Witney Pedal Party Highlights
It turns out that I was one of the relatively few in the end who made their way to the Witney Pedal Party.
From my starting point at Paddington Station it seemed like things were going to be very busy throughout the day - the station was packed, including lots of people in straw boaters and colourful stripey jackets - obviously heading for the Henley Regatta. While my Hereford-bound Hanborough train was filled to capacity too. With a significant proportion of passengers being of Chinese origin. I thought they might be heading for Oxford - but most were still on the train when I got off at Hanborough (10 mins from Witney).
I made a schoolboy error in assuming there would be a taxi rank at Hanborough Station - in fact the same thing that caught me out at Stourbridge last year. According to Google maps there was no taxi rank remotely close. But I lucked out as there was a taxi dropping someone off just as I was wondering what do to. In any case I was at the Witney Woolgate Centre in pretty much 10 minutes flat and arrived at the Truck Music Store venue around 20 past eleven. There weren’t many people there by then - Doug Tolley was first to welcome me, Nick Rees had also arrived, Jacob (Origin Effects) was fully set up, while David and Martin (Rainger FX) where still deciding on where was best to set up.
The key liaison and ’fixer’ on the day was Truck Music Store staffer and guitar gear enthusiast Jonny ’Guitar’ Davies - who was about the friendliest and most effusively helpful person I’ve probably ever met - helping every one offload, set up and connect their gear - just a genuinely massively positive person.
Jonny ensured that everything went smoothly on the day - and I wasn’t aware of a single glitch - everything worked from the start and everything moved along very fluidly.
The space was for sure a little tight and awkward at times - sitting kind of right in and among the record racks, crates, and various music store merchandising and bric-a-brac. It was for sure a tight space - and probably Jacob / Origin Effects at the far end of the room was not particularly well placed - the intended move to the bigger Fat Lil’s venue for the next one should certainly sort that out.
At times there were more record store customers ’crate-digging’ in that room than there were attendees for the Pedal Party - while it did pick up a touch as the afternoon wore on.
I actually enjoyed the freedom to get more of a conversation in with the key principals at the show - rarely do you get such prolonged easy access to everyone.
I think all of us would have liked to have seen more attendees, and this was certainly not a sellers show.
For me I think it ended up as kind of dummy run for a bigger event - lessons were surely learned. While the core crew of those who attended were perfect. I also liked the overall concept of Headphone browsing and exploration followed by live and loud pedal demos. Possibly there needs to be a little more of a theme and a little more formality - while everything went off pretty much as well as could be expected - with no unpleasant surprises and not a single issue of any kind really.
I hope that more of you can participate in some of these future events - they will of course evolve and grow with time - while I think it’s cool to have this kind of dual nature. It wasn’t really the ’Workshop’ experience I thought it might be - it was simply exploration via headphones followed by live pedal demos. Possibly next time we can have some more topical workshop sessions with some sort of interaction with the audience.
I personally really enjoyed myself - and loved catching up with everyone - I’m certainly up for more of the same!
Origin Effects - Jacob Holdsworth
I'm putting Origin Effects first - as I believe Jacob was the quickest to get fully set up! And he was also at the far end of the room where I was parked for extended peiods!
This was the first time I properly got to meet Origin's Jacob Holdsworth - who's official title is Digital Content Creator - while I'm rightly going to call him Origin's Marketing Manager - as that is his principal role - while he's also of course a Product Specialist. Jacob explained how Origin's team of 12 work together very organically - to jointly make decisions on the look and function and concept of each of their pedals - it's all completely a properly collaborative team effort.
Origin are working on several projects currently, but have no releases planned for the imminent future. While there will surely be something around soon enough.
Jacob cleverly kept things simple with just a single board of all the current Origin Effects heavy hitters. The Cali76 Compact Deluxe is still the company's flagship pedal and best-seller - while all 3 new compact series pedals (Halcyon Overdrive, M-EQ Driver, and DCX Boost) have been selling really well - and the RevivalDRIVES are perennially popular too.
Jacob drew my attention to his own favourite Origin pedal - the MAGMA57 Magnatone 200 Series Amp Emulator with True Pitch Vibrato. One of Billy Gibbons' favourite amps I believe and actually a pedal I had unfortunately somewhat overlooked. That one of course goes straight onto my growing Origin wishlist.
I was delighted to make Jacob's acquaintance, and hopefully this can be my first steps towards getting back in with Origin Effects again!
Jacob was slightly unfortunately positioned at the end of the room - where the compact and bijoux nature of the room's setup meant that he was somewhat hidden away at times.
I always feel it's best to attend these shows with some sort of a sidekick - as it can be fairly intense without a breather or two!
I mentioned at the show that the Korg tuner looked a little out of its class up against all those beautifully engineered Origin Effects pedals.
I feel that the new Peterson StroboStomp Mini in silver would be the perfect accompaniment for this particular board.
I even offered to put Jacob in touch with my friend Bruce Davidson over at Audio Distribution Group - the official European distro for Peterson Tuners.
Will be exciting to see what's on the board for the next show!
Chase Bliss - Doug Tolley, Nick Rees (part)
Chase Bliss UK Ambassador Doug Tolley was of course the host for the show - and had lavishly filled the corner stage area with amps for visual effect - while only 2 were needed really - the setup did look amazing though!
You should recognise the familiar arrangement of the above board by now - where the only change from the recent London Pedal Expo was of course the addition of the Mood II.
As usual Chase Bliss had the best give-aways at the show - with copies of the Pedal Party Poster, various colourful stickers and branded 1.35mm Dunlop Tortex Pickups - including some Jazz III size ones perfect for me!
As organiser Doug was away from this station at various times - and so his good friend and Videographer for the day - Nick Rees stepped into the gap - as in the top picture.
Doug started off the live sessions - with his first ever public performance - playing an experimental ambient groove utilising every pedal on the board at one time or another - with his gorgeous Rickenbacker 360 Fireglo central to proceedings.
An accomplished debut for sure - and very brave of Doug to be first on stage as such - but undoubtedly the right move based on what was to come!
Rainger FX - David Rainger, Martin Simpson
David deliberately hamming it up for the camera!
David and Martin were the 3rd to get properly setup - and before long the Rainger FX Show was in full swing! A big part of the showcase is the Minibar Liquid Overdrive - accompanied by a plethora of bottles containing various liquids and various hues and density.
While front on central on this occasion were the 3 larger pedals - The Snare Trap Beat Machine, Drone Rainger Dive-Bombing Delay, and the Break Box Scratch 'n' Sustain Fuzz / Distortion - those 3 are all you need for a killer show - as David went on to demonstrate later.
All the usual suspects got a look-in here - including the most recent Flanger-X Mini and Echo-X Mini.
In some ways you really need to see and witness David demonstrate these pedals to properly get their context and realise their full potential.
Every one of these is very unique and capable of some extraordinary sounds - and the little Igor Expression Pressure Pads are a genius way to get more dynamic playback out of most of those pedals. Where the Igor is actually built in to the Break Box and Snare Trap.
Before this show I wasn't sure I needed the Drone Rainger - after the show it's a must have!
David reports that there should be 3 more releases this year - some of those should have happened already - while there have been some production challenges - and a redevelopment of their former premises meant they needed to move out of their Hangar Lane HQ.
They are now actually easier for me to get to - as they're very near Willesden Junction now - which is straight up from Paddington on the Bakerloo Line. I will definitely be putting in an appearance there pretty soon!
David played an absolutely blisteringly fantastic mini set of sort of electro-punk space-rock - mostly utilising the Snare Trap, Drone Rainger and Break Box.
If you weren't sold on that trio before the showcase - you certainly were after. It's one of the best pedal demos I've ever heard - and made that trio in particular a must-have.
In fact so good was David's live show what no one wanted to follow that.
So Doug actually played it really smart by going first.
I was kind of expecting there to be 4 mini live demo showcases that afternoon - in fact there was talk of Markus Reeves doing an impromptu demonstration of his new DaughterBoard Series Darlington Flyer - but a late night at A&E the night before kind of scuppered that.
David's live set was a fitting final flurry for the show - where things started to be wound up not long after.
Thorpy FX - Adrian Thorpe, Georgia Thorpe (part), Dan Coggins (part)
Last to pitch up was Thorpy - while he was the only one with his whole family pretty much in tow. Traffic congestion had held him up - and I noted that the trains were extraordinarily busy too - filled to the brim!
Business partner Georgia pointed out that the Thorpy Booth as such was slightly reminiscent of a local Chinese takeaway with the kids merrily playing away behind the counter! The kids were actually immaculately behaved - in part no doubt thanks to their iPads - while they were soon to be whisked away for a day trip to the local transport museum.
I found out that Thorpy had been using those army green Schmidt Array boards since 2015 - before he evolved his purple logo colourway.
I commented that there was some incongruity in arrangement - as it would have looked cooler to have all the black pedals together on the left-hand board - while obviously more practical in said current arrangement.
I had not realised that The Veteran and Team Medic pedals had been retired - but everything else was in evidence on the day.
I'm only missing 3 Thorpy pedals currently from my collection - The Dane Overdrive and Boost, The Mini FLIR Buffer, and The Fat General Parallel Compressor. Hopefully I can tick off one or two more of those this year!
At this very moment I have 3 Thorpy pedals on the board - the pretty much permanent Heavy Water Dual Boost, semi-permanent Scarlet Tunic Analog Amp Emulator, and the recent brilliant ER-2 Uni-Vibe.
Last year's Thorpy Month meant I had all 14 of my then ThorpyFX pedals in the chain at the same time!
And there's been a few more additions since then.
Thorpy says there are 3 more releases to come this year hopefully - while one of those could conceivably drag into next year.
Thorpy making a point to David
I've promised to drop in on Thorpy's relatively new premises too. I would want to attend in the wake of a launch really - when final preparations are being made and everything is being readied for the big push.
Thorpy was my very first pedal buddy as such - or the first builder I made a proper connection with - whom I first encountered at a pedal show back in 2018 - I think it was at Olympia! While possibly it was an even earlier show - my memory is a little foggy on the exact timing - and back in those earliest days of Guitar Pedal X I wasn't properly reporting fully from every key show unlike what I do nowadays!
Cameos!
I have zero paparazzo in me - so I've never been good at taking incidental snaps - I always feel awkward and invasive trying to get in there and take a snap - so I mostly don't. So I totally forgot to snap Markus Reeves and his daughter Izzy.
I kind of missed the introduction to Izzy - who is now Markus's apprentice, and for whom he created the DaughterBoard series - where the single switchable transistor Darlington Flyer is currently being prepped for launch.
I need to wait for some suitable photography and a at least one demo so I can do a feature on the Darlington Flyer - would have been nice to see one at the show - but I can wait!
The other notable pop-in was by Dan Coggins - while he's of course part of ThorpyFX now - so I've listed him there - I was unable to get a snap of him too!
I found out at the show that David Rainger, Martin Simpson and Dan Coggins had known each other for 15 years and had been firm friends since that time. It's funny to discover how close-knit this community can be and how few steps of separation there are between those key movers and shakers.
Someone should do one of those '6 degrees of separation' exercises on Pedal Builders at some stage - for sure there will be some interesting connections there that most aren't aware of.
Overall I really enjoyed the show - while most of the attendees were local folk in off the street as such seemingly.
I think we'll treat this one as the test run - and when the show moves to a larger venue - Fat Lil's for the next one there will likely be a more concerted effort to get more people to attend.
It would be nice to hear from those of you who live in and around that part of the country - as to why the show seemingly did not hold that high an appeal - unless there was a direct overlap with that day's Henley Regatta. I'd like to know what about this show wasn't sufficiently appealing - was it the Witney Pedal Party name, the location, or perhaps proximity to the Brighton Guitar Show and FX Expo in a fortnight's time?
I would have thought Chase Bliss plus the 3 biggest UK brands would have been a big enough draw for most pedal fans - I'm intrigued as to why we did not see more attendees - it's an easy venue to get to, and in a lovely part of the world - just on the edge of the Cotswolds.
In any case the next one will surely be bigger and better!
Nick Rees should have the official video coverage edited down soon - and I will add the YouTube embed as soon as that video is live!
Pedal Party Highlights / Mini Documentary by Nick Rees
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
