axe-FX 3 For Reference Marshall Plexi Tones

After last week’s success with my Synergy BMan module, I decided to see if the same approach would work with my Synergy Plexi module and the Axe-FX 3.

This is a bit more of a quick and dirty effort. But hopefully you’ll agree that the results are, at the least, very promising.