Episode 2 - Origin Effects
When I was a teenager and massively into recording I bought an old Urei blackface 1176 compressor from a guy on the Isle of Man. My knowledge of vintage gear at the time was pretty minimal to say the least and I had very little understanding of how sought after the compressor was (I don’t think the guy I bought it from did either!), all I knew was it sounded fantastic on pretty much everything, especially guitar. Fast forward a few years to being a skint student living off beer and endless bags of rice and I very foolishly decided to sell the compressor, not bothering to do any research first and letting it go for a fraction of what it was actually worth. It wasn’t until quite a long time after this I realised how great the 1176 was, how much of a mistake it had been selling it and that it was very unlikely I’d be able to find another one (that I could afford anyway!). It therefore peaked my interest when flicking through one of the guitar magazines to see a new compressor pedal by a company called Origin Effects, inspired by the 1176 and housed in a slick looking enclosure with Universal Audio style knobs it looked great. When it came round to launching the Six String Tales series I was looking around for companies that still manufacture in the UK and Origin Effects came to mind, they’d just released the Revival Drive and seemed to be going from strength to strength. They were also conveniently based just down the road from ThorpyFX (this part of England seems to be a hot spot for guitar brands for some reason!) and so the day after I’d been to film episode 1 with Thorpy I headed down the road to Origin Effects new HQ in Buckingham.
Having just filmed the first episode I felt like I’d found my feet a bit with the filming style and it was great to jump straight into filming the pedals being built, which proved to be another perfect demonstration of hand built craftsmanship. The original goal was for all the films to have a cinematic feel and so it was a lot of fun getting creative with the lighting and filming angles, I mean who doesn’t love solder fumes in slow motion!
The highlight of the day though was filming Simon Keats, founder of Origin Effects, playing through some of the impressive collection of vintage amps they used when designing the Revival Drive. It definitely felt like being a kid in a sweet shop with the plethora of black and brownface Fenders, Marshalls and other iconic vintage amps stacked up everywhere but the icing on the cake was Simon’s stunning vintage ES-345 which he definitely knew how to play!
Many thanks to everyone at Origin Effects for having me along, especially Simon Keats and Jack Dunwoody. Episode 2 is available now over on the Six String Tales YouTube channel
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