Andy Greene
Escape Plan Pedals
http://www.escapeplanpedals.com
How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?
I’ve played music for pretty much my entire life. I got my first guitar, a miniature steel string acoustic, when I was 5. I learned simplified versions of most of the standard position major chords and a few minor chords and would try to put on concerts for my family. I really got interested in guitar a little later in elementary school when I was taking piano lessons and my mom was taking classical acoustic lessons. I loved the way the nylon string classical sounded. It was so mellow and hypnotic, and I could play it without my fingers hurting like they did on my little acoustic (which hadn’t had the strings changed, like, ever). I was also in concert band at the time, playing trumpet, and getting exposure to other kids my age that wanted to play music. After playing on my mom’s guitar for a little while, I really wanted an electric, and my grandparents wanted to clean out some junk from their house, so they brought me my uncle’s old Kay student guitar and practice amp when I was around 10 years old. It was a sunburst guitar that had this wacky tremolo and funky single coil pickups that looked somewhat like gold foils. This would have been around 1990, and my friends were starting to get interested in forming garage bands and stuff like that.
Of course, after I got the guitar and the amp, the next thing I wanted was…wait for it…pedals. I had been cruising the local music stores and drooling over the Boss displays for a long time, so I begged my dad to get me one. We went to a place called Duncan’s Music and we settled on a DOD FX50B Overdrive Plus. It was the cheapest pedal in the store, but I couldn’t have been more excited. I got it home, got everything hooked up, and started banging out as much noise as my little rig could handle.
About that time I started working for my dad on weekends, helping him build chairs. I’d take the money I got from that and save it towards two specific purchases. I wanted a bigger amp, and I wanted more pedals. I was hearing all this amazing music being made with fuzzy distortion that my DOD just couldn’t recreate, and I wanted to make those sounds, and make them LOUDER. After getting some money saved up, I went to a nearby flea market and got an amp that I had been really wanting for a long time. It was an old used Multivox Premier solid state steel guitar amp. It had a 15” speaker with a metal dust cap that seemed to sparkle back at me through the silver and black grille cloth. The Premier font was similar to the Fender amps that I loved so much (but were well out of my price range) so that was a selling point, too. I got it home, cleaned it up, and plugged everything in. I was in heaven. The metal dust cap added this sparkly tone, and the 15” speaker pushed a lot more volume than the tiny Kay amp. Even though it was still a low wattage amp, I was happy with the sound. In fact, I still have that amp. It is almost the only piece of music equipment that has stuck with me the entire time. There’s something magical about the sound it makes with a single coil guitar, being played outside. I’m not sure my neighbors would agree, but screw ‘em. Next, I took my savings and bought a vintage reissue ProCo Rat. I would still have that pedal if it hadn’t gotten stolen after being lent to a friend. I loved the sound of that pedal compared to my DOD overdrive, and it seemed to play well with my Kay and my amp.
From there, I saved up to get my first “real” guitar. It was a custom shop JB Player that a local country music slide player had up for sale. It didn’t really fit the country aesthetic, with its pointy, hair-metal headstock, and black pickguard on black body. It had a built in wireless system, three single coils, and a ridiculously chunky neck. All my friends HATED that guitar, couldn’t understand how I could play it. I’ve got big hands, so it felt pretty good to me, and I didn’t know anything about guitar set ups or anything at that point, so I just muddled through. In high school, two things happened that radically changed my musical path. I started playing in bands, which meant I needed to beg, steal, or borrow to get a louder amp.
I’m the one on the left.
The second was I started working at a Burger King that was right next door to a pawn shop and a big music store. This was before the days of eBay and internet price checking, so the pawn shop would get pedals in and not know how to price them, so you could scoop up insane deals. I got my paycheck one day, got it cashed and walked into the pawn shop and walked out with an Ibanez Soundtank Delay and a Boss Super Chorus for $50. Both were in like new condition. I felt like I had just robbed the place. Since I was working a steady job, I had more money, so I started eyeballing another type of pedal I had desperately wanted, a wah wah. I have loved reggae music since I was about 9 or 10 and first heard Bob Marley playing in our mall’s music store, and I really wanted to play some of those Peter Tosh leads from Stir It Up. I settled on a used Morley wah, and while I was in the store, a mysterious wooden crate caught my eye. I asked the guy at the counter, “Hey, what the hell is that?” It was covered in Russian, looked like it may have contained gun parts or something. “It’s a Big Muff fuzz pedal.” I immediately busted out laughing. “I’ve gotta see this.” He took it out of the case, and I opened the crate to find a green tank of a pedal sitting in a little bed of wood shavings. It had the Sovtek name on it, and I desperately wanted a Mig series amp, so I was thinking, “hey, anything with the Sovtek name has to be pretty good.” I bought the wah and the Big Muff and went home. I cleaned off the wood shavings, plugged it in, and instantly fell in love. The Morley was fun, too, but I had never played anything before that resonated with me like the Big Muff.
This is the actual pedal. I sold it to help fund the building of my studio. Still regret that…
Around this same time, a friend of mine wanted to get a new guitar, and he had this big Kustom Kasino solid state head that he didn’t have a use for, so I traded my Kay guitar and amp for his head, and got my dad to help me build a speaker cabinet. My dad has been into woodworking his entire life, and used to build speaker cabs for friends in the 70s, so we probably went a little bit overboard on the cab. It weighed a million pounds, had oak sides, two bass speakers, and baffles and ports. We put a nice woolen open-weave speaker cloth on it and painted the outside black. I brought it up to the house and hooked up the head. Good lord, it shook the entire house.
I had never heard the term “doom metal”, but I knew that my guitar tuned to drop D, plus my green Big Muff, plus this head running into, essentially, a bass cab, was the sound for me. I was really into Tool at the time, and I could burn through the riffs on the Undertow and Opiate albums and it just felt right to me. I kept that cab up until recently, mainly because I didn’t want to have to move it again! I pretty much stuck with that rig (adding guitars) until I got married and bought my house.
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
My tastes in music have changed and morphed over the years, but I can recall specific moments that became defining. I’m 35 now, so I was coming of age during the Grunge and alternative scene. Of course Nirvana, Soundgarden, and bands like that were hugely popular with my group of friends, but the one band that, at least from a guitar sound, that I gravitated to the most was Smashing Pumpkins. I guess that pairs up well with my love for Muff sounds, but the textures and layers on the Siamese Dream album had me mesmerized, and I still love that album to this day.
As I mentioned before, I’ve loved reggae for a long time. In my studio is an autographed article from Ras Cardo, trench town reggae legend. My sister is a writer and got to interview him for an article she was working on, and he was kind enough to write a message to me and sign the article. Just something about the bouncing rhythms, syncopated guitars, and use of reverb and delay really resonated with me.
Now, being a skinny, pale white kid with glasses from North Carolina, it naturally made me a freak (there’s more than one embarrassing picture of me wearing a knit rasta hat from my elementary school days), but any Rasta or reggae fan I’ve ever met made me feel like family.
Yuck it up, assholes.
In fact, yesterday, I was in a record store and a customer was looking for reggae albums, and I lit up like a Christmas tree and started a conversation with him. So when you hear my Fuzzy Memory pedal going crazy with the Birth switch, that’s kind of my love letter to Lee Perry.
My mom was a huge Beatles fan, and while I like the Beatles, it opened my eyes to so many other British artists that I absolutely love, namely David Bowie. I loved Labyrinth as a kid, and that name me want to hear more from the Goblin king. Hunky Dory is one of my favorite albums. That got me into other glam bands, and I got really into T. Rex. The riffs, Bolan’s voice, everything was just perfect. In high school, I really got into Black Sabbath. Where I grew up was out in the country, outside a college town in the mountains. It seemed like it was always foggy there. Like, to the point where we used to say we were going to mow the moss because it was always wet and dark, and moss and fern loved to take over territory from the grass we fought to keep alive. I can remember driving home at night, listening to the Paranoid album, and it just feeling like the perfect soundtrack. The woods on either side of the road veiled in fog, shadows playing on the road, and Planet Caravan playing in the background. I wish I could bottle those memories and sell them so everyone could know how that feels.
I’m going to go on a tangent for a second. When I was in elementary school, I was into comic books. Just like anything (music, movies, you name it), as a kid, you’re attracted to anything that’s restricted from you. If there’s an R rated movie, and you’re told you can’t go, that’s exactly what you want to go see. So when I was thumbing through a magazine talking about new comics coming out, my eyes fixated on the cover of James O’Barr’s The Crow. Something about the aesthetic just drew me in. When I went to our local comic store, the new copies of The Crow were in the restricted section, along with Sandman and all the other cool stuff. One day, when no one was looking, my buddy and I snuck into the restricted section to check out all the forbidden fruit. I went straight for The Crow, and absorbed every pane. I already liked The Cure, but to see them referenced in this comic boosted their coolness level to all new heights. I was officially a lifetime fan. Two other musical references piqued my interest in that comic. Joy Division and Bauhaus. The Joy Division references in the comic piqued my interest on them, and then a friend pointed me towards Bauhaus, saying that some of Eric’s art in the comic was based on Peter Murphy. I knew the song Cuts You Up, but hadn’t really heard Bauhaus before then.
All that gothy, post punk music has kept a place in my heart for the rest of my life. I’ve always been kind of a depressive, and that stuff makes me feel happy. It’s kind of hard to explain. Because of that, I still like chorus effects, even though people love to heap the hate on them now days.
Another band that absolutely set my brain on fire was Jesus and Mary Chain. The first time I heard You Trip Me Up, I went crazy. It was like this insane wall of noise, and yet the vocals were so laid back. The video channel I was watching was doing a twofer deal and they then played Blues from a Gun. I remember seeing those videos as clear as if I saw them yesterday, with “I guess that’s why I always got the blues” still ringing in my head. My Psycho Andy pedal is my tribute to those guys. Such a great band.
What led to the start of (company name)? How long have you been in business? How big is your operation/how many employees do you have?
I’ve been a DIY person all my life. I get it honestly from my dad. He didn’t go to college, but he’s a brilliant engineer. In his business, he’s created so many custom machines to solve manufacturing challenges, and that has inspired me since I was a kid. My dad would bring home stuff from auctions and let me take it apart and put it back together (probably to stop me from taking apart stuff like the VCR). Old cash registers, motors, all kinds of stuff. When I got into music, I even took apart my guitars and amps to look at the guts and try to figure out how they worked. I got an old non-function tube PA amp one time and tried to bring it back to life. I’m amazed I didn’t kill myself messing with that one! The intersection of enjoying doing things myself and not having money to buy stuff new resulted in me getting cheap guitars and messing with the guts to make them better. I still do that to this day. From there I went down the rabbit hole of creating my own cables, doing simple mods to some of my pedals and equipment, and toying with things like Atari Punk Consoles and stuff like that. I’m telling you, it’s a slippery slope, and the next thing you know you’re in it…neck deep. I’ve been building audio toys and circuits since college. The thing that made the jump from the hobby level to doing it as a small business was finding out that I was going to be a dad. When you transition to parenthood, you start thinking about all kinds of things, like what are you going to leave in the world after you are gone, to “ok, my music room is directly below the baby’s room, what can I do that is quiet”, to “gotta stop riding motorcycles, I need to be alive to raise this kid”. So after I cleared out my garage of my motorcycle and all related motorcycle stuff, I saw that I had plenty of room to build some workbenches and expand my space for working on electronics. I had gotten in a motorcycle crash (another reason to get rid of motorcycle stuff) and while I was getting healed up, I had been consuming electronics texts like it was going out of fashion.
The bike got off with hardly a scratch. I was not so lucky.
I started breadboarding designs and learning how to model circuits in LTSpice. When my daughter was born in 2012, I had some time at home so while she would nap I would get to spend time building pedals. I officially got the business license for Escape Plan Pedals in 2012, and have been incrementally building the business from that time. We launched escapeplanpedals.com in 2014. We are a very small operation. I am a process engineer in my day job, so I’ve found ways to streamline a lot of the manufacturing processes. I do the circuit design, etching of enclosures, and building of boards, and I get some help for marketing, pedal ideas, running trade show booths, doing product demos, etc. from friends and family. Even my little girl will help out and hand me tools and parts while I work. I’m in the process of bringing on an apprentice / employee with an EE background because I’d like to spend more time on growing the business and creating new products.
Did you have formal schooling, or are you self-taught? Take us through that story:
From the circuit design perspective, I am self-taught. I’ve studied on my own since I was a kid, from learning how to read schematics so that I would understand what I was seeing when I took something apart, to learning how discrete amplifier circuits work, to understanding how to build oscillators and use them to control parameters. When I was in high school and college, the explosion of experimental electronic music got me interested in tone generators and oscillators, and I started learning more about how synthesizers worked. Over the years, my bookshelves have become packed full of old and new electronics texts. Part of the upstairs book pile I’m organizing in my office. Some I’ve read cover to cover, some are new, and I’m itching to dive in. Don’t judge me!
My wife looked at me like I was crazy when I got excited about the third edition of The Art of Electronics, especially when I already had the second edition. I’m sure I could have made life much easier on myself had I just went to school for EE, but like all things, I’ve got to do it myself and take the hard way. I did go to school for programming, so as I’ve started exploring transitioning to more digital effects, I’m excited because it won’t feel quite as foreign as it did when I first started developing discrete circuits. I was experimenting with DSP while I was in college, so I’m eager to get back into that world. I have friends that are into robotics, so we always get to talk shop about programming microcontrollers, etc.
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?
For me, pedal creation starts as an idea. Sometimes it’s abstract, sometimes it’s very specific. Sometimes a funny idea will pop in my head while I’m mowing the lawn or taking a shower. Sometimes I’ll hear a song and it will spark an idea. Sometimes, I’ll be playing in my music room and messing with my collection of effects pedals, and I’ll ask the question, “What do it want to do that these pedals just won’t do?” From that point, I usually start drawing out a block diagram, or researching what ICs are available that I could try that I haven’t thought of yet. From there, I’ll usually go to LTSpice and just start mapping out the circuit from a practical standpoint. I have several Excel workbooks where I’ve built calculators to make short work of the math needed in circuit designs, because why work hard when you can work smart?
Once I’ve got the circuit designed on computer, I’ll print the schematic and start breadboarding the design. From there, it goes from less science and more art as I’m changing component values, adding filtering, adding / taking away gain stages, you name it. I can’t give a standard quote on how long it takes, because each design is different. Op amp circuits are usually faster to get where I want them than discrete circuits. The Dirty Old Man 2 and Butch are good examples of that. Dirty Old Man is an op amp based overdrive / distortion and Butch is discrete based. Dirty Old Man has a tone stack, while Butch has options to change the clipping. Dirty Old Man 2 sat on the breadboard getting tweaked almost daily for a few months. Most of that was around filtering and clipping choices. Butch on the other hand sat on the breadboard for quite a while, even being taken back to square one a few times because I wanted to keep it bright sounding but not getting too noisy from stacking gain stages.
Once I had it finished and shipped the first few units, I ran into some issues with finicky transistors being too noisy, so I offered returns on all the ones I had sold and reworked the circuit once again, this time almost from scratch. The final version was exactly where I wanted it, and didn’t suffer from some of the issues of the other versions. That one took, I’d guess, the better part of a year from initial idea to finished version. The sad part is, to look at it, you’d think it’s simple because it only has two controls and one toggle switch. But I think the end justified the means, because the Butch is so versatile that it is a mainstay on my board. Once I get the breadboard version finalize, I apply any changes to the schematic, then start doing the board layout. Once again, since I can’t do anything easy, I do the layouts for veroboard. I do circuits on veroboard when I first launch pedals until I know that a pedal is going to sell well enough to justify getting boards printed. That way I’m not stuck with boards that I can’t sell. After the vero layout is done, I’ll work on the artwork and the name. Most of the time I already have this in mind. This is one of my favorite parts, and I love to do cool stuff with the names of controls and stuff like that.
After the artwork is ready, I do the first proper prototype. This is always, bar none, the scariest part. There’s a moment of sheer panic when I plug in the prototype for the first time for testing, but when (if) it springs to life with no issues, there is this wave of satisfaction that washes over you that is unlike anything I can describe. It is simply amazing. You then run like a mad man to tell anyone who will listen that the pedal works and sounds awesome. Even after all the pedals I’ve build, I still make dumb mistakes from time to time. That’s why I instituted a two layer quality check system on finished pedals, along with checks along the way. I check the circuit once when I finish the board, once before attaching knobs, then check again after knobs during the boxing up process. Upon passing of the last check, the box gets a green sticker indicating that the pedal is good to go, and we send it off to a loving home. I build my pedals with pots, jacks and switches wired off board, and I do that because I want the pedal to be able to take a lot of abuse and not affect performance. I don’t want the shock from clicking the footswitch to send shocks through the solder joints in the rest of the board, etc. It may sound a little OCD, but I think the extra labor is worth it. I also mount the boards in the box with plastic clips that are secured to the enclosure with adhesive that’s meant to hold up outdoor signs. That, coupled with an acid etched exterior make for a pedal that will stay working for a long, long time and look just as good as the day you got it. I accidentally dropped my personal Collider pedal once and it landed on a hard surface after falling about 1 story. I took it inside and checked it, and it sprung to life, no issues.
What are some of the biggest concerns facing your profession today?
Being a Process Engineer in the financial industry for my day job, I’ve learned to do nothing but worry! I’m joking, but seriously, I’m always concerned about the seemingly fickle nature of the music instrument business. Flashback to the 80s and think about everyone wanting to go to rack mounted systems. Think about those same rack systems in the 90s during the backlash against bombastic rock and the drive to have more simplified effects set ups. Think about the current environment, where commercials show idealized “concert” situations where the performer is a guy up in a DJ booth, pointing back at the audience as he hits play on a laptop with his other hand, not a guitar or bass to be seen anywhere.
I am both excited by the advent of cheap effects streaming out of Asia because I was once a poor kid struggling to buy pedals, but also concerned because I don’t see as much technological innovation coming from those companies, only innovation in that they can deliver a similar product at an often diminished quality level and fraction of the price of the original. I worry that people won’t understand that they are getting what they pay for. Tried to mod a recent Boss DS-1? Good luck not having any solder pads lift off the board that then have to be repaired. At least, that’s been my experience. I got a few pedals, a delay and a reverb, from GFS a while back (I believe that they are built by the same folks that do Mooer, Joyo, etc.) and had to do repairs on the delay shortly after getting it. Meanwhile, I’ve had absolutely no issues from my EHX, TC, Radial, Tech 21, or other pedals where quality is the focus over price.
A big worry from me is that everyone clamors for clones these days. “Can you build me a ______?” is a question that I get pretty often. I’ll do a clone of a long lost vintage pedal once in a while for a friend or something like that (Like the Univox Superfuzz I just built for my buddy Chris in the punk band Thing Sloth), but I primarily want to do my own thing. Eventually, an unlimited amount of monkeys with an unlimited amount of typewriters will write Shakespeare, so it is inevitable that you will have some similar designs out there, but I think that you will end up having a little of the designer in the pedal. Like when I listen to my pedals versus other pedals, mine just sound like, well, me. I voice them a certain way because it is what I like. If you are just doing straight clones, then you don’t have the opportunity to put your voice out there, and that’s what makes the diversity in the industry so great. I would encourage people to try out non-traditional designs and builders, because that is really where the exciting stuff is going on. Honestly, most of my designs are kind of tame compared to what I’d like to do, because I’m building to both what I want and what I think the public wants. If it was just me, I’d be putting out skronky noisemakers that would make folks cringe!
I worry that guitarists are forgetting to have fun. No one gives two turds about your “tone” if you’re not having fun playing music for them. You can drop a small fortune in pedals, and if it’s not making you happy, then you might as well have tossed in a wishing well, because it’s not enriching your life. There’s always been way too much “dick swinging” in the music industry, and guitar in particular. Get pedals that you have fun playing, that challenge you, that allow you to create new sonic worlds, which inspire you to want to pick up the guitar and plug in every day. Don’t buy a bunch of pedals because you have to keep up with all the other guys that play in town. Don’t be afraid to be different.
Where do you see pedal building going in the future?
I saw the folks from Source Audio talking about this the other day, and I think they are dead on. Digital is the future. Plain and simple. Whether that’s digital control of analog signal chain, or DSP, I definitely think that’s where we’ll find the most innovation. There’s better and better digital solutions coming out every day. I feel like Captain Obvious even making that statement in 2016, but it’s true. Certain discrete components are getting harder to find, driving up the prices. Even advances in tube type technology are coming, making it possible to integrate tube–like technology into something in a pedal-sized format (check out what Korg is working on, Nutube is too cool). Look at the success of Fractal, etc. Look at the awesome boxes coming from Mr. Black, where they’re doing these awesome time based algorithms for DSP. Look at Strymon. TC Electronic. Check out what even small builders like Sonic Crayon is doing with his insane Nautilus boxes. You name it. Once a company really starts cracking the code on getting convincing fuzz and drive sounds from a DSP, it’ll be a new dawn. It’ll crack the whole thing wide open. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see a digital solution that captures all the unpredictable response that we’ve come to love in analog drive and fuzz circuits, and, more importantly, can do it at a competitive price point. It’s getting closer though, so that means it is just a matter of time.
Who are some of your favorite builders in the industry right now?
I have a huge pedal collection, and I consider myself as much a gear fan as anything else. There are folks that I admire through how they present themselves and run their business, and then there are companies who create products I love, and then there’s those that do both. I already mentioned a few, but I’ll bring them back up. Mr. Black offers some amazing sounding boxes at good prices. TC Electronic packs a heck of a lot of punch into their stuff for the price tag. Montreal Assembly make some really cool boxes, and I’m always keeping my eyes open if I see one pop up for a good price. Go figure, I don’t. Mike Matthews and the folks at Electro-Harmonix are heroes of mine, and I am still amazed by them, and also love that they put out great stuff at great prices. You’ll see me rocking my Electro-Harmonix t-shirts often, and I wear them with pride. Source Audio are putting out amazing products, and I wish I had many more already in my collection other than the Orbital Modulator, because that box it just plain awesome, and if the rest of theirs are that good, my wallet is in trouble.
Dwarfcraft make some great boxes, and I think it’s awesome that they kind of bridge the synth / pedal divide with a lot of their stuff. Every single thing I’ve gotten from Carl Martin has been epic. I have 2 big box AC Tone pedals, and I use one as my primary amp emulation for my silent rig. Same with Radial, particularly the Tonebone series with the preamp tube. I’ve got 2 Classics and 1 Hot British. I also have a bunch of Tech 21 Character Series boxes that I love to death for silent recording. AMT, same thing. I’ve got a bunch of Legend amp series, both from the series 1 line and series 2 line. Every single one of them sounds amazing. My buddy Dave at PCE makes a killer overdrive / boost, but I’ll talk about that down in the Klon section. If you ever have a chance to scoop up a box from Dunwich Amps, DO IT. Amazing work. Same goes for Magic Pedals. Super fuzz from the underworld. I’m so happy that Christopher Venter from Shoe Pedals got to do the Looking Glass with DOD / Digitech. He’s a super nice guy the times I’ve talked to him through social media, and I couldn’t be happier to see him get that attention for a truly great sounding dirt box. Speaking of Digitech…whoever is in charge of product development over there for the past few years needs a serious pat on the back. Bringing back the Meatbox and the Gonkulator? The Polara and Obscura? The freaking Dirty ROBOT?!? Seriously, when I saw the demo come out for the Dirty Robot, I threw a wad of cash at the computer screen. MUST OWN.
Lastly, I’m going to sing the praises of a company that may surprise you. Zoom. Yep, Zoom. As I said earlier, I like weird noises. Zoom’s drive sounds have always been a bit too digital and brittle for my tastes in the past, but they always had little nuggets hidden in their processors that allowed you to do all kinds of cool and wacky stuff. A while back, they came out with the G3, followed by the single pedal format MS-50, and then the MS-70CDR. Then they released the 2.0 firmware for these boxes. Let me just say, if you are after a tool that you can use to make all kinds of strange sonic landscapes, you can scoop up a MS-50 for cheap and you will be happy. Delays that step up the pitch of each repeat, weird mods, bit crusher, you name it. When I saw that they had embraced what has made them awesome in the past, and then also delivered a box that does some of the best DSP drive sounds I’ve heard recently, all for around $100, I was blown away. Those little boxes are so awesome, and the MS-70CDR brings the heat with all the time based effects. Are they going to sound as good as the delay units they are inspired by? No. Are they going to give you all kinds of tools and tricks to develop new sounds? You betcha. Granted, I still use analog drives, but for all kinds of other out-of- this-world sounds, you can’t beat ‘em for the price.
Name the last 5 records you listened to:
1. Jesus and Mary Chain – Munki
2. King Tuff – Black Moon Spell
3. Trojan Records – The Ska Box Set Vol 2
4. The Undertones – The Undertones
5. Baroness – Blue Album
Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?
So I have to preface this with a few qualifiers. I’ve never met Bill Finnegan. I’ve never played through an original Klon Centaur. I met Dave at Piedmont Custom Electronics when he had some issues getting stuff that he wanted to have at the 2016 SC Guitar Show, and I told him he was welcome to come hang out at the Escape Plan Pedals booth and keep me company, because vintage guitar shows can be a mixed bag when it comes to how pedal friendly the crowd is, and it’s always nice to have someone you can talk shop with. So Dave and I got to chat a lot over that weekend, and he was the nicest guy you could hope to meet. Like me, he’s just a guy trying to make things happen on his own, getting help where he can. Honestly, between developing new pedals, building pedals, studying so I can learn new ways to make noise (and better noise), working a day job so I can keep a roof over my family and food on the table, and raising my daughter, I don’t have time to spend on forums, or social media in general really. I know I should, and I know it has hurt my ability to grow my business, but that’s just where I am. I was unaware of any controversy surrounding the Aluminum Falcon. I’ve met quite a few people in different parts of the country that praise Dave’s pedals, and say that they’re just as good as the original, but like I said, I can’t really make a solid judgement on those terms.
What I can tell you is this…a few weeks after the show, I was greeted by a mysterious package in the mail. To say thanks for giving him a base camp at the show, Dave had sent me one of his Aluminum Falcon I pedals. I was blown away by the gesture. Now, if you’ve played any of my overdrive or distortion pedals, you know that I tend to favor bright sounds, but with the ability to dial in the right amount of beef. When I tried out the Aluminum Falcon, it was my first exposure to a Centaur-Type pedal. It is a really amazing sounding pedal, and pairs nicely with a variety of different amp types. It is worth every penny of what Dave charges for them. That being said, at the end of the day, it is only a drive pedal. It won’t fix your love life, it won’t grow new hair on your noggin, and it won’t keep your dog from chasing the cat. I think the hype surrounding the pedal is a little insane, and that insanity has crept into the rest of the industry and created a bit of an arms race to see who can create the most “transparent” sounding drive pedal.
This goes back to the whole “danger of people forgetting fun” thing I talked about earlier. If you’re that worried about your “tone”, you’re not having fun. You’re looking for a competition, and let me tell you, you should go elsewhere. From what I hear, Bill’s original Centaur and the KTR are both really, really good overdrive / boosts. They aren’t “drain the family vacation fun” good though, because guess what? Nothing is. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. If you have the money, and you want it, go for it tiger. But it’s not going to give you as much fun as other things you could spend that money on. This is a bad question for someone like me that grew up having to pinch pennies. My concept of value is totally warped. I once screwed up my ankles because I bought some clearance dress shoes from Bass that didn’t fit properly, but they were cheap. So like I said, take my opinion on this matter with a big ol’ grain of salt.
Any last comments, or anything you’d like to talk about?
If you made it this far, you know more about me than many do. Congrats. I’m going to leave with this parting story, if you’re not tired of me yet. Back to the SC Guitar Show, it’s Sunday morning, and my daughter had gotten food poisoning or something the on Friday night and had been up sick all night, so for the rest of Saturday I had been running on fumes and worry about my little one. The crowd was just starting to drift in when an older gentleman came by my booth to ask if I was interested in purchasing his bass amplifier. I said no, I’m more here to sell gear than to purchase. He told me it had belonged to his son, who had just died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound a few weeks earlier. He had bought the bass and amp for him to try to keep him interested in creative pursuits and give him something to do. He proceeded to tell me the tragic tale that led up to his son’s death, with tears slowly building in his eyes as he talked. After he finished, he said, “I’m sorry to lay all this on you, it’s just good to talk to someone sometimes.” With that, I told him I was happy to talk to him, and I hoped that he had a nice Sunday, mainly because I was at a bit of a loss for words. Yeah, me, loss for words.
I retold this story because I believe something strongly, and it drives the way I do business. We are only given a limited time on this planet. Every single thing we do impacts the world around us. Every person we meet, everything we touch, everywhere we go. When you follow Escape Plan Pedals on Facebook or other social media outlets, I go and check out your profile. I’m not a creeper, I’m just interested in what you guys are passionate about and what drives you so I can make pedals that fit your needs better. When you get one of my pedals and I shoot you an email to see how things are going and how you like the pedal, it’s because I was just as excited to send you that pedal as you were to receive it. It’s like Christmas every time I send a box out. That’s what makes this the best job in the world. I like to imagine all the cool new sounds and heart-wrenching songs and rafter-shaking jam sessions that my pedals help you make. I like to imagine that you are like I once was, and still am, coming home from a shitty day at school or work and just turning on some pedals to blast the blues away. The sore shoulders from sanding enclosures, the tired eyes after a long night of soldering, falling asleep over the keyboard as I’m working on a new design, picking myself up when a design doesn’t work out…it’s all worth it.
Thanks so much to Andy for taking the time to answer some questions!
Make sure to go check out https://escapeplanpedals.com/, cheers!
GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES, CONTEST INFO, SEE OUR LATEST DEMO VIDEOS AND MORE:
