Greece is, perhaps, not the very first country that comes to mind when you think of premier-grade effects. But some of the best pedals in the world right now are coming out of the Mediterranean country, not least from the workshops of Athens-based pedal maker Crazy Tube Circuits, whose whole design philosophy grew out of a love for vintage and classic valve amps.
But despite this emphasis on tradition, CTC pedals stand out for their imaginative pairings of sought-after vintage sounds and clever methods to enhance the feature set of their multi-functional pedals.
We catch up with the man behind the madness, Christos Ntaifotis, to get his take on making effects that are at once classic yet just a little different.
How did you get started in making effects - and how does the 'tube circuits' bit come in, as many of your pedals don't feature valves?
"Okay, so, first of all I had a passion for New Old Stock tubes. I mean, I would try to source 12AX7s everywhere that I could in the local Greek market from the 60s, 70s, early 80s. I would try to find all the hardware stores or the service stores that would do all the radio repairs and ask them, 'Do you have any tubes left?' And I had some friends make fun of this - they would call me the 'Crazy Tube Guy', although in Greek. And besides that, I also collect tube amps.
"So although most of the pedals don't actually contain tubes, except for onethe Space Charged Overdrive - the whole idea is to make pedals that sound close to the real thing, to real tube amps, with the warmth that you would expect."
What was the first pedal you put out as Crazy Tube Circuits?
"The first was the Black Magic, which was actually called Dr Boogie originally.
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