Early on I got a mod request from a
customer to make a loop on his TightDrive
pedal that worked when it’s off. He wanted
to automatically shut off his compressor
when he turned on the TightDrive, avoiding
the tap dance. After tweaking this idea
through a few iterations, I ended up with
the SideTrak loop, and I introduced it on
the TightRock. You patch in dedicated clean
effects, just leave them on, and your solo
delay in the back, and the TightRock does
all the switching. Some guys will patch an
alternate distortion pedal in the SideTrak,
and then alternate between the two with
one click, instead of stacking them or tap
dancing.
Then, when we did the two-button Pro
versions, people were asking for a boost
and a third loop that only comes on with
the Boost footswitch. The regular loop is
still on there, and the SideTrak is on the
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BUILDER PROFILE //
front as well for y our clean stuff. Bottom
line: You can use our Pro pedal as the
controller pedal for your whole pedalboard,
and just preset the clean, rhythm and solo
pedals in those three loops for each song,
so you can get back to thinking about
making music instead of tap dancing.
TR: How do you use customer feedback to
design and improve your products?
JB: The suggestion button has continued to
be huge for us, and I also participate on
forums and Facebook, etc. We get many
ideas, and I constantly sort them and store
them in categories for future designs. Many
times I can add a simple switch or
adjustment and make another crowd of
people happy with a product design. And
sometimes we’ll get a really special idea,
like the SideTrak Loop.
Some of the more important ideas in all our
designs included something as obvious as
Precision Tweaking: A Chat with James Brown of Amptweaker