It has been a relatively long time since I posted anything~ my apologies; sometimes the world pulls you down and you only have so much energy. While i love interviewing people about their passions, sometimes that takes a bit of a backseat to making sure I’m taking care of the things that need to be taken care of. I’m sure you understand all of that.
Anyhow, I’ve got three interviews that I’m in the business of processing and I’ll be releasing those in coming weeks while I start up new conversations.
The first interview I’m going to share with you is with Moth Electric, a pedal creator who recently started their own business. I’m a musician with an ongoing fascination with pedals, which I utilize with both my acoustic and electric instruments. They are magical things and how they are made and the creative intentions behind them are fascinating topics to my mind. I watch videos about pedals compulsively and even dream of making some for myself. I consider them works of art.
When I started this interview, I didn’t know moth Electric. I compulsively reached out to them because there was something to the visual pedal design which appealed to me and I simply wanted to know more. Towards the end of our conversation, a few videos were posted so I could actually hear the first pedal and I am beyond pleased that my I had followed my intuition. I was also grateful, because I really enjoyed corresponding with Moth Electric, both inside and outside of this interview. He seems like someone I could spend hours talking about music with.
Take a listen to his pedal sing in this awesome review as you read.
CR: What is your backstory- How did you start making effect pedals and what is your musical background?
ME: I've been messing around with pedals for pretty much as long as I've been playing guitar. I grew up surrounded by music, in particular Prince, and started playing when I was twelve or thirteen. I was immediately fascinated by pedals. I loved the idea of a cool looking little box fundamentally changing the way your instrument sounded and behaved. I bought a Boss DS-1 for like 30 bucks and dimed it through my terrible little practice amp. It totally blew me away.
I kind of haphazardly tried to pursue playing music for a living and habitually started punk and experimental bands throughout my 20s, but ultimately didn't have the patience or focus to give it a real go. About five years ago I started working for one of the larger "boutique" pedal manufacturers in the US, after years of tinkering with my own pedals. I started with populating and assembling pedals there and ended up being their production manager for a couple years.
CR: When you worked as a production manager, was that when you learned the skills and theory you use to craft your own pedals?
ME: Well, I had a basic understanding of electronics before I started working there, just from modding my own gear and building the occasional kit, but doing it all day every day for a living certainly expanded my toolset. I also learned how to maintain really tight consistency and quality over a very large volume. A lot of the theory involved I learned from online forums and some really great books, Practical Electronics for Inventors being a particularly good one. Ultimately what I took away the most was really pinpointing what it is that I appreciate in a pedal. I don't want to disparage my old employer, because there are a lot of really great people there, but there were design choices being made that I was increasingly unenthusiastic about, both aesthetically and sonically. That got me daydreaming about what my pedals would look and sound like if I had total control over the process.
CR: So, what kinds of principles are guiding you now that you have control over the process? What does the creative process of designing a pedal entail?
ME: Hand making these things in just about the most inconvenient way possible was really important to me. It's increasingly rare in the world to interact with objects actually made by human beings, so building by hand was always going to be the way to go. I strongly feel that objects made by people carry an inherent weight that mass produced stuff made on a conveyor belt do not. Keeping the visual element clean and understated was important to me, as well. I wanted my pedals to look at home on anybody's board.
The process of designing a pedal is basically adding and subtracting building blocks until you're happy with the functionality, then fine tuning things so that everything works well together. Everything starts on a breadboard for me as it allows me to swap out components or blocks of circuitry while immediately hearing the results. In the case of P. Isabella, I knew I wanted to build a fuzz and I knew I wanted it to be an iteration of a Big Muff. I got to thinking about the limitations of that circuit and what kind of features I would include if I could only have one fuzz on my pedalboard. Once I land on the core features I want, I draw up schematics of each "building block" and then implement them on the breadboard. From there it's just about swapping out component values until things sound like I think they should. PCB design is a whole other animal with many different schools of thought. I tend to sacrifice the aesthetics of the PCB in favor of maintaining the most direct signal path possible. This really helps cut down on noise, which is always an uphill battle with drive circuits.
For the visual elements of the pedal, I talked to my friend Pete Holm, who does my graphic design, about what I wanted the overall look of the things to be. I think I told him I wanted it to look like something you might find in a cold war era bunker, or on a panel in a B-52. I try to include subtle nods to the origins or sounds of the circuit it's based on. Pyrrharctia isabella's common name is the Wooly Bear. It's quite a "wooly" sounding fuzz, so the moth choice felt obvious to me. The enclosure color is a direct reference to the tall font green Russian pedals the core of the circuit is based on. The plan is to keep these stylistic conventions for future releases.
CR: Interesting! P. Isabella's visual aesthetic definitely appeals to me and it is great to find some depth to the design decisions. I also have an affinity for moths and was wondering if there is a backstory to the name of your company?
I think the handmade ethic that you are talking about is completely valid. And the visual aesthetic of the board being secondary to the functionality of the piece makes a lot of sense.
What pedals or other gear inspires your own creativity? Do you have any solid plans about what types of pedals you'd like to produce next?
ME: I've had a long standing affinity for moths for no reason in particular. Some people think having a butterfly land on them brings luck, I've always thought the same about moths. I had a tape label back in 2008 or so called Moth House, just to put out some of the stuff my friends and I were working on in, and I wanted my company name to be a bit of a throwback to a previous project of mine. I've always liked the use of the word 'electric' in Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric" and it fits with the nature of the company, so it just felt right.
Tons of gear inspires me. As I mentioned earlier, one of the first things that I found cool about electric guitar was the ability to drastically alter your sound with pedals. At one point I probably had 20 or so pedals on my board, nowadays I appreciate a smaller setup with carefully selected choices. I appreciate pedal makers that are challenging norms and pushing the limits of good taste, and I mean that in the most respectful way possible. Death by Audio comes to mind as a fairly well known maker that puts out products knowing that they're not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
I have a set release schedule planned out for the next year and a half or so, just based on the designs I have in varying stages of development. My next two releases will be an overdrive and distortion respectively, then I'll be shifting to modulation and time based effects afterwards. I want to have a varied catalog that someone could build a proper pedalboard with if they felt so inclined.
CR: I look forward to hearing all of your coming creations! Whitman is amazing and I love that connection.
Are there other small pedal makers you think people should check out? Or musicians who you would recommend?
ME: Two ends of the spectrum for small builders: Drunk Beaver Pedals and Reeves Electro.
Drunk Beaver is a Ukrainian dude living in Poland making some nice recreations of circuits with some cool additions. A portion of his sales go towards helping out in Ukraine. I have a RAT clone from him that's pretty cool.
Drunk Beaver
Reeves Electro are legendary pedals made by Markus Reeves in the UK. He doesn't need the publicity as I'm sure every batch of pedals he makes sells out immediately, but if you want to see some of the most stunning gut shots of super classic fuzz circuits, check out his stuff.
Reeves Electro
In terms of music recommendations, that's such a massive question. A few bands/artists I played at the shop this week were The Body, The The, Monolord, Patrick Cowley and Jorge Ben Jor. Unfortunately I haven't returned to the show scene that fell apart during Covid as I've been swamped setting up the company, but I'm excited to get back out there and see what kind of stuff has popped up locally over the past few years.
You can find out more information about this fledgling company by going to their website and by following them on Instagram and/or Threads:
Moth Electric
Moth Electric Instagram
Moth Electric Threads
Thank you so much to Moth Electric for taking the time to answer my questions, it was my pleasure.
So, there will be more interviews coming in the next couple of weeks, which I’m excited for. One of these is a conversation about music with the force of nature that runs the label Fiadh Productions. The other is a conversation with the many faceted Evergreen, whom you might know by many names.
If you are interested in supporting this site, I am also releasing a compilation album from a variety of amazing folk this summer. It is weird and lovely and I’m so touched that people have contributed. I’ll release it digitally and maybe someday it will see a physical release.
i just released this album, the proceeds of which go right back into this site and my creative pursuits:
Celestial Minstrel and the Astral Sail (Physical CD)
Celestial Minstrel and the Astral Sail (digital)
You don’t have to purchase the album to listen to it and I am always grateful to anyone who gives my music a listen. I guess I’d classify this as science fiction fantasy inspired ambient. It leans dark and is synth, guitar, and wind instruments.
Be good to yourself and others and thank you for reading.