When Mikey Demus realised that his ideal distortion pedal didn’t exist, he had little choice but to make his own – with a helping hand from ThorpyFX.

Demus relies on cranked-up Orange amps for his signature tone, but always carries pedals for when he needs use hired backline without a suitable drive channel. After contacting Adrian Thorpe for advice, their conversation quickly turned into a business partnership, named in honour of the ragga-metal guitarist’s glorious face-fuzz.

Enter the Redbeard Effects Red Mist Mk IV. A high-gain distortion pedal in a classy metal case, it features a three-way active tonestack, alongside the usual knobs for gain and volume. The clever mids control is a gyrator-based bandpass filter that Demus neatly describes as “the fun knob”.

In our review of the Red Mist, we called the pedal “a solidly built box of pure metal with a couple of bonus tricks to lift it beyond mere doing-the-job competence into something more inspiring”.

It all adds up to a hugely usable and tremendous-sounding heavy distortion that offers many flavours of wild. To enter this competition, head to the link below and answer the following question. Good luck.