# Canadian Pedal Builders



## taken

I am a big fan of all the Canadian made pedals on my board by,

Empress Effects
Fairfield Circuitry
Diamond Pedals
Dr. Scientist

What are some other Canadian pedal builders?


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## Guest

Radial Tone Bone guys.


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## High/Deaf

Kingsley


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## sulphur

Retrosonic
Arcane Analog
Butcher pedals (formerly Maritime Analog) 
KO Amps


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## fernieite

Dingotone
Jc mallet (sp? )


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## mhammer

SolidGold FX


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## Lord-Humongous

Goudie FX - I just snagged an 808+ overdrive off of a fellow board member and I'm loving it!


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## zurn

Here's a thread I started a while back, All Canadian pedalboard help!

Empress Effects
Diamond Pedals
Retro-Sonic
Dr. Scientist
SolidGoldFX
Radial Engineering
Fairfield Circuitry
Kilpatrick Audio
MJM Guitar FX
Wounded Paw
Axe and you shall receive
Righteous Tones
Cause & Effect Pedals
Road Rage Pro-Gear
Goudie FX
Oxfuzz
Blackout Effectors
Maritime Analog
Axis Research
Timbre Pedalboards
Arcane Analog


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## taken

Thank you, all! This is great.


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## limelight65

Tone Hungry in Calgary as well.


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## danielSunn0)))

Up and coming pedal builder from Ontario, Ellman Tone. 

Ellman Tone


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## King Loudness

Sanford Magnetics does a very cool Tone Bender style fuzz pedal called the SM15.

W.


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## Steadfastly

I'm surprised no one mentioned TC Helicon. They have some magnificent stuff.


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## bduguay

I'm a _builder_. 
B.


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## SouthamptonPdls

I may be late here, but wanted to throw my name in the ring. Southampton Pedals only has 3 pedals for now, but we've been pretty well received.


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## guitjopicka

Union Tube & Transistor. Amazing pedals. I can vouch for the Tone Druid, Beelzebuzz, More/Evermore, and the Swindle. All top of the line.


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## JerS

I'll bite on this too: www.tributeaudiodesigns.com - we build amplifiers too.


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## the5chord

Aren't Blackout Effectors in North Carolina?


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## sulphur

the5chord said:


> Aren't Blackout Effectors in North Carolina?


I do believe that they moved south of the border a few years ago.


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## jimmythegeek

Blackout are in the US now but started up here. Andy from PGS sometimes introduces his Blackout demos by describing the pedal as being "built by nice Canadians in North Carolina"


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## mhammer

No mention of a relocation here: [interview] Blackout Effectors: Kyle Tompkins

I was hoping, but no dice.


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## sulphur

From their site - 

"Blackout was born in bustling Vancouver, British Columbia, but was relocated to the mountainous embrace of Asheville, North Carolina in 2009."

ABOUT BLACKOUT


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## mhammer

Well whaddya know! Moogerfooger is also based in Asheville. That must make for some great pub nights.


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## CheopisIV

I switched to mainly pickups a few years back but am getting the itch again. Mostly it was due to time constraints re: having kids, job, etc etc etc.


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## mhammer

These days, it's hard to tell which field is getting more crowded: pickup-building or pedal-building!


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## SouthamptonPdls

mhammer said:


> These days, it's hard to tell which field is getting more crowded: pickup-building or pedal-building!


It's really true. There are a couple reasons that really jump out at me:


For the most part, pedal are pretty easy to build. Small modifications to designs can make huge differences in their sound, so it is a fairly accessible hobby.
Musicians who get in to pedals tend to go overboard. I'm talking about all of us here and on TGP. How many pedals have each of you owned?
Pedals are probably the cheapest way to instantly change your guitar sound, which is addictive.
So, there's a market which is always hungry for new sounds. As a small-time builder I can throw together a couple designs and sell 100 fairly easily. Pretty much only limited by marketing as long as the product sounds good and is reliable. As long as you aren't looking to make pedals a full-time job, it's a very easy hobby to make some spending money with.


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## mhammer

Right on all counts. Adding pedals to an already cluttered pedalboard is easy; installing pickups into a guitar is a little more complicated, but is disruptive if one doesn't have a lot of guitars and doesn't finish the installation quickly.

One critical factor that should not be overlooked is that starting up a pedal "business" is something one can do in one's dorm room, or a single-room basement apartment. In other words, rental of commercial space, or owning sufficient workspace, is not a requirement in one's overhead costs the way it would be if building guitars or even combo amps or speaker cabs. There are plenty of services that will produce, stuff, and wave-solder the boards for you, machine and/or legend the chassis for you. Parts are cheaper and more accessible than ever before, and arrive quickly so that one doesn't have to maintain large inventory "just in case", and being able to sell via a web-site and a couple of Youtube videos makes sales a piece of cake, compared to what many pedal-makers from the late 80's and early 90's described as the requirements of "getting into the business". Zachary Vex has previously detailed how he basically lived out of his car for a couple of years, driving from city to city to demo and get a couple of his pedals into a store in each place. I'm sure he wasn't alone. But nowadays.....


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## SouthamptonPdls

mhammer said:


> Right on all counts. Adding pedals to an already cluttered pedalboard is easy; installing pickups into a guitar is a little more complicated, but is disruptive if one doesn't have a lot of guitars and doesn't finish the installation quickly.
> 
> One critical factor that should not be overlooked is that starting up a pedal "business" is something one can do in one's dorm room, or a single-room basement apartment. In other words, rental of commercial space, or owning sufficient workspace, is not a requirement in one's overhead costs the way it would be if building guitars or even combo amps or speaker cabs. There are plenty of services that will produce, stuff, and wave-solder the boards for you, machine and/or legend the chassis for you. Parts are cheaper and more accessible than ever before, and arrive quickly so that one doesn't have to maintain large inventory "just in case", and being able to sell via a web-site and a couple of Youtube videos makes sales a piece of cake, compared to what many pedal-makers from the late 80's and early 90's described as the requirements of "getting into the business". Zachary Vex has previously detailed how he basically lived out of his car for a couple of years, driving from city to city to demo and get a couple of his pedals into a store in each place. I'm sure he wasn't alone. But nowadays.....


I definitely agree regarding how easy it is to get started. To get to a ZVex level of success though would still require a massive amount of marketing. YouTube videos and a cheap website are great, but if you want to be able to live off of making pedals it would require way more commitment IMO. I have taken my pedals with me when I travel and stopped into local guitar shops (big chains won't touch them unless I can provide hundreds of pedals at a steep discount), and even then everything in on consignment.

I've been fortunate enough to just have a big name player buy one of my designs; we'll see if that leads to anything, but for now I'll keep building in my basement and going to my 9-5 desk job.


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## mhammer

I tell "the kids" starting out that you'll never get rich making fuzzboxes, but you _might_ do okay if you're a good businessperson who _happens_ to make fuzzboxes.

I imagine a great many of the "companies" one sees on the effectsdatabase are 1-man side-gigs for people who have day jobs.


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## ONFLOOR AUDIO

Onfloor Audio Pedals located in Saskatoon !!!!


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## mhammer

Do you know Dean Hazelwanter in Saskatoon? He contributed plenty of great designs and layouts to the stompbox forum, and then sorta vanished.


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## bduguay

mhammer said:


> I tell "the kids" starting out that you'll never get rich making fuzzboxes, but you _might_ do okay if you're a good businessperson who _happens_ to make fuzzboxes.
> 
> I imagine a great many of the "companies" one sees on the effectsdatabase are 1-man side-gigs for people who have day jobs.


I used to be that guy. Now it's full-time or bust.
B.


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## AndySertin

guitjopicka said:


> Union Tube & Transistor. Amazing pedals. I can vouch for the Tone Druid, Beelzebuzz, More/Evermore, and the Swindle. All top of the line.


How do you like the EVERMORE? I have the MORE and always wondered if it's like having two? hahah


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## guitjopicka

They are both great. There is a little overlap in tone with the Tone Druid though it gets way more dirt as you crank it and probably doesn't have the same amount of boost. If I were to pick between the more and Evermore I guess I'd pick the evermore. I think they are exactly the same but the evermore has two volume settings that you can toggle between. You can't turn it off, just toggle. But they are kinda meant to be left on all the time. The only thing I didn't like about the evermore is that the difference in LED brightness from one to the other isn't as obvious as I would like. If you're second level "boost" isn't a great audible difference you may get confused.


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## mhammer

Not sure what got me thinking about it, but I would be remiss if I did not mention having had a lovely chat with the folks from Southampton Pedals, Johnny Rock, Rainville, and Demedash Effects this past September at Festival Sonore in Montreal (the latter 3 of which were not included in any of the Canadian pedal-maker listings on the site). Nice guys all. Much success to all four of you in the coming year!


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## reckless toboggan

True North

Really great pedals. Really, really great tone.

Home

Products


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## MarkM

There is an enthusiastic dude ripping it up on YouTube with all Canadian effects, guitar and amp.

His name is JayleonardJ and it is a product a video. Worth checking out.


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## pbrown

zurn said:


> Here's a thread I started a while back, All Canadian pedalboard help!
> 
> Empress Effects
> Diamond Pedals
> Retro-Sonic
> Dr. Scientist
> SolidGoldFX
> Radial Engineering
> Fairfield Circuitry
> Kilpatrick Audio
> MJM Guitar FX
> Wounded Paw
> Axe and you shall receive
> Righteous Tones
> Cause & Effect Pedals
> Road Rage Pro-Gear
> Goudie FX
> Oxfuzz
> Blackout Effectors
> Maritime Analog
> Axis Research
> Timbre Pedalboards
> Arcane Analog


There's also GUPTech, NeonFX and BCA (Bennett Custom Audio)


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## Martvince

Tubesteader!

THE BEEKEEPER


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## valcotone

Another thumbs-up for Arcane Analog. 

He built me a Buzzaround clone (his "Buzzsaw") with a bias pot and output level control that was killer. Versatile and sounded rich and fat (or thin).

Here it is:


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## Amps & Ehfects

Search the "Effects" category for over 100 Canadian effect companies: Amps & Ehfects


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## GKB

A new contender AXiom Effects by Dominion Audio Electronics 
It's great to see Canadian companies, I'd be interested to know the employee numbers of these places, are they one man ops or have part time employees?


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