#drolo

techno: i identified the 26 possible builds

dream: there’s 27 btw

techno: YOU DID THE SAME??

Righteous Ryan: When did you decide to become a builder and what motivated you to do so?

David Rolo: If by builder you mean someone who builds pedals and not necessarily sells them, then what motivated me was lack of money and, at the time I made my first pedal (around '98), lack of availability.

Back then I was obsessed by Pink Floyd's Meddle, the track Echoes in particular. I only had some Boss overdrive and could not get anything resembling the sounds I heard so I started researching and found out that there were things called "Fuzz Faces" and that they were not that complicated to build. From there I have always been building something or another, for myself or for friends.

Around 2012 I had just become a dad and while a lot of my spare time was gone forever, there was a lot of time that I had to myself while my wife was sleeping with the baby, so I started tinkering more seriously.

I also tried to start building guitars but we lived in a flat and that proved to not be a recommended activity. So pedals it was.

I was really not thinking about going into the business though, it was just a hobby. At that time I came up with a tremolo called Twin Peaks. I just posted a demo on Youtube and its circuit in DIY forums to share the design. Somehow people started asking me to build one for them and from there on I kept getting more requests than I could keep up with. After that there were a few times where I decided to stop selling altogether because the amount of pedals I was selling required me to somehow register as a business and it seemed like too much trouble.

But people kept asking me. Finally, last year I had a major burn out at work and decided to fuck it all and give the pedal thing a chance.

RR: What motivates you to create original circuits?

DR:I have always tinkered with existing circuits, modified them, added features, frankensteined them.

I am not really interested in making things that already exist because there is no point. My stuff certainly has similarities with other stuff out there but I hope that it is different enough to not make them redundant.

RR: Are you currently working on anything new?

DR: Constantly in my head, though I'm having a hard time finding time to work on that in real life. But I'm getting there.

RR: What is your design process like?

DR: It varies. Most of the times I build things I need for some reason. Sometimes I also have "problems" that I get obsessed about solving. Like I was fed up of having to replace crybaby pots and spent years looking for alternative solutions (magnets, optocouplers etc)

The thing is that I tend to continue trying to solve these problems even after they are not a problem any more (ie I stopped using wahwah's ..)

RR: What’s your set up (Guitars, Amps, Pedalboard, etc.) ?

DR: I have a Laney VC30 that I love but don't use a lot at home. I mainly use my Yamaha THR10 for everything, playing, testing pedals, recording and as PC speakers.

I have a pedalboard that I use to play around at home and test different combinations of pedals.

The main stays, apart from my own designs, are an EHX Pitchfork, Ditto looper and my beloved EHX 2880 looper.

RR: And anything else you want to add that you think people should know about you and your products :)

DR: Hmmm not really anything that I can think of. I'm not that good at talking about my stuff :)

I just recently started doing this as a full time activity and have had a lot of fun. I'm really so thankful and surprised of the attention my pedals have been getting.

I know it sounds corny but being able to generate an income, even if modest, while doing something I like is a bit like a dream and I still have a hard time trusting life enough to think it might actually work in the long run