The Guitar Magazine – September 2019

1

The brainchild of Bryan

Laurenson, one-time

guitarist in emo-rockers

Copeland, Quiet Theory

has earned rave reviews for

its one and only pedal so far,

the lush, ambient Prelude

delay and reverb. Created in

collaboration with post-rock

titans This Will Destroy You,

the Prelude’s ability to create

stunning soundscapes with

just a few intuitive knobs – as

opposed to the Cape Canaveral-

esque layouts of many high-end

delay and reverb pedals – marks

Laurenson out as a builder

who implicitly understands

how to create powerful but

user-friendly pedals.

3

If you follow a lot

of guitar players on

Instagram, you’ll

probably recognise the

elegantly simple design of the

DRV, the one and only pedal

currently produced by Matthew

Hoopes. While hype around

the pedal has been stoked by

such clever marketing gimmicks

as limited-number drops and

one-off colourways, the DRV

wouldn’t have set the internet

aflame if the pedal inside wasn’t

something special. Effectively

a boutique RAT with all of the

tone-sucking and harshness

taken out, the DRV is a pedal

that sounds as good as it looks.

2

Filipe Pampuri clearly

really likes bees. He

also really likes dirt

pedals. Beetronics, then,

is a perfect blending of the

Brazillian’s two passions. For

the last few years, Filipe has

been crafting truly beautiful

apid-inspired stompboxes

that not only look unique,

but sound like nothing else,

too. His latest pedal, the Swarm,

is a truly remarkable fuzz-and-

harmoniser combo that was

one of the most fun and

inventive things we saw

at Winter NAMM 2019.

4

Oregon-based company

Spaceman Effects

has spent a few years

creating excellent-

sounding hand-built pedals

of various flavours, but the

pedal that’s really marked the

company out as one to watch is

the Mission Control. The pedal

uses a VCA controller and a

built-in effects loop to fade in

an effected version of any pedal,

creating truly unique pulses and

swells as you play. It’s a pedal

that isn’t really like anything

else and marks Spaceman out

as a truly inventive company.

QUIET THEORY SOUNDWORKS

QUIETTHEORY.COM

1981 INVENTIONS

1981INVENTIONS.COM

BEETRONICS

BEETRONICSFX.COM

SPACEMAN EFFECTS

SPACEMANEFFECTS.COM

THE RUNDOWN

BOUTIQUE EFFECTS BRANDS TO WATCH

WORDS JOSH GARDNER

You can’t move for high-end boutique effects pedals in 2019,

but some stand out from the crowd – here’s our pick of the

most interesting brands vying for your bucks

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