ThorpyFX Cogmeister

The ThorpyFX Cogmeister is a single guitar pedal that covers booster, overdrive, distortion and fuzz territory, built around three compatible sections arranged in a fixed series pattern: Push, Drive and Solo. Each section has its own true/hard-wire bypass footswitch and corresponding LED, so the three can be engaged in any combination¹. GuitarPlayer describes the design as "three independent yet highly chainable and gain-stageable boost and overdrive circuits"².

Three sections in a fixed series: Push, Drive and Solo

The Cogmeister's three circuits are named from left to right: Push, Drive and Solo. Delicious Audio, in a piece credited to Paolo De Gregorio and Dan Coggins, says the three circuits "were tweaked to perfectly integrate each other"³. Because the series order is fixed, the sections always run Push into Drive into Solo, and the player shapes the gain structure by choosing which of the three are switched in¹.

GuitarWorld's reviewer Trevor Curwen describes the Push section as "a late-60s-style single silicon transistor treble booster that basically excites the upper midrange", designed to push whatever comes after it in the chain⁴. That makes the fixed order meaningful in practice: Push works as a front-end booster for the Drive and Solo stages behind it.

Controls, switching and power

Each of the three sections is effectively its own pedal, with its own stompswitch and LED¹. The pedal can be powered from a standard DC barrel connection or from a regular internal battery¹.

ThorpyFX offers the pedal in two versions:

• Pedal Alone
• With 3 Barefoot Buttons (larger caps fitted to the three footswitches)¹

Where it came from

The Cogmeister is a collaboration between ThorpyFX and Dan Coggins. GuitarPlayer notes that Coggins's main role is as analog design engineer for ThorpyFX Ltd., "with whom he's collaborating on the Cogmeister's manufacture" in the U.K.². The pedal also appears in RockBoard's PedalPedia under the Dinosaural name, reflecting the same design⁵.

What reviewers said

Reviewers have focused on the three-section architecture. GuitarPlayer's Dave Hunter, writing with Dan Coggins, frames the pedal as three independent circuits that chain and gain-stage well together². GuitarWorld's Trevor Curwen identifies the Push stage's treble-booster character and its role in exciting the upper midrange ahead of the later sections⁴. Delicious Audio's account, from Paolo De Gregorio and Dan Coggins, emphasises that the three circuits were voiced to work as an integrated whole rather than as three unrelated pedals³.

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