Effectrode

Vintage, high voltage, vacuum tube technology harnessed to create radical effects pedals!

Here at Effectrode we are fuelled by a sense of nostalgia and fascination with the clean lines and simplicity of vintage vacuum tube instrumentation built back in 1950s and 60s—the golden era of audio electronics. Instrumentation such as studio tube compressors, tube microphone preamps, tube tape delays and plate reverbs that have stood the test of time to become highly desirable and sought after by musicians and sound engineers today, not just because of their beautiful engineering, but for their unparalleled rich and full-bodied tone.

This instrumentation has inspired Effectrode to recreate the same wonderful tone and classic styling in a stompbox format and take an alternative path in the design of our effects pedals—they’re pedals that might have been built if the transistor hadn’t been invented and tube technology had continued being refined and developed towards perfection.

All Effectrode pedals are unique, original and meticulously designed from the ground up, taking several years to reach maturity. We often work with professional musicians to ‘tweak’ (engineering speak for ‘research & development’!) each design to take it as close to perfect as possible. Clients include Adrian Legg, Paul Stacey (Oasis and The Black Crowes) Phil Taylor (David Gilmour) and John Verity (Argent).

Only the finest audiophile components are utilised in the construction of each pedal—polyester coupling capacitors, instrumentation grade resistors, N.O.S. and modern triode tubes operating at real amp plate voltages (300 Volts!). The signal path is all-tube, class-A circuitry—some designs are very linear and transparent whereas others are gorgeously non-linear and rich in harmonic overtones. These are effects pedals built from the “Right Stuff!”.

The result of all this obsessive attention to detail are beautiful pedals having more in common with high-end vintage studio equipment than the transistorised stompboxes normally found on guitarists pedalboards. For example, the Tube-Vibe is a rebuild of the classic Uni-Vibe effect made famous by Jimi Hendrix except it’s constructed with tubes instead of transistors. And the PC-2A compressor is built on an all-tube signal path and photo-optical gain attenuator just like the legendary LA-2A studio compressor.

The devil really is in the details when it comes to tone and the dynamic response or ‘feel’ of an effect pedal and you can be sure that not one single stone has been left unturned in the unrelenting pursuit to push the limits of design, construction and materials to take guitar tone to the farthest possible point—guitar tone really is rocket science!