Cornish pedals and similar expensive pedal makers ?

siraxeman

Are they value for money? A rip off? Overpriced? Or is the price justified in terms of build time/materials cost etc etc

Can someone make a business selling pedals like ODs/Distortions/Treble boosters etc and sell them for less than £200 handmade ie not in a factory? I always thought the Timmy pedal was fairly expensive but still considering they are hand made by one guy from home then maybe they're actually quite good value ? Anyway discuss chilblains.......

allicio

For me. It depends on the components used and the workmanship involved. 99% of my pedals are handmade by a single person using transistors from the 1960's so that's what your paying for.
There's a high failure rate with those sorts of components so your paying for testing time by the builder plus the time it takes to tune those components/circuit to achieve a high quality sound instead of a spluttery mess!

RaymondLin

I think sound wise, personally I don't think they are value for money. If you play me some clips with a blind test I won't be able to tell. As for reliability, there are plenty of pedals that have as good reliability record, and cheap enough you can buy a spare if you are touring if you are worried about them breaking. You are paying money mostly for the builder's time as they are hand made.

juansolo

siraxeman said:

Are they value for money? A rip off? Overpriced? Or is the price justified in terms of build time/materials cost etc etc

Can someone make a business selling pedals like ODs/Distortions/Treble boosters etc and sell them for less than £200 handmade ie not in a factory? I always thought the Timmy pedal was fairly expensive but still considering they are hand made by one guy from home then maybe they're actually quite good value ? Anyway discuss chilblains.......

The way Cornish and DAM sell pedals is the ONLY way to make a living from it and remain a small outfit. In that respect, they're both nailed on and I have a huge amount of respect for them. Not only for the quality of their work, but their excellent marketing. The other option is to make them cheap, fast and in bulk and sell them at 'competitive' prices. Doing that you'd have to make shitloads of pedals a day just to be able to live. The way I make pedals, the quality would suffer fast doing that and it'd cease being enjoyable.

Believe me, I've looked into this more than once as an out of IT for me, but I can never make the numbers add up unless I can shift single pedals at a minimum of £200 a pop. Considering even the most complex singles I've made for people (BBD delays and the like) struggle to make even £100 (don't think I've ever managed it for a single), I'm unlikely to be able to make a super robust muff like Cornish does or a super accurate Tonebender like DAM does and shift it for £200 let alone £400. What Cornish has in his favour is Gilmour and what DAM has is an established reputation for Tonebender replicas.

The problem you have is that pedal buyers in the UK aren't really interested in higher end hand made gear. The amp and the guitar market is similar. I see really talented luthiers and amp builders either struggling to make sensible money or indeed having to have a proper job also to live.

Same goes for pedals. You see £30-50 in parts, I see my experience and time being worth a fuckload more than that. Some builds are hours of work. Yet people expect you to give your time for free. Thankfully I turn out the odd Klone (best return for effort of anything I make) and make the hobby pay for itself. Occasionally someone wants something interesting and I'll build that. But I've never made any money out of it. In 5+ years it barely breaks even and indeed often doesn't. That's usually when you'll see me selling Klones

If you want a breakdown: I charge £80 for a Klone and it costs about £35 in parts. There's about 3 hrs labour in each one, so that's £15 an hour. Not bad as I say, but that's the absolute best I can get making pedals. EVERYTHING else I build makes less money. The multi's massively so. What makes it not make sense is that that doesn't take into account tax and I could earn nearly double that sat in front of a computer screen with paid sick leave, pension, a steady 9-5 x 5, paid holidays, no risk, etc. 

FWIW the Timmy is the bargain of the century. I have no idea at all how that bloke makes a living charging a little over £100 a pop for those. You've got to understand that anything hand made cannot compete with any manufacturer bulk building stuff, especially if they're getting stuff from China as most do now. It's impossible.

TheCount

It's a bit like anything in this world, there a price points and different people with different levels of disposable incomes fall into different ' pricing categories' 

Any better? Not sure really, as far as construction methods go, there are some good cheap pedals and some shit expensive ones.  Generally the stuff like Allicio is talking about, small business' putting their hearts and souls into what they make I think is worth every penny If you are prepared to pay for it.

 

Heartfeltdawn

@juansolo

Absolutely nailed it. The US market is big enough to support luthiers and amp builders in the higher end bracket. In the amp world you have plenty of valve amp makers and there's a lot of old amps out there needing repair. In the UK we simply haven't got that amount of people needing repairs or having enough scratch for handbuilt amps to sustain a large number of makers. It's the same for pedals as well.  

capo4th

Cornish DAM and Lazy J all have marketing MoJo and endorsements which allows for that fat margin

nickb_boy

Once @Lew gets the appeal and sexiness of the PnW scene over here like in the US then they'll be a massive market for UK booteek pedal builders who can charge what they like!

Lew

Pretty sure you and our mate got that covered @nickb_boy ;-p

Most I've spent on a pedal is £270 on the Warped Vinyl. And after that £240 for a BAT Coven. The people who buy DAM and Cornish probably think that's peanuts though haha  I don't mind spending the cash if I really want something and can't find it used but I'll wait ages for something I want to pop up used. 

I do want a DAM tonebender - not because I think it has something tonewise I couldn't find elsewhere so yea pretty sure I don't think they're a rip off or rather I don't care if they are so long as I can get my money back on resale ;-)

xHymnal

In my experience D*A*M special runs such as the D*A*M MKII's often increase in value over time. My og greasebox is probably worth 3/4x the rrp now, but I'm a bit of a D*A*M fanboy and think the prices are justified. 

thisisguitar

It's the perceived value to the buyer, and their ability to pay that means people will buy this kind of stuff. You're paying for the reputation these things have for sonic quality, build quality and customer service. There is always the law of diminishing returns, but personally I want to have the best I can afford. 

How much money do people lose buying and selling in their search for the right sound? Not to mention time? 

Perfect example of this is my strat. I tried a '56 CS reissue that was on for £2k used, and a '54 CS reissue 60th anniversary. The latter was maybe 10% better sonically,slightly better colour and had the neck finish cut back compared to the '56. Bottom line is I paid £3k for the '54, because I wanted the best one, and over time a grand will not matter as much as knowing there was a better option yet walking away.

allicio

Yo c, which grease box you got? One of the origininal in the yy enclosure???

juansolo

Lew said:

I don't think they're a rip off or rather I don't care if they are so long as I can get my money back on resale ;-)

This is the essence of the gear market in a nutshell. What you can get resale set's the value of an item completely. Look at the Klon. At $300 they were good value IMO. Looking at $1000 plus for them now 2nd hand.

xHymnal

allicio;436161" said:

For me. It depends on the components used and the workmanship involved. 99% of my pedals are handmade by a single person using transistors from the 1960's so that's what your paying for.
There's a high failure rate with those sorts of components so your paying for testing time by the builder plus the time it takes to tune those components/circuit to achieve a high quality sound instead of a spluttery mess!

Don't forget it also takes years of study to wire the switch wrong

And yup one of the original. It's great despite not getting much use: I don't have any amps it likes currently! I.e. I need a jtm50... Next year maybe!... (Probably not though )

allicio

Oh yeah I forgot that! Guy can build and tune a sublime mk1 but missed class the switch wiring day! Balls!

Drew_TNBD

Overpriced toss in most cases.

MtB

I think that these days there is such a range and variety of pedals available that are so close sonically to what Cornish, DAM and a few others (Skreddy, Analogman, Zvexx,...) make, that their pedals are not worth it. 

What you are buying is a reputation that these people built up by modifying or updating old designs to produce a quality pedal that the guitarists wanted, but the mass producers of pedals (Boss and Digitech) just weren't interested in producing, 10 to 15 years ago. 

I bought a DAM Tonebender MkII (with Mullard OC81D transistors) from Dave Main in 2005, and I don't recall there being anything else like that available (to buy new) at the time.    

Wazmeister

I'd love to know how many posters have actually 'owned' a Cornish pedal and commented...

Overpriced ? Yep. Well marketed ? Yep.

But, you have to play em to appreciate how very special SOME of them are... Just my two penneth worth...

Gassage

OK- Cornish benfits

- Build
- Buffers
- East to see
- Noiseless
- The reaction of pots is stunning.
- All parts of pedal usable.

He gets it so right.

Forgot to mention- chic styling

juansolo

There is an argument that in the real world a £20k Subaru Impreza just as quick point to point as a £100k Porsche GT3. Indeed on many measurable levels just as good. Yet still Porsche have no trouble selling them. Therefore are they overpriced or are they priced at what the market is prepared to pay...?

Taken another way, Porsche has a massive mark up on a 911. A Cayman shares a lot of parts with one, the vast majority in fact, yet is significantly cheaper. But the 911 is marketed in such a way that people perceive it to be the premium model. People will pay more to own a 911 when the Cayman is possibly even a better car in some respects. This is another good way of looking at the pedal market.

Basically, what I am saying is that you pay your money and make your choice. That DAM, Cornish and the like have a market and can sell these pedals means that their pricing is just fine. They're only too expensive if you can't afford one and you want one. C'est la vie. But that's also not to say that there aren't alternatives out there, particularly in the pedal market, that can't do the same thing for you. Or indeed be better!

Wazmeister

juansolo said:

siraxeman said:

Are they value for money? A rip off? Overpriced? Or is the price justified in terms of build time/materials cost etc etc

Can someone make a business selling pedals like ODs/Distortions/Treble boosters etc and sell them for less than £200 handmade ie not in a factory? I always thought the Timmy pedal was fairly expensive but still considering they are hand made by one guy from home then maybe they're actually quite good value ? Anyway discuss chilblains.......

The way Cornish and DAM sell pedals is the ONLY way to make a living from it and remain a small outfit. In that respect, they're both nailed on and I have a huge amount of respect for them. Not only for the quality of their work, but their excellent marketing. The other option is to make them cheap, fast and in bulk and sell them at 'competitive' prices. Doing that you'd have to make shitloads of pedals a day just to be able to live. The way I make pedals, the quality would suffer fast doing that and it'd cease being enjoyable.

Believe me, I've looked into this more than once as an out of IT for me, but I can never make the numbers add up unless I can shift single pedals at a minimum of £200 a pop. Considering even the most complex singles I've made for people (BBD delays and the like) struggle to make even £100 (don't think I've ever managed it for a single), I'm unlikely to be able to make a super robust muff like Cornish does or a super accurate Tonebender like DAM does and shift it for £200 let alone £400. What Cornish has in his favour is Gilmour and what DAM has is an established reputation for Tonebender replicas.

The problem you have is that pedal buyers in the UK aren't really interested in higher end hand made gear. The amp and the guitar market is similar. I see really talented luthiers and amp builders either struggling to make sensible money or indeed having to have a proper job also to live.

Same goes for pedals. You see £30-50 in parts, I see my experience and time being worth a fuckload more than that. Some builds are hours of work. Yet people expect you to give your time for free. Thankfully I turn out the odd Klone (best return for effort of anything I make) and make the hobby pay for itself. Occasionally someone wants something interesting and I'll build that. But I've never made any money out of it. In 5+ years it barely breaks even and indeed often doesn't. That's usually when you'll see me selling Klones

If you want a breakdown: I charge £80 for a Klone and it costs about £35 in parts. There's about 3 hrs labour in each one, so that's £15 an hour. Not bad as I say, but that's the absolute best I can get making pedals. EVERYTHING else I build makes less money. The multi's massively so. What makes it not make sense is that that doesn't take into account tax and I could earn nearly double that sat in front of a computer screen with paid sick leave, pension, a steady 9-5 x 5, paid holidays, no risk, etc. 

FWIW the Timmy is the bargain of the century. I have no idea at all how that bloke makes a living charging a little over £100 a pop for those. You've got to understand that anything hand made cannot compete with any manufacturer bulk building stuff, especially if they're getting stuff from China as most do now. It's impossible.

By the way mate, post of the year for me.... Great stuff.