process—there’s no creative reward for
me there,” he says. “In the end, I think
every product Pettyjohn Electronics
puts out comes from a sound I hear
in my head but cant quite find on the
market, and that’s what makes it worth
making, and making it well.”
Let’s dive in and learn more about
Pettyjohn Electronics:
Tone Report: Can you tell us about The
Foundry Series?
Stephen Pettyjohn: The Foundry
Series is a single pedal format that a
lot of thought went into, as it is the
core of our growing brand. I split the
original PettyDrive Deluxe into two
individual pedals—Iron and Chime—and
made some significant upgrades in the
process. Then we released the Lift—
which is basically a PreDrive V2 with
simplified core features—and
the Fuze, our first higher gain
distortion/fuzz release. Eventually, we
hope to offer more dual pedal options
from the Foundry series.
TR: What’s the most rewarding part of
this job?
SP: One moment we hear from
someone saying they just found
their new favorite pedal, which is
so rewarding. Then, an hour later,
someone emails and maybe the same
pedal just doesn’t work at all for their
rig. At the end of the day, every player
is looking for a different sound and a
sonic experience that inspires them to
draw new music out—and sometimes
it’s ours. I think that may be the most
12
TONE TALK //
rewarding part for me.
TR: You just announced a new pedal.
What can you tell us about it?
SP: The new Crush is something of a
milestone product for us. I consider
myself somewhat of a compressor
geek; possibly my favorite part of
recording is working with compression.
Being able to offer a compressor that
I like and feel is on par with some of
the great studio compressors is very
exciting—even if just for me personally.
The Crush is an extremely smooth and
transparent compressor with a musical
saturation curve and tone shaping
options that I believe are quite unique
in the current market. This was easily
the most complex design I’ve done yet
and I needed some help from some
engineer friends to walk through the
concepts. [It] turns out it’s not so easy
to design a high-end RMS-detecting
discrete VCA-powered compressor
guitar pedal, but the result is one I’m
very happy with.
TR: The Pettyjohn look is particularly
unique. How did you come up with the
giant jewels and angular boxes?
SP: Thanks! We love our boxes. In
a way, our pedals are a creative art
project and the main medium is tone
sculpting with electronic parts—so I
think the box should look as good as it
sounds. Seriously though, matching a
classic look with practical performance
is as important as the circuit itself to
us. For our first pedal, the PreDrive,
we hired an industrial design firm to
Return to The Foundry: Round 2 With Pettyjohn Electronics