Meet Cave Pedals

Cave Pedals deliver vintage vibe with modern build processes

Remember when you could just pick up a guitar and play it, before the tech got so complex that hours of knob twiddling were needed before you hit the first chord

We’re bringing back the great, simple stuff just like our guitar heroes used back in the day so you can spend less time tweaking and more time playing

Drawing on my background in electronic engineering and many, many years playing and experimenting, I wanted to build a brand that delivers both traditional and avant garde pedals

All designed and handmade in Sussex UK

Angus

Details matter

So, it’s the early 1990s and I’ve just obtained a Degree in Electronic Engineering. The Cold War is over and the internet hasn’t yet given birth to the modern electronification of everything. There’s no jobs in electronics in England now.

So I put my soldering iron in the cupboard and went into an career in high vacuum engineering.

But I had the bug for designing and creating electronic circuits. So I combined that with my obsession with all things guitar and started tinkering, developing valve amps, guitar controls, …and pedals

For a few decades I just filled up my house with the results of said tinkering. Then in 2024 various business and personal circumstances conspired to make me realise it was now or never. If I wanted to leave even the faintest smudge on the guitar world then pedals was my niche.

Philosophy

I firmly believe that the reason we still hold the players from the 60s and 70s in such high regard is that they didn’t have much gear and they had to develop their playing to stand out.

Their subtlety and passion comes through from their fingers to our ears without the dilution of layers of effects and processing.

Circuits

My own experience of digital multi-effects and amp sims told me that old school analogue was where I wanted to be. There is a place for everything, but for the guitarist who wants to pickup and play, without spending hours developing and tweaking tones, analogue keeps things simple and quick.

But I also enjoy the avante gard, so analogue does not just mean fuzz and overdrive, there are many other areas of analogue I want to explore.

Aesthetics

In keeping with my love of simplicity and 60s, 70s vibes, I wanted Cave pedals to have a look that was undeniably old school. I was also cost conscious and didn’t want to be charging for fancy enclosures and graphics when the circuit was what mattered.

Left to my own devices I would just write on the pedals with a Sharpie, but those around me encouraged a middle ground!

Processes

There are a number of excellent boutique pedal makers who employ point to point wiring, and tag, vero or perf board construction.

I wanted to spend my time on design, not manufacture, so I have adopted factory made SMD boards for speed and consistency.

I design the circuits and then develop the PCB layouts myself, right up to the point of manufacture. The boards are made using the latest SMD techiniques, I then hand select any critical components and populate them into the PCBs myself, tune the circuits and put them into hand drilled enclosures.

The first FETface - where it all started

Built in a light switch back box, FETface is my clean boost. A tweaked version of this circuit currently resides in the Micro-Boost