Music Thing: Boutique effects pedals

Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment:

About a year ago, I wrote about boutique synthesizers -- fantastically obscure boxes hand-made by freaks (normally Scandinavian). Compared with synths, effects pedals are relatively simple -- sometimes just a handful of components, a switch and a couple of knobs in a steel box -- so there are loads of people experimenting and making great-looking but expensive pedals for guitarists. Most of the pedals mentioned here are in the $350-$500 range. Sure, that would buy you a dozen Chinese-made Behringer pedals, but would that make you happy?

Zvex Ringtone
Disappointingly, Zachary Vex's new Ringtone pedal won't make your vintage strat sound like the Crazy Frog. Instead, it's a 8-step sequencer driving a ring modulator -- the early sound effect used to make the voice of the Daleks, and built into the Commodore 64's SID sound effects chip. It's pretty hard to understand what the Ringtone does, or why it's cool, without watching Zachary's wonderful demo video. Like all boutique pedals, the Ringtone is crazy expensive at $349, but that gets you a hand-made, hand-painted pedal.

After the break: Kitsch Brazilian pedals, butch American pedals, clever English pedals, and a fuzzbox with a joystick...

MG Pedals
Marcelo Giangrande makes MG pedals (and a cool little range of amps) in Sao Paolo, Brazil. His bright pink "That's Echo Folks" pedal is an analog delay controlled by a light-sensitive sensor on a tail.

BugBrand
In Bristol, England, Tom Bugs makes a big range of lo-fi sound mangling devices. His Mini-Modular is a little slope-fronted box full of circuits to modify other sounds, or create them from scratch. It's also a synth, but don't expect it to play in tune. His Bug Crusher is a stompbox which uses an analog process to roughly reproduce the bit-reduced sound of old samplers and circuit-bent toys.

Trogotronic
While MG gear is kitsch and colourful, Trogotronic's stuff is butch: Huge, custom-modified all-tube signal generators and effects, and the Iron Cross, a bombproof arcade joystick turned into a four-way signal router.

Guyatone Optical
Guyatone pedals are a little less underground than the others featured here - they're made in Japan in a factory, rather than someone's garage - but they make up for it through over-engineered complexity and an exuberant number of lights, switches and controls. Their Ultron filter pedal even has old-school DIP switches inside for further tweaking.

Schumann Electronics
In the back room of a music store in Brooklyn, John Schumann builds pedals for bands like Portishead and Radiohead. His pedals are fantastically esoteric, like the PLL: an "analog harmonizer" which plays along with the notes you're playing.

Effector 13
While most pedals are aimed a guitarists, the Effector 13 Synth Mangler is designed for keyboard players. It's two channels of ultra-fuzz, controlled by a joystick and a "magic eye" light sensor.

[Alex @ Jul 28th 2006 12:47PM]

Ew those sound awful. If I'm going to waste $300 on a boutique pedal, it'll be a Klon Centaur.

[Eight Hour Lunch @ Jul 28th 2006 1:03PM]

Um yeah. I don't think I'll be bringing one of these to open mike night at the blues club...something about getting beaten up for $300 bucks doesn't seem right to me.

[Eight Hour Lunch @ Jul 28th 2006 1:06PM]

Yeah, I don't think I'll be taking this to open mike night at the blues club. Something about getting beat up for $300 doesn't seem right.

[jaycee @ Jul 28th 2006 1:23PM]

you guys must be the most close minded musicians on the freaking planet...boutique are made by hardworking geniuses

[Brandon @ Jul 28th 2006 1:44PM]

I think music gadgets and the like deserve their own category on GIzmodo. I really enjoy reading about them. Why are they just categrized under "misc. Gadgets?"

[Stuart @ Jul 28th 2006 2:19PM]

Video is not downloading for me. Anybody have an alternative link?

[Alex @ Jul 28th 2006 5:24PM]

jaycee: "you guys must be the most close minded musicians on the freaking planet...boutique are made by hardworking geniuses"


Maybe they sound awful? I'm interested in effects that enhance my guitar's tone in a positive way, rather than those that destroy it for the sake of being different. Geniuses or not, they have created some very silly and useless effects. Especially that first one, which I thought was going to be like a guitar synth that makes your guitar sound like a monophonic ringtone, but instead turned out to be a piece of garbage.

[Michael @ Jul 28th 2006 6:00PM]

All of the effects us guitarists commonly use today started out being in the boutique category. Someday one of these might catch on - why all the hate? If you don't like them then don't buy one, it's as simple as that.

[cuby @ Jul 29th 2006 9:59AM]

pedals like these that crunch up your sound are meant for people who are creative and open-minded enough to make music with them. if you're the kind of guitarist who is fine with your reverb and distortion, and likes to cover metallica, then no, they're not for you.

and i wouldn't say they're just being different for the sake of being different. if anything, it's different for the sake of being "distinct", and if having a recognizable sound will make you memorable to your fans, then that seems worth 300 bucks to me.

[eyes @ Jul 30th 2006 3:11AM]

These pedals will destroy you (in a good way of course):

http://www.killerrockandroll.com/deathbyaudio/
Too bad they are expensive.

All this talk is a matter of opinion. Guitar tone and style of music is a very personal thing, definitely something that not everyone will agree on. Personally, if I had the money, I would own a lot more odd pedals than I do.

[STYLES2067 @ Jun 27th 2007 9:33PM]

I DIG WHAT'S GOIN' ON HERE...I BUILD MY OWN AND I MUST SAY I REALLY ENJOY HEARIN' THE SOUND COMIN' FROM MY AMP THESE DAYS.BEATS THE TAR OUT OF MASS PRODUCED "ONE TRICK PONIES".