What happened at the Brighton Guitar Show and Effects Expo Part 2: Thorpy FX

 

ThorpyFX The Dane

In this second part of my blog series on the Brighton Guitar Show and Effects Expo I want to write about someone that I met who had a surprising impact on me.

As I was walking around the Effects Expo, I came across ThorpyFX's booth.  

Thorpy FX was set up by  'Thorpy'  or Adrian and Georgia Thorpe in 2014.  After a career in the military as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist, Thorpy took a passionate hobby of designing guitar effects pedals and turned it into the business of  designing and selling guitar effects pedals. 

Thorpy and Georgia scaled their business from working in their home across a kitchen table and using the downstairs loo as the storage area up to a thriving business hiring a number of staff in designing and producing their pedals.

As a follower of Andertons on YouTube, I was aware of ThorpyFX given that Thorpy designed The Dane in collaboration with a Danish bloke who plays guitar and loves the colour purple.  The Dane is an effects pedal that combines a boost circuit with an overdrive circuit thus providing great tonal options in a sturdy enclosure that only requires the purchase of one pedal as opposed to having to purchase individual boost and overdrive pedals.

In the Q&A With the Guitar Nerds in the afternoon, Thorpy explained his design ethos surrounding the pedals which I understood as taking an effects pedal and doing something new with the design whilst making the pedal 'bomb proof' giving the guitarist something unique and robust. He also went on to talk about how his personal connection with customers was extremely important to him and how when people email in for support it is always either him or Georgia that responds.

It was inspiring to get a glimpse into understanding how pedals are designed and the thinking that goes into designing them, but given how Thorpy's pedals have been adopted by the industry as a whole, it is clear that Thorpy and his team bring something unique to the hoards of pedal suppliers out there.

On their stand, Georgia showed me The Dane and the Peacekeeper pedals which both provide different levels of gain thus providing some great tones.

I really liked The Dane, I loved the tone, the sheer common sense in it's design and it's sturdiness.  When I clicked on the Peacekeeper, the low gain overdrive pedal, I was stunned.  To put it simply, it just brought so much colour to the tone of the guitar that I was playing with.  Seriously it was a beautiful sound and I can certainly imagine the difference it would make to my tone if I had one on my board.

To be fair I would have both on my board.  I could immediately see how they could make a difference to my Blues riffs.  I don't use really heavy overdrive so the Peacekeeper would give me a wonderful base sound upon which I would layer up the Dane.

The ThorpyFX Peacekeeper

Two very tasty options but they do come with a cost and they are not cheap pedals as they both cost in excess of £200.  That said, if I had gone to the show with that money in my pocket, I probably would have bought them outright and this is a bold statement based upon playing guitar with headphones.  I would love to hear them through my rig without headphones.

I do want to add that this article is not sponsored by ThorpyFX and they have no influence on what I am writing.  I was was simply bowled over!

This is big for me because I realised that I don't really like stompboxes.  Whilst I do use them from time to time in my gigs my preference is to use the amplifier overdrive and effects such as reverb and tremolo. I would prefer not to carry the extra stuff to gigs but I am in no doubt that I would use these pedals in my Blutone Band gigs, the difference in tone would be worth it, for sure.

What I think has also impressed me is the fact that ThorpyFX has a story behind it, real people who were prepared to contribute to an already saturated market and go up against some of the biggest effects names in the business and they have been successful.

I guess the message is, if you are passionate about something, don't ignore it, pursue it and you will gain loyal followers/customers who believe or want the same things as you.

Well done to ThorpyFX, you seriously were a highlight to my day at the Brighton Guitar Show!

Please note that I do use affiliate links in my articles and as such when you click on them you could be helping me to cover the cost of producing my content.