Out of Boston comes a very interesting stompbox manufacturer called Electronic Audio Experiments, whose effects have already found a spot in boards of established, edgy bands like The World is a Beautiful Place… and Foxing, among others.
“The sound in a guy’s head” (obviously unachievable through existing pedals) is once again responsible for the birth of this small but promising business endeavor, and founder/engineer John Snyder made it clear right from the company’s name that his mission was to “try some new stuff,” rather than rehashing over-emulated circuits.
Like most pedal companies, EAE started as a custom shop: fixing and improving other pedals soon led to original custom designs, which, in turn, led to non-custom, “crystallized” stompbox models. For now, the focus is on gain circuits, with three models available for sale: the Longsword distortion, the Model feT preamp and the µ Blaster boost/overdrive – check them out in the interactive gallery below (a click opens a demo video, unless there’s no video on YouTube yet!). Needless to say, all these are 100% hand made.
Another interesting pedal is the Dude Incredible, (name inspired by a Shellac song, we assume – top right in the featured image) presented as “a modded Percolator and stripped-down IVP in one box.”
John also keeps an open source blog about some DIY projects featuring detailed information and diagrams. These include info about anything “from unverified snippets to complete designs,” including some original circuits that didn’t make the cut. This is precious stuff for novices interested in getting into the business of building pedals.
You can also check out some of EAE’s custom stompboxes in this video below, where John Snyder himself introduces us to the Inverter Drive (one knob CMOS distortion, at 0:37), the Mojo Titan (an homage to the Sonic Titan power amp distortion, at 1.54), and the Mute Blaster (clean boost, at 3.15).
