El Musico Loco

El Musico Loco is a 1-man operation. Chris Bradford is a US ex-pat living in Spain. He is hand-building a small but expanding range of pedals. He hand builds the pedals himself so there’s some lead time when you order. You do get great build quality in return though. El Musico Loco are expanding their range of pedals and have some cool stuff happening!

83 Fuzz

The 83 Fuzz is a reproduction of the old Ibanez 83 Fuzz. The Ibanez version is probably one of the rarest pedals ever. At the moment there are only 3 of them known. It is however a very good sounding fuzz so a repro makes total sense. As usual with El Musico Loco pedals, the enclosure has a very nice engraving, luckily, the box is smaller than the original Ibanez. The layout mimics the original so there are 2 dials and 2 switches. The dials are balance and fuzz depth. The Balance controls the output, the fuzz depth controls the amount of gain you get. The switch on the right is the on/off, the one on the left does a tone change between a brighter and darker sound.

Here's FXDB's interview with Mateusz Rybicki of Taurus:

How did Taurus start?

Taurus is a brand of Box Electronics, which was established in 1983 and is manufacturing a wide range of electro-acoustic products.

However, Taurus had its beginning long before Box Electronics. In the late 70’s the first amplifiers were made for use in the band „PickUp”, in which Adam Kozakiewicz played guitar. He was the designer and the first user of these amps. In 1981 he and a group of musicians formed a rock band „Jeep” and they used to play on amps and sound systems which where designed by Adam. In that time the first Taurus amplifier was also built. It was a special bass amp with a synthesizer and a foot keyboard used to support bass lines. He also used the same name for his next favorite guitar amp.

In 1983, still playing with "Jeep", Adam decided to start Box Electronics, a company that would specialize in making guitar and bass amps. It was a period of great experience, because the band could test all the newly built amplifiers. At the same time Box Electronics started to enlarge its production of sound systems, which made the company popular and allowed it to grow. All the time guitar and bass amps remained the biggest passion of the company's founder and people working with him. A stubborn will to continue the production of these devices led to a design of a whole new series of amps. The owner's sentiment for his first guitar amps caused the name „Taurus” to reappear. At the beginning of the new Taurus project, guitar as well as bass amps were designed, but then all the energy was directed towards a design of uncompromising bass amps.

Gough Electronics

Finding info about the company behind this pedal wasn't easy. They are located in England and the Filtron Pro Wah is their only music related item. They are only selling it on eBay so check there from time to time if you interested in buying one.

Filtron Pro Wah

The people from Gough Electronics can explain much better than me what is going on with the pedal so below is their description of the pedal:

“It is a bandpass type filter with variable resonance (Peak) and has Envelope control mode, Amplitude triggered mode and Auto Wah mode. The modulation for the auto wah can be triangle wave, square wave, upward ramp, downward ramp and random steps. There is also a manual setting to allow the filter to be tuned by hand. Triangle wave modulation can be added to the envelope mode if required, or turned off by rotating the 'Rate' control fully counter clock wise.”

Clearly, there is a lot going on in a small package.

Here's FXDB's interview with Kintoko S. Aji of K.S. Aji Tone Workshop:

How did K.S. Aji Tone Workshop start?

Like many other builders, I first started it as a hobby: I was playing guitar and was very curious about guitar sound. I began to dismantle my first OD pedal which is an 80's MXR Distortion+ and learned to build it by myself with modifications to suit my needs.

Seven years ago (2005) I started to modify Boss pedals in my spare time while I was working in a real estate company. I sold those pedals on eBay and the feedback was great, so I tried to sell my own handmade pedal, the Blues Creamer overdrive, which is a derivative of the Tube Screamer.

As time goes on and I get more and more customers with different needs and playing style, I was inspired by them to build different kinds of pedals, now we have at least 12 types of pedals ranging from overdrive/distortion types to modulation to delay/reverb.

I didn't get any help, except from internet and books.

Here's FXDB's interview with John Chambers of Champ Electronics:

How did Champ Electronics start?

I had a Dallas Rangemaster treble booster in to repair and on hearing about how 'trendy' they were again nowadays I decided I could copy this and do some with improvements too, like various tone settings and switchable transistors.

Here's FXDB's interview with Dirk_Hendrik of Dirk_Hendrik:

How did Dirk_Hendrik start?

I’ve always had interest in pedals and their insides. I think the first reverse job, drawing a circuit diagram from a real unit, must have been my TS10 tubescreamer somewhere around 1992. However it was not till somewhere around 2002 that I got more seriously into a) collecting effects and b) repairing them. The combination of buying broken stuff and fixing it can make an effects collection grow fast. This, combined with the FX related internet activities, resulted in more and more people inquiring if I could fix their pedal as well. Often pedals that were already proclaimed unfixable by one or more other repair guys. Sometimes justified, usually easy fixes.

I have been amazed about crappy and potentially unsafe repaired equipment full time musicians have been sent on the road with. Doing a decent and safe fix (usually determining the root cause failure correct) seems to be very difficult for many.

Repairs and often full restoration is still the majority of what I do, next to a full-time job in... electronics repairs. Pedal building is a side activity and pretty often on a 1-off order basis.

I had little help, but I do get inspiration from the guys at FSB though, which still come up with stuff I never did see before. As for designers that I do consider inspirational, Robert Moog immediately crosses my mind. Incredible designer.

Here's FXDB's interview with Sean Erspamer of Lotus Pedals:

How did Lotus Pedals start?

I got into building pedals after purchasing a used boutique pedal online and having it arrive not working. Having worked in the manufacturing of pro audio gear for Crane Song LTD I have learned my way around circuits pretty well. After seeing the simplicity of the circuit on the broken pedal I decided to try and design my own pedals. I started building for myself in November on 2009 and by mid 2010 was building for others and Lotus Pedal Designs was founded.

I have gotten advice from a few other builders, Jack Deville, Caroline Guitar Company, Wampler, Cusack, I am inspired by anyone who creates.

Lovepedal

Lovepedal has now been around for many years. Supposedly, it all started when Sean Michael wanted a pedal he could take to jams and get a plexi-ish tone out of whatever amp was at his disposal. After a lot of trial and error, the Fab50 was born and that pedal cemented his name in the pedal business. Although some of their pedals are always available, the range is in constant movement. With the release of the Mini Line, they made the same killer tones available in smaller packages and came with modulation pedals etc.

Eternity

The Eternity is another pedal with a great twist. There are several versions of this one around, all based on the same layout with small changes for different tones. Some have more gain, some are smoother sounding etc. There are 3 controls, the ‘Fuse’ version, adds a 3-way toggle but I’m reviewing a different version. The Level and Drive controls don’t require an explanation, the twist in the design is the Glass control. This is not your typical tone control but a treble boost control. Turning this one up will not only get you more high end, it will also add a slight boost, change harmonic content. The Eternity can be run at higher voltage to get more headroom.

Here's FXDB's interview with Tim Webster of Fredric Effects:

How did Fredric Effects start?

I started by building kits and rewiring guitars way back, then graduated to building small batches of effects for friends. You soon realize that building DIY pedals and running a pedal business are two entirely different things. We try to make the most professional, well-built pedals possible, and I'm always trying to improve the way our pedals are put together.

Christian from Magnetic Effects taught me not to fear buffers. D*A*M and Ghost Effects inspire me with their neatness and build quality. MadeByMike sets inspiring standards of customer service. A whole bunch of builders have shown me how not to build a pedal, and how not to do business, but I'll spare their blushes. I think most of the pedal scandals of the last year or so have been down to builders simply lying or trying to cover-up deceptions. Not lying to the customer or pretending there's 'mojo' where there is none is probably a good starting point.

Barber Electronics

David Barber has been around for many years and must be one of the original boutique pedal builders. Throughout the years, he has come up with many coveted pedals and designs and he even has started building amps. Barber Electronics has a big range of pedals, most are overdrive/boost/distortion pedals with some special stuff thrown in. I’m looking at the Tone Press compressor, the first pedal compressor to feature parallel compression.

Tone Press

The Tone Press comes in a standard size enclosure in a very standard layout. You get 3 controls to tweak the box. It has the standard volume and sustain controls but the Blend control makes this a special pedal. The Blend sets the mix between the dry and compressed tones. This is possible because the compression circuit is parallel to the dry. This allows you to get a very squishy comp tone and then dial it back with the blend control to get your attack back. The Volume control has enough range to boost your signal to make up for the loss because of the added compression

On the inside it has a "color" control, it acts as a tone control allowing you to either make the pedal transparent to your base tone or make it darker or brighter. To me this is a set-and-forget control so it’s not a big deal that it’s on the inside.