Andy Green
Andy Green Pedals
We are located in Hollywood Florida about a mile from the beach.
www.andygreenpedals.com
How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?
I grew up in New York City around all the vintage guitar stores and legendary shops on 48th St. Ken Parker had his shop there and Mike Mathews had Electro Harmonics in the 70’s right there. I got a job in a vintage shop in 1981 and have been on my knees playing with pedals since that day.
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
I love this question and I love reading others influences. I grew up hearing everything but my tastes have always leaned toward Guitarist/singers. Terry Kath and Lowell George are by far my everyday listening in the rock world. I love Zappa and have been hacking away at his tunes since the 80’s. Currently I listen to Warren Haynes, John Jorgensen, Eric Johnson and Guthrie Trapp. John Jorgensen has always been one of my heroes since The Desert Rose Band. When he played with Elton John and with the Hellecasters I was able to see those shows and got to see the Gypsy Jazz Quintet a few years later. Now he has his own bluegrass outfit called J2B2 and an incredible new triple CD. To me he has always been the epitome of a professional guitarist. Also guys like Guthrie Trapp, Kenny Vaughn and Andy Reiss are just the greatest for me to listen to while I work. If you ask my wife she would say Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel, Waylon Jennings or Merle Haggard.
What led to the start of Andy Green Pedals? How long have you been in business?
I started working in a vintage guitar shop in the early 80’s in New York and was able to eventually work for Kurosawa sound the Japanese music store giant, they had a shop in New York City in the 90’s. I fixed guitars there in Soho NYC. It was a very busy shop and most of the bands that came in had been punk bands and the instruments all looked like they needed to be thrown away not fixed. I had to learn to fix everything and fix it fast and make sure it worked on stage in a punk rock situation. I worked side by side with a synth and electronics repairman that was trained in Japan and taught me almost everything I know about using a soldering iron. I eventually went to work for Rudy’s Music on 48th St. where I was able to build amplifier racks with effects for the pros. This was about 1994 and boutique pedals had just started to take off. Rudy’s carried Mike Fuller’s Fulltone Effects and we got the first effects he sent to a dealer. I was able to see and hear a hundred of Mike’s hand made, one-off incredible creations. He was changing the industry for so many of us.
I watched the industry grow from those early days to the mass amount of boutique builders. I always wanted to make my preamps for the masses. I had always been modding the Marshall Lead 12’s for pros so it was a logical progression for me. With companies like Mammoth that paint and drill enclosures to my spec and software like EagleCAD or KiCad it finally became a reality to make my pedals consistently.
How big is your operation/how many employees do you have?
I have owned and operated a very busy guitar repair shop in South Florida for over 10 years where we do anything guitar related. I do all the repairs and my wife helps me with almost everything from sticking her skinny hands into guitars where mine do not fit to stuffing PC Boards with parts while I solder them. I am also very lucky to have a friend that is not a pedal builder but a really smart electronics guy so he comes by a few days a week and build pedals with a passion. He is one of the best and cleanest builders I have ever met and he loves building my pedals. We are really small and have our hand in so many cool guitar projects right now that we rarely take a day off. We try to document our day to day on Facebook but we often don’t take pics throughout the day. The shop definitely has some of the most interesting clientele.
Did you have formal schooling, or are you self-taught? Take us through that story:
When I started to play guitar in the 80’s we had MXR and Electro Harmonix pedals. I would buy them used and fix them if they needed it. Once you start playing with pedals you just want to open everything. I learned how to solder when I was young and just loved it. For me it is an art that you can always improve on. I spent everyday since the 80’s fixing guitars and guitar stuff and that means fixing a lot of a pedals. When the opportunity arose to make my own pedals there was no real learning curve putting them together. The real learning curve was how to get them into the hands of hundreds of guitar players. That was the problem I had not expected. As a designer and builder doing the marketing and sales part is another world.
My learning curve and crash course came when my pedals started selling. It took me a good year to figure out how to order parts for 100 pedals at a time and to make sure I had a consistent product that was the same as the first one I made. For me the soldering and building the pedals is the part I enjoy the most. It is my true love in life. If I could lock the door and just build pedals day and night I would but I can only sit at the workbench for so long. I need to eat and run my shop, but the building part is really what makes me happy.
What drives you as far as new pedal creation is concerned? How long does it typically take for an idea to come full circle and become a demo pedal? What’s the process behind new gear, and the eventual release of it to the public?
I only make preamp tone shaping pedals and not time based effects. I do what I do and have been doing it since the 80’s. It took me that long to get my idea into a pedal I can make myself. When I was 16 (1982) I bought a brand new Marshall Lead 12 the newest solid State amp out and it sounded just like a tube amp, or at least to me it did. I spent the next 30 years using that amp and about a dozen others I had for everything from recording to live. It was 12 watts and that amazing Marshall tone. I knew from a young age if I could just bypass the power amp that this little amp would make a great pedal. In 2012 I met someone that said he can make a pedal from a schematic and I drew up the Lead 12 and changed a few parts, omitted the Darlington power amp and got the whole thing to run on 18 volts and sent it to him. He was able to make it a gerber file that became my first pedal The Daily Grind. It is a straight 80’s Marshall sound and we have sold 300+ of them in 3 years.
I had an older client ask me to lower the gain on the pedal a bit and when I did by adjusting some values from The Daily Grind it started to sound like an amazing tube amp being overdriven. It sounded like a tweed champ on 12. That pedal became the Warmer Drive and we have sold over 200 of those. I think what people like about it is that it just doesn’t sound like a typical overdrive. It has this really addictive sound and makes notes pour out of the guitar. I made The Hizz Fuzz for customers that wanted a Germanium PNP fuzz that runs on a standard -9V supply. It was just a few at first but it seems that the people that own The Hizz Fuzz swear by it. I get the best user feedback from that pedal.
I also make the Seaverb and Belair Boost. The Seaverb is designed by Chuck of Chuck’s pedals. We worked together to make a box that will not just sound like a genuine tank reverb but also act like one with minimal controls. The idea behind the Seaverb is to sound like a Twin Reverbs tank and we did a great job with that one. I also use all very high end audio parts I hand pick myself and test each part for tolerances. The Belair Boost is a simple LPB-1 type of boost with a 2n2222 transistor. Each one comes in a handmade box that is one of a kind.
What are some of the biggest concerns facing your profession today?
I think the problem with our industry is that people do not really understand what is involved in owning a pedal business. Assuming that you are hand building and your pedal does well, you may need to build a few hundred. I know many people have great pedal ideas, and I have seen some amazing enclosures but to make 100 or more of any 1 pedal by yourself is time consuming. If you have 4 pedals in your lineup then you will be building a lot of pedals. I have seen too many good builders not have a clue how to order parts and build everyday. I see a lot of binge building, where the builders take peoples money and promise a date when they will make your pedal and then they build like 100 in a single night.
We build everyday and sell out what we build. I may make 3-5 pedals a week and always have an extra on hand for a repair customer to try. Once the word got out that I make good pedals everyone that came in the shop wanted to try one. I have sold more pedals directly off my personal board than anywhere else. Everyday we have something going on with pedals and sometimes we neglect a pedal while a new one is taking up time. I order PC boards 100 at a time so I try to order parts as many as I can. I get enclosures from Mammoth so I usually order 25-50 at a time. If someone wanted to build one of my pedals tomorrow they could sit at my workbench and probably get up to speed in a few minutes.
Where do you see pedal building going in the future?
It is becoming so much easier to turn your ideas into pc boards these days and now with SMT builds being common you can pretty much have a pedal company and not really build pedals. Everything has its pros and cons and while you are going to see many more great ideas come to light you will also have a lot of people that have a great idea but not have any intention of following through with it. I may be a dinosaur in this profession. I still load every part by hand solder every part and stuff them into enclosures. Guys like me might be a dying breed. I see so many great pedals built with SMT and digital pedals I might not be able to see the future from my bench. I know I thought I did in the 80’s. I thought all guitars would be carbon fiber headless CAD designed ergonomic tools and turns out if you touch a single hair on the Les Paul or Stratocaster the entire guitar community has something to say. Just from that lesson alone I try not to predict the future.
Who are some of your favorite builders in the industry right now?
Andrew Barta from Tech21 has been the person to watch since the 80’s. I think the Sansamp and BassDI are one of the most used pedals of all times. The Flyrig is incredible. His ear for tone is impeccable, his designs are years ahead of his times. He is a USA company that builds in the New York area. His PSA-1 Preamp is astounding and has been since it came out in the 90’s. I see Tech21 products in professionals rigs more than any other company.
Mike Beigel from Mutron/Mu-FX. He is a genius that has a great work ethic. He has been designing since the 70’s and I know that it sounds crazy but his designs are still evolving and his company MU-FX is awesome.
Source Audio makes amazing sounding pedals that I use. Hands down the most innovative company I have used pedals from. The new Nemisis delay is next on my wishlist.
Name the last 5 records you listened to:
1. Divertuoso – John Jorgensen
2. Blackstar – Bowie
3. Eclectic – Eric Johnson, Mike Stern
4. Guts and Steel – Thom Bresh and Buster B Jones
5. Time Jumpers – Time Jumpers
Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?
The hype I love, the pedal is just a pedal. Bill Finnegan builds great pedals. Buy one from him and support a small pedal builder. Buy one used for a grand or more and you’re just making high pedal prices OK.
Any last comments, or anything you’d like to talk about?
Trying to pick one pedal being better than another, or finding “the best” pedal is liken to saying what is the best color. Each pedal I make and own is just a different crayon in a what might be used in a bigger masterpiece. The pedal is not what makes you or breaks you. Pedals are subjective and I am always amazed when someone gets musical tones out of a pedal I did not get along with. Growing up I had a Univox fuzz and it was rough sounding and kind of harsh but I made it work. I am still from that school. Never limit yourself to what the internet says. Many pedals need to be integrated into your board and used for awhile before you gel with them. Our industry resorts to harsh words for pedals that aren’t comparable to other pedals right away.
Customers are too smart to buy a pedal because you took an ad or payed for a demo or paid to be in a magazine, the consumer uses many other reasons these days to purchase pedals. Facebook and forums that have actual people that have paid and used the pedals review them like crazy. If you make great pedals the world will notice, the word will spread and you might become a pedal tycoon. Hopefully one day someone will come out with a sim app that will streamline the process and save you your life savings.
Thanks so much to Andy for taking the time to answer some questions!
Make sure to go check out www.andygreenpedals.com, cheers!
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