This is the Golden Age

[R.G.]

I have thought about this and have decided that instead of the 60's or 70's being the Golden Age for pedals, this is.

Right now. This is it. This is Woodstock for pedals. You were here.

There are more people using more pedals; more companies making pedals; more people making their own pedals; and more trained, skilled people designing pedals than in the first Golden Age.

I thought you'd like to know. 

Take pictures for your grandchildren.

[tehfunk]

I was worried someone was gonna say that because then I start thinking "how long is it going to last?" and how long are all those precious components going to last. I am young and only just got into it, I am glad I made it in time. 

[joegagan]

rg, you have expressed the same exact thought i have been having for the past 5 years.

in my case, z vex  is what sparked me to get really really involved.

[petemoore]

  Joe Gagan has helped me, many many times !
  Runmikeyrun and from what i understand a few other people around here build, but builder comradery wouldn't be anything like this without the I group we have here.
  In the 70's 80's and 90's I said 'I couldn't do that' and I think [at that time] I was right. Right now pretty much anyone who can get electric guitar going can DIY, from what I understand those who build find the ability to tweek builds [='s tweeked rig] a staple ingredient to bettering their own tone.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

All ages have their golden aspects.
Although we have more pedals today than ever before - indeed, we still have most of yesterday's pedals as well - what we cannot recapture is the excitement we felt the FIRST time a particular effect was heard. The bar is being raised all the time, also.

[liddokun]

I am still young (17 years old), glad I am apart of this.

[petemoore]

The bar is being raised all the time, also.  
 Some early recordings may not have had the 'high bar comparators', but none the less sounded to have all time legendary 'jump' to them. These days 'everybody' knows what a distortey guitar is supposed to sound like...if not then play some...LZ or JH or JP or..
 To be contrary to topic, the changes seem to me to have become more incramental now than 'then', but that said, the ability to zip right up to near the top notch is unparalleled...I've said it's fantastically amazing what you can learn online, and I'll say it again !
 I grew up with amplifiers around, I can't imagine how charged it'd get to be to be the first to try out a microphone/amp/speaker.

[joegagan]

i agree, the changes come a little smaller these days, like many art forms.

let's get creative!
i am interested in developing pedals and circuits that appeal to a smaller crowd. i think mike mattews had the luxury for a few different periods, he had the sales volume to swerve off into some pretty whacky circuits, which gave us lots of cool sounds. same for robert moog, les paul and a couple dozen other pioneers.

rg  in the last 10 yrs has presented enough ideas to keep the whole lot of us busy into the middle of this century. same with jack, gus, aron, doug h, davisson, escobedo , on and on...

[ayayay!]

Along these lines, I see a paradox with the helicopter at times.  Meaning they came into being very quickly and the basic design has hardly changed.  Within 50 years, it had pretty much reached its apex as far as advancing any of the actual principles of flight associated with it (not that I'm a pilot...)

I'm hoping this is more like fighter jets that keep on evolving, rather than the same old helicopter.  My problem is I LOVE distortions so I don't see myself personally delving into much new territory, but hopefully something else will spark my interest that's more cutting edge.

I hope I'm making sense.  My hope is that this is just the dawn of the Golden Age of pedals, but as R.G. points out we may be well into it.  Hopefully not anywhere near the end of it!

If I had a beer I'd toast all of us right now!  Cheers guys! 

[smallbearelec]

I am very glad that I started soldering again in the late 90s, after a lot of Very Smart People had already done an enormous amount of spade work. Hearing some of the results of their efforts, getting to know some of them a little, and learning a ton, have been just some of the rewards for me of running SBE. Those of you who were there at Ampage can look back and marvel at what freely shared knowledge has wrought, just in this small community.

[Mick Bailey]

Back in the 70's when I started building pedals there wasn't much information around other than what could be had from electronics magazines and library books. I felt pretty isolated with only my own abilities, interpretations and ideas to work with. Then along came the web. Limitless information, exchange of ideas, communication and sharing. This has rekindled my interest.

I agree, the golden age is now.     

[fab672000]

Definitly it is the golden age, with also great geeks and the other end of the planet giving you their insights, and  thanks to the internet, those guys discuss with you in almost real time 
It would have taken weeks maybe months in the 60's to understand, learn and solve problems, and lot of money too (like expensive books) !

[Mark Hammer]

Brother Keen, I think you make an apt observation.  Once upon a time, I would scan through my back issues of Guitar Player and think to myself "Man, there used to be all these companies turning out the weird and the wonderful.  What the heck happened?".  I think of companies like the one that made the pressure sensitive "Patch of Shades" pedal.

Now, I look around me, and every month in GP I see something innovative.  I see the return of a more useful version of the old Hot Foot (the T.I.P. Third Hand).  I see hand movement-controlled pedals from Source Audio (the Hot-Hand things).  I see Zach Vex's "probe" and sequencer-controlled pedals.  I see Toadworks envelope-controlled loop-fader pedal.  Hell, I see envelope-controlled everything these days.  I see fascinating explorations of user control in digital pedals.

What I see is a great enlightenment that reflects a maturation of everything we have learned about sound production.  Some of that is simply the culmination of years and years of watching products come and go.  Some of it is the culmination of changes in other type of musical technology (e.g., synths) that gave us pause to reflect.  Some is the culmination of the leaps and bounds in shared knowledge as a result of forums like this one and Ampage.  Some is the culmination of the increased availability of technical information about existing products (I know my own knowledge catapults when I add 20 more schematics to my collection and pore over them) that affords insights and resurrects old ideas that were never pursued to their zenith.  Some is the culmination of the increased availability of materials for carrying out those experiments yourself.

Put that all together in a big pot, stir, and out comes a populace nd industry that is ready to think new and exciting ideas in tonal technology, and is equipped to follow through on them to an audience that is ready to give them a whirl.  Nice combination.

Yep, I think it probably IS the golden age.  Great to be in the thick of it.

[frank_p]

Arh...  I am again a fashion victim.
I think the phenomenon is in part linked to the fact that for a lot of people, the reality of making yourself a stompbox is also LOOKING more feasible than in the 80's per ex..  At that time you were getting you music from major labels and your stompboxes from major music equipment companies.  As the DIY mentality growed stronger in parallel with the growth of indies groups and small disc houses, boutiques effects companies are more in numbers.  Just look at the graphical presentation of some the boxes, and you see elements that are borrowed from every style/fashion that appeared in the past.  And that conveys the message that it's hand made, not necessarily in the sense of quality, but in the artisanal and/or cut-and-paste frame of mind  (and you think, well I have two hands, and cut-and-paste is pretty easy).  Perhaps the grunge movement (IMO, that is not an innovation in itself, but a turning point) has been a catalyst for that growth.  Elements of the artisanal ways of the 60's, analog craze resurgence world of the 70's stuff, the "hey you big company, don't tell me me what is possible to do/say" of the 90's are all ingredients that made what R.G. said.  IMO, It's clear that a hand decorated box is a strong promoting factor for the DIYstompbox feasibility message.

Now, where is that mud slide.

[Gus]

I don't know if I agree.
  A bunch of companies but what is really new?( not counting DSP and digital effects the whammy and other digital A/D D/A stuff)
  That posted there have been refinements to some of the "standards"

With DIY stuff I do still see things posted that I question parts of.
Things like pull down resistors after output volume pots that are not taper resistors.
Pots wired in a way that that can cause issues with wiper bounce and "upset" the circuit.
Pots used with DC as a set and forget.
Not protecting the input pair of an opamp (fragments one can read in a book)
Collector and drain resistor trim pots
bias networks
Switching wiring for gain control or tone caps.
.............................

[cpnyc23]

so where do I buy my commemorative t-shirt?   

but seriously, I tend to agree - when I first started playing guitar in the 80's the stuff that was offered as far as fx goes was... um, let's just say, bland.

now, the most interesting things i find are made by individuals - and they are willing to share their ideas!  That point sets it apart from most other moments in the histories of various technology advances.

-chris

[m-theory]

There seems to be very little in terms of true originality of design, but there's an abundance of some very clever re-designs of proven circuits that really expand on, and vastly improve the originals in a lot of ways.  I honestly don't know that there's a whole lot of "brand spanking new" that can be built for guitar.  Even the bizarro effects that most people would never consider for guitar seem to be covered at this point.  

What I seem to see a lot of is ingenius refinement and redesigning of previously proven circuits.  I think that the work with FETs over the past years has really been remarkable.  From what I've read, it's not anything that hasn't been touched on for many years, but it's certainly getting refined.  And, just when I begin to think that it's simply not possible for anyone to create another TS variation, along comes another TS variation.  

[frank_p]

I don't know if I agree.
With DIY stuff I do still see things posted that I question parts of.

Woodstock is not synonymous of correct/quality savoir-faire, it's about idealist democratisation of knowledge, respect of differences (except for the rich capitalists), communion via altered vision, being high on positive thingking and be sure that all that community is going to change the world and the cosmos forever.  Relax and feel the vibrations... man!   

[Morocotopo]

The only problem is that most innovation is taking place in the digital domain, not analog, and we can´t Do It Ourselves...(whoever invented SMD´s was not a DIY person. Grrrr.)
I mean, in the 70´s there were already distortions, mod FX´s, delays, verbs, comps, wahs... most of what I see today is repackaging/refinement with some few exceptions.
Of course one can spend a lifetime refining the refined refinements (TS´s...).
Now, the Whammy pedal, that´s a real innovation...couldn´t have been done (at least reasonably) w/ analog I think.
DIY programmable digital chips? like Max software in hardware...
Also, it´s funny that no electronic device has matched the controllability of produced sound possible with the (electro)mechanical device we call a guitar, though some are awfully close (some synths)...

Morocotopo

[mac]

This is the Golden Age, brought to you by... the Internet, and also sponsored by... 10010101000110101

Never before I saw so pedals and so many brands, foreign, domestic and DIY, offered at music instruments stores in my country.

mac