Celestial Effects
22 Kane Industrial Drive
Hudson, MA 01749
800-343-4492
sales@celestialeffects.com
www.celestialeffects.com
How long have you guys been musicians? How did you each get into it in the first place?
Dom:
Thanks to my dad, who loved music but never played an instrument, my formal musical education came from playing trumpet and coronet from 3rd grade through high school. In high school I played in the concert band, wind ensemble and jazz band. Also played guitar in the jazz band. I’m 50 now so I’ve played and loved music for over 40 years! Can’t say I ever mastered the guitar like some of my friends and family but I get by. I was definitely a better trumpet player! Should have kept it up!
Picked up the guitar when I was about 13. The Beatles where my main musical influence since I was about 8. Then I discovered Black Sabbath and I was blown away. And then Led Zeppelin. Absolutely fell in love with Zep. Which led to more and more.
Got into Floyd, The Doors, The Who, Hendrix, Cream, Clapton, Yardbirds, Tull … the list goes on and on and on. Could not get enough of listening to “new to me” bands when I was about 13. No internet back then. You listened to the radio or went to the record store.
I think I went to almost every concert that rolled in to Boston at the time. Memorable ones include Black and Blue tour (BOC and Black Sabbath with Ozzy), Ozzy’s Blizzard of Oz tour with Randy on guitar back in ’81 or ’82 at the Orpheum, Going up to Montreal to see Kiss so we could see the pyrotechnics show. Was not allowed in Boston venues back then. From about ’81 till ’99 I think I went to about 25-50 shows a year!
From there, was in a few garage bands back in the ‘80s and ‘90s but was around the Boston music scene at that time. Began repairing, building and modding amps, guitars and effects at that time as I was in school for electronic engineering and fell in love more with the “gear” than actually playing in a band. Built my first ground up tube amp in the ‘90s and as they say, the rest is history! I still build ground up tube amps to this day. The effects was an extension of the tube amps. I saw an opportunity and took the jump. More on that later in the article.
Joe:
I have been playing piano and keyboards since the age of 7 years old. I am trained as a classical pianist and had a band in the 80’s called SPY, which played a blend of secret agent, surfing blues. I do not play guitar but my brother always has and was making his own DIY effects pedals as an early teen.
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
Dom:
Jimmy Page has been my #1 for as long as I can remember. The Beatles, especially George. Paul Kossoff, Ritchie Blackmore, Pete Townsend, Tony Iommi, Mick Ronson, Ronnie Montrose, Dave Murray, Randy of course. The list is huge.
On the newer scene, Jack White. He was the first artist in a long time that pricked my ear since Nirvana I would say. He definitely does his own thing and it works great for him.
Joe:
My major influences have been Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Grand Funk Railroad, and various blues artists, Chopin, Bach and Beethoven. When Mark Farner of Grand Funk approached us and I got the chance to meet with him and work with him, it was a dream come true!
What led to the start of Celestial Effects? How long have you been in business?
Joe:
Well let’s start at the beginning. Our parent company, Thermalogic, has been in the electronics manufacturing business since 1971 specializing in high end temperature controls and sensors for OEM and volume users. We have worked with many companies such as Amtrak, Pizza Hut, Intel, and the US Military to name a few.
During the “Great Recession” of 2009 we experienced a major downturn as did most manufacturers. One day Dom came to my office and said “Joe, Have you ever thought about making guitar effects pedals?” and I said “No”. Dom pitched me and I figured, What the Hell ?, it’s a circuit board in a box with knobs and ties in great with our current manufacturing capabilities and gives us the ability to expand into a whole new market without huge infrastructure changes.
Dom originally suggested we call the brand “Zodiac Effects” and then my wife, Star (the tone goddess in our house demos and astrologist) suggested “Celestial Effects” to encompass more possibilities as she said, “What happens after we make all 12 Zodiac signs?”
One of our assemblers, Kate, proceeded to design our logo and Dom and I agreed our first 2 pedals would be Taurus and Scorpio as I am a Taurus and Dom is a Scorpio. As the team worked feverishly on the designs I handled all the legal and financial mumbo jumbo and filed a trademark for Celestial Effects.
We launched on 1/1/11 after doing some local pre-marketing and testing with some local musicians and the rest is history. We are a factory direct, online only operation which allows us to give direct from the manufacturer pricing to our customers,
We currently have about 40 employees and manufacture everything at our factory in Hudson, MA for both Thermalogic and Celestial Effects. The synergies between the two products have allowed us to combine our materials procurement and assembly for all products, making us more competitive in both arenas.
Did you have formal schooling, or are you self-taught? Take us through that story:
Dom:
I’ve been an Electronic and Mechanical Engineer by trade for Thermalogic Corporation for the last 30 years. I’ve also had the luxury of being able to bounce ideas and problems off one of the owners of Thermalogic, Dr. John DuBois. He too is a tube aficionado but in a completely 180° sort of way. A memorable comment he made years ago was that he spent most of his life in electronic and tube circuitry engineering trying to combat and eliminate distortion and I come along and want to actually amplify it! We had a good laugh.
All my “musical gear” training has been a self-taught experience as resources where limited before the advent of the internet and the now easy flow of information. You basically took apart a piece of gear back in the ‘90s and reverse engineered it on paper to see how it all worked THEN tried to put it back together and see if it worked. Great learning experience.
To get a schematic or any other information about a piece of gear back then was very very hard! I remember trying to get a schematic of a Marshall Super Lead 100 to repair my ’72 and it was near impossible. I finally paid a tech at Wurlitzer Music in Boston $20 “under the table” to get me a photo-copy of the schematic!!! The only other way was go to Boston Public Library and look through the SAMS listings and you might get lucky but it would cost you about $20 to get a copy of the info as they would not let you just photocopy it.
But, no way better than to learn a circuit then from the circuit itself and make your mistakes which I always feel is a learning tool you cannot live without. I’ve had many young people ask me to “teach” them. I always help them with the basics, stay vague about the little details and stress they try building and repairing on their own and inevitably make mistakes because you never forget your mistakes and they build the arsenal of knowledge you need to be successful in any specific trade.
Dr. DuBois actually instilled this philosophy in me as he would always just give me a hint where to find/solve a problem but not the answer. One must find the problem for themselves for it to become a memorable learning experience. As an example, I was having lots of electrical noise problems when developing the Gemini’s vibrato circuit which is a high parts count circuit. He saw the problems but instead of telling me what to change he said “Follow the current, all noise problems can be solved by following the current in a circuit and reducing current draw.” He was right and I quickly solved the problem once I sat down and mapped out the current in the circuit.
To this day, if I have noise problems in an effect or amp, I remember those words, FOLLOW THE CURRENT. It’s sort of like in Star Wars, “Luke, use the force”. You never forget.
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?
Dom:
I approach pedal designing like someone writing a song. Inspiration hits you and off you go. It can’t be forced nor rushed. Some come easily and others are a chore!
I’ll be listening to a song or guitarist and the tone they are channeling during a recorded piece or live situation and at that moment, I have to re-create it in a pedal!
For example, one night I was at my desk working and I usually have music playing in the background, cranked of course because I do most of my design and building work after hours where I don’t bother other employees with loud guitar! I had YouTube running in the background and letting it self-play. The Raconteurs performance of Blue Veins live in Holland just happened to come up next and it caught my tone bug by the you know what and I was off to the races. I had to re-create Jack’s tone. I think I re-watched that video like 10 times that night and researched what Jack used for pedals, amps and guitars during the Raconteur days. 1 Month later, our Cancer Wah the Fuzz? was a prototype and within 4 months later, it was in production.
I remember telling Joe that I didn’t think we’d sell many of them because it was a pricey pedal but Joe pointed out, $319 for 4 effects comes out to $75 an effect. If you do the math, how can you lose? And it takes up half the space of the four individual effects. It has been our bestselling pedal and our most expensive. Go figure.
I was sneaky and used the Cancer sign, Jack was born in July under the Cancer sign and the colors used in the case graphics where inspired by the White Stripes website. Predominantly black with red and white graphcs.
Cancer Wah the Fuzz? does so much more than just Jack’s tone. You can recreate Dave Gilmore tones, Tom Sholz/Barry Gourneau tones, and Rudy Shankar tones You can easily get J Mascis using the Muscle Fuzz and so much more. The combinations you can derive using that box are endless and then if you add in some delay or chorus, even more endless.
Taurus Blues Overdrive was the first and I sort of had that one in the can for a number of years. Basically a stripped down tube screamer with lots of touch sensitivity and selectable voicing.
Next I was working on the boost section of the now Capricorn Rock Distortion, which I should have named Capricorn Fuzzy overdrive. It was slated to be the Scorpio pedal. I inadvertently inserted a wrong component and to my surprise, the tone was amazing. I decided at that point to use this boost section on its own and the Scorpio Super Boost was born.
Virgo was my take on classic 70’s overdrive tones like Cream era Clapton, Page, Kossoff, Ronson etc. A Les Paul into a cranked Marshall Super Lead 100 in a box.
Gemini was rough because I didn’t have the mojo or tone inspiration to finish it. I was never happy with it early on. This was one Joe wanted me to build because local artist at the time where crying to us for something like it. About 6 months into the design, which was stagnant, a local artist Chris Stovall Brown gave me the inspiration I needed. He mentioned how much he loved the vibrato in his Maggies and that was all I needed. Inspiration can hit you in many ways! The Vibrato section in the Gemini is totally analog and uses the phase differential that naturally occurs between the emitter and base of a transistor to create the pitch shift using slightly different capacitor values through the LDRs. You can cancel out or change the pitch of the signal this way. It took me another 12 months to tweak, test and perfect it because when you change the pitch, signal size is reduced. Then I designed the LFO for the vibrato using a Thermalogic circuit we use to change Duty Cycles in proportioning temperature control. Added the same LFO to the tremolo and 18 months after the first schematic design of the Gemini, it was ready for prototype testing. Nuts!
Same thing is happening to me on the Pisces design so until I get the inspiration I need, that one will sit. In the interim, the tone bug caught me again in within 3 months of initial ideas, prototypes for the Aries Beast Distortion and the Sagittarius Overdrive and Boost where ready to ship to my trusted crew of testers. It took us less than 5 months to have Aries and Sagittarius from Idea to production. By far the quickest two which I designed in parallel. They have similar components, as in cases, pots, switches and jacks so we are able to buy larger quantities of the same parts on the initial build which reduces our cost and we can price them at a more competitive level.
As for the process, idea first, of course. Then I will bread board all or parts of the circuit. I then design the PC board because I never trust the bread boards without my ground shields on the PC boards. Most of the prototyping is done on actually circuit boards which I build into standard off the shelf Hammond enclosures for our prototype testers. We do not want to commit to the custom cases until the final circuit is finished for fear of the hole placements for pots and switches.
I then build prototypes and send them off to my six trusted testers and close friends with outstanding ears for tone and have a pulse on the industry. My testers are scattered all around the USA and each has a different musical style which is a great asset. They give me the best feedback and are not afraid to tell me if they do not like something about the design and also give me great input on features I may have not thought about. They include:
Gino Caira, my tone partner, who has the most sensitive ear and largest collections of vintage and new guitar, amps and effects that I know, is local and we work together on all the designs.
Ryan Kelly of Martin and Kelly is my other tone partner, who also has a great ear for tone but from a country music perspective.
Gio da Silva of The Liquid Kitchen based in Houston who is always ready to give me great feedback and is a cornucopia of cool feature ideas. Another great tone air and makes us laugh.
John Kelley of Old Bottle Black based in Seattle who is also a great tone aficionado and has a good pulse on the industry.
Randy Parsons of Parsons Guitars who is the best luthier, creative, a craftsman beyond description and my football conversationalist. He has so many great guitarist coming through his shop as well which try the prototypes and his input is priceless even though our conversations are usually limited to New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks topics. Too bad he lost a bet to me when the Patriots beat the Seahawks win the Super Bowl in ‘15 and is building me a custom Parson’s guitar for loosing!!
Hugo Ferreira of Tantric who is my touring musician, close friend and Hudson MA native. He beats up the pedals pretty good and it’s a great input on how they hold up on the road.
Once we make changes and the prototypes are finalized, I make the appropriate changes, do the mechanical drawings for the cases, derive all files necessary for manufacturing such as bill of materials, schematics, build and wiring procedures and we do a cost analysis for pricing point. Kate, our in house artist will begin the artwork for the case at this time.
We then begin ordering parts and when all the custom items arrive, we build one unit and make sure we did not miss a thing. We will then use this one unit for photographs and it’s time for me to create a product page for the new pedal. Yes, I build the website as well.
We will then build up the first 100 pedal, test them one by one, with a guitar & amp, then when they are signed into our stockroom, we take the product live, activate the website product page and announce the availability of the product. It’s pretty involved but the same process we use for products we develop for our mother company Thermalogic. So it’s old hat.
What are some of the biggest concerns facing your profession today?
Joe:
As with all businesses, the biggest concern is getting orders as without orders, you have no business no matter how great your product is. We are fortunate to cater to a variety of industries so we have the ability to ride out the storm when necessary. We also continually market and look for new opportunities every day to further expand our customer base.
Where do you see pedal building going in the future?
Joe:
That’s a hard question to answer, however I can tell you what we have in mind for the future. Currently I see three styles of builders. One man operations who build pedals one at a time, mid-size companies like ourselves who have a manufacturing facilities based on hand assembly and larger operations who either build via automation or outsource overseas for cost savings.
In addition to Dom working on our creations for the love of tone, our plan is to expand our pedal building operations to provide manufacturing for other pedal companies in the near future. I envision us catering to those in the mid volume range that have more work than perhaps they have space or time for and that do not have the volumes to automate or go overseas. As we already manufacture 1000’s of circuit board per month, this will be easy for us to integrate into our current capabilities. Pedal designers can create their own tone creations and we can help bring it to fruition on a production basis with engineering assistance..
Some may think we may “steal their tone”, but rest assured all of our own pedals are based on Dom’s vision and quest for tone. We have standard NDA contracts that we use with Thermalogic already to offer our potential pedal clients peace of mind that their designs will be held in the strictest of confidence.
Keep an eye out for “Celestial Effects OEM Manufacturing Solutions” launching this summer.
Who are some of your favorite builders in the industry right now?
So many good builders out there with new and fresh ideas. It’s hard to pick a few out but Rob Keeley and Brian Wampler are the godfathers of our business and stand out. Both are great builders with great vision and great guys!
Name the last 5 records you listened to:
1. The Who – Who’s Next
2. Soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Crash Alchemist – Flashback in the Scatterzone
4. Led Zeppelin – Presence
5. Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers
Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?
Dom:
Ah, the infamous Klon hype. Well, thanks to my cousin and tone partner, Gino Caira, we’ve had the luxury of having access to a Klon which we pitted against a number of other pedals. Some Klon “Klones” and others just in the same overdrive type. In fact, I used the tone data we observed to develop the Sagittarius Overdrive & Boost pedal. Why is the Klon so revered? In my humble opinion, it’s because the Klon has a “presence” when turned on. It does not necessarily alter your tone but it does bring your overall guitar sound to the forefront.
After noticing this feature of the Klon, It was one of my primary criteria in developing the Sagittarius circuit. I wanted a clear, crisp non-tone evasive overdrive with a significant presence when activated. We tested our circuit again against the Klon and other pedals and tweaked until Gino and I where happy with the results. Then added the Scorpio Super Boost! In the same package for an added benefit with the ability to switch the order of the boost to pre or post overdrive.
We video recorded one of the last testing sessions so we could go back for tone reference of each pedal and see how the Sagittarius circuit was progressing. Then uploaded it to YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npxoIAFAdIU And released it as a teaser for the Sagittarius Overdrive and Boost release.
Therefore, is the Klon hype? No. Do you need to pay $2K to get the same effect? No.
Any last comments, or anything you’d like to talk about?
Joe:
Well, Mike, I thank you for your time and allowing us the opportunity to fill you in about ourselves and thoughts about the industry and we’ll keep sending you out pedals to add to your site!
Thanks so much to Joe and Dom for taking the time to answer some questions!
Make sure to go check out celestialeffects.com, cheers!
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