Post-Brighton Update: Repairs, Prototypes & New Designs
Since the Brighton Guitar Show, I’ve been building pedals, repairing gear, and diving into some exciting new designs. Here’s what I’ve been up to.
🛠️ Pedals Built & Released
The Brighton show was a real highlight - five pedals went to new homes by the end of the day, and it was great to meet so many people face to face. Since then, I’ve been building more pedals to order and working on a couple of new additions to the Hamilton Effects range.
One of them is the Companion - a small utility pedal designed to sit before your fuzz and make it behave anywhere in your signal chain, even after buffers or wahs. It’s got a subtle, classic feel, and it’s my first build using a spray-painted enclosure design. Expect more in this style soon.
I’ve also been experimenting with an analog octave-up pedal, based on a classic circuit but tweaked for a tighter response and better tracking. It’s still unnamed, but one standalone unit is built and being tested - again with a spray-painted design for a more handmade, one-off vibe.
🧰 Pedal Repairs & Mods
Repair work has picked up as well. Recent jobs include:
Ashdown NM-2: Replaced a damaged 9V power socket
EHX Bass Blogger: Full refresh with a new pot, footswitch, and ribbon cable
I’ve got a vintage Ibanez overdrive on the bench for inspection next, and a Submarine SubSix just landed, which I’ll be experimenting with soon - more on that in a future post.
⚙️ Prototypes & Development
I’m continuing to work on some bigger designs behind the scenes. The main one is a dual mono delay/reverb pedal built around the Daisy Seed. It includes:
A Character control for shaping tone, filtering & modulation
Analog dry-through for clarity
Stereo output and real-time modulation of the delay line for organic, tape-like movement
I’m also nearly finished prototyping the Twin Boost Parallel - a more compact version of the Twin Boost with a single footswitch and both circuits active at once.
It features:
A blend control between the gritty low-bias side and the cleaner boost
A boost attenuation switch to turn it into a crunchy low-gain drive rather than such a loud boost
A tone cut toggle to tame harsh highs on bright guitars or amps
It’s aimed at players who want the feel and harmonic grit of the Twin Boost but with a simpler, smaller, pedalboard friendly layout.
🎯 What’s Next?
I’ll be continuing to refine these new designs and take on more repairs over the next few weeks. If you’ve got something that’s misbehaving or an idea for a custom pedal feel free to get in touch.
Thanks for following along,
James // Hamilton Effects