Pettyjohn Electronics

The range covers overdrive, distortion, fuzz, EQ and preamp territory, organized into three main families: the Cubed series, the CORE series and the Foundry series³⁴⁵.

The story: from two-in-one pedals to a stripped-down range

The first Pettyjohn Electronics pedal was the PreDrive, released about ten years before the current PreDrive3. The maker describes it as the first guitar pedal with a discrete opamp based buffer and boost circuit, and its design drew heavily on the technology Stephen Pettyjohn used as a recording engineer⁷. The current PreDrive3 brings those tools into a compact pedal format, with low noise from premium analog parts⁷.

The original CORE series carried the company's two-in-one approach. The ODI, a legacy product now, was Stephen Pettyjohn's recreation of the 1978 Boss OD-1 with added features, and its dual rail power affected headroom, tone and feel, achieving up to four times the headroom over standard 9V pedals⁹. The RAIL was the first pedal in the CORE series, a fuzz the maker later moved to legacy status¹⁰. The ROUS answered years of fan requests for a distortion¹¹.

The CoreX series then stripped things down and refined them. The maker says it kept the best things about the Core and Core Limited series and added upgrades, most notably the TILT EQ found in the CHIME and CRUSH pedals⁸. The CoreX ODI carries the OD-1 based circuit forward, and the CoreX EDGE is designed to explore what happens when a circuit is pushed to the edge of breakup⁸.

What Pettyjohn is known for: Cubed, CORE and Foundry pedals

Pettyjohn's current range falls into three families:

The Cubed series is the maker's flagship line. All Cubed pedals are handmade in the Pacific Northwest, USA⁶, and each features a different voicing and often a different inductor so they can stack without being redundant⁴. The Foundry series is described by the maker as its signature studio-grade boutique pedals, and while all Pettyjohn pedals use audiophile componentry, the maker says only Foundry offers its hold-nothing-back parts selection, with Burr-Brown op amps in the stock models' buffer stages¹.

The FILTER deserves its own mention. It is a three-band, semi-parametric EQ in the Foundry Series footprint, and the maker's own claim for it is direct⁵¹³¹⁴:

The FILTER was the sixth Foundry Series pedal, announced in November 2017, with first shipments already sent to dealers at that time. It also exists in a FILTER Deluxe version¹⁵. Stephen Pettyjohn designed the mid-bell EQ circuit before the Gold Overdrive¹⁶.

The people behind Pettyjohn

Pettyjohn Electronics is led by circuit designer Stephen Pettyjohn. His background as a recording engineer shaped the original PreDrive's buffer and boost design⁷, and he designed both the Filter's EQ circuit and the Gold Overdrive, which the maker describes as one of the most inspirational and versatile overdrive pedals on the market¹⁶. The ODI came from a personal place: as the maker tells it, he set out to recreate the tonal characteristics he loved about the original Boss OD-1⁹.

Support and buying

Pettyjohn pedals are sold through local Pettyjohn Electronics dealers, and the company encourages players to test drive one at a dealer¹⁶. For sales questions, the company's contact is nate@pettyjohnelectronics.com¹⁷.

The range (28)

News