A Champion Year for Compressor Pedals
With 4 new Limited Edition Cali76 Compact Deluxes, huge names added to our artist roster, and increased production efficiency resulting in a price drop, we’ve had a jam-packed year!
In the past 12 months, the market for compressor pedals has sky-rocketed with more and more players understanding the benefits of using a studio-quality compressor on their signal. This boom has resulted in Origin Effects selling considerably more pedals than ever before. Fortunately, our production team has grown and improved efficiency to meet demand and actually lower each pedal’s cost, which we chose to pass on to the customer; our compressor pedals are now more affordable than ever before!In the summer, in conjunction with Pedal genie, we released a trio of Cali76 Compact Deluxe pedals with Limited Edition blue and purple artwork. Exclusive to Pedal Genie, these designs have been really popular with players around the world. These designs joined our Blackout and Gold limited editions which were produced exclusively for Vision Guitar and Rogue Guitar Shop, respectively.
The summer also saw Origin Effects reach 10,000 pedal sales – an impressive feat for a small team still hand-crafting all its pedals in-house. To celebrate we released another Limited Edition Cali76-CD, this time with a Union Jack design to celebrate our British engineering heritage. We only built 250 of these and they sold out within 48 hours!
Acclaimed Artists Join the Origin Effects Family
We pride ourselves on the number of professional musicians who make Origin Effects pedals their compressor of choice for the stage and studio. This year saw even more household names add our effects pedals to their rigs…Radiohead are held aloft by many pedal-addict as leaders in the creative use of effects, so when we heard that Ed O’Brien had added a Cali76 Compact Deluxe to his studio pedalboard we knew that our pedals were being used to push the sonic boundaries. Hailing just 10 miles from Origin Effects HQ, Radiohead are firm favourites amongst the team so we’re hoping for some backstage passes for any upcoming gigs!!Pete Townshend is so iconic that he even has his own signature guitar-moves! Among the vanguard of the British Invasion, the Who wrote songs which defined an era including My Generation and Won’t Be Fooled Again.
Pete’s guitar tech contacted us to say that Pete was interested in a compressor pedal and our Cali76 Compact fitted the bill. Very cool!Pete Townshend’s tech also works with Eagles and James Gang guitarist, Joe Walsh. Joe heard about our compressor pedals and wanted to put the Cali76-C and the SlideRIG-CD through their paces. Needless to say, once Joe played through them he never wanted to give them back!
Joe recently became an honorary member of The Foo Fighters so perhaps he will introduce the pedals to Dave Grohl…Earlier in the year, Prog Rock dignitary, Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree started using the Cali76-CD. Heavy-hitting bassist with King Crimson, Tony Levin, used a Cali76-CD in a Reverb.com video and found it so good that he bought one right away! In May British guitarist, Chris Rea, got in contact looking for a compressor so we hooked him up with a SlideRIG-CD!We also got the chance to meet some our new artists! In September, Simon and Fabs went to meet The Killers backstage as bassist, Jake Blanton, had just started using a Cali76-CB in his live rig.
Watching the band perform and chatting with them was a really special experience!One of the best highlights was meeting Blur guitarist and solo artist, Graham Coxon, at his home studio. Graham was such a lovely human being and made us feel right at home. Sitting in the same room as such a creative talent while they strum their guitar is a unique experience. He loves his Cali76 compressors, too!
Looking Forward to an Exciting 2018
Even though 2017 was such a fantastic year we are expecting 2018 to be even better! With even more dealers on board and more pedals being produced we hope to get more Origin Effects pedals on even more pedalboards around the world.
We even have our first non-compressor pedal ready for release in the first half of 2018… watch this space!!
