That odd time I designed a pedal for Keeley...

[popvulture]

So, funny story.

Back in the fall I went to visit my parents in Alabama and was massively bored out of my skull, so I pretty much spent the entire weekend combing ILF and TGP.

A thread about the recently designed Keeley Memphis Sun came up, and I fired off a wise-ass comment to the effect of "cool pedal, but the design looks like the Waffle House menu, and not in a good way." I concluded with the idea that I'd happily design a version myself, and didn't expect anything of it.

Oddly enough, Robert Keeley chimed in very quickly thereafter (seems like he's a frequent poster on there) and said basically "Yeah, design one!"

So here we are several months later, and after a bunch of email ping pongs, my design is available on his site in a limited run. I based it off of the looks of the RCA 76D console used at Sun Studios. It was a super, super fun experience and I'm beyond stoked that he let me do it, especially coming from me basically clowning on the previous design via a snarky thread comment. He and his company are extremely nice peeps. Hey, maybe I'll get to do it again sometime.

[DADGBD]

This post is pure WIN.
Your assessment of the original design was spot-on!
Kudos to RK for calling you out and essentially giving you a chance to put your money where your mouth is - and kudos to you for actually pulling it off!
I hope this is just the beginning of a beautiful partnership

[OddKnowledge]

Lol! Nice story.

[popvulture]

Haha thanks man! Yeah it was a blast... I definitely learned a lot from the process and know how I'll make the design better next time (printing on powdercoat, etc). The fact is that I'm a Motion Graphics designer whose original love was doing print work, so I'm more than happy whenever I get to do anything physical.

There's another limited ed version as well, looks rad (Tycho-ish, in a good way!)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BB53OcoPMJA ... lectronics

[spacelordmother]

Cool story and graphic!

So..... Did you get a free one?

[popvulture]

Yep! Haven't gotten it yet, but soon

[echorec]

I saw the e-mail for this yesterday, and it's certainly my favorite of the proposed and production models. Congrats. I wish there were more brown pedals in the industry, and I also wish he'd let you do an ME-8 (sea green & blue, or blue & gold) like an old WEM.

[popvulture]

Ah, those are fucking rad! I especially love the blue and orange. Originally there were going to be two color versions, one of them mint-ish (posted below). Maybe if this one ends up selling well, they'll want to do that version too. It was my fave.

[jrmy]

NICE! I dig your designs - and they actually do make me want to pick that pedal up even more...

[Chankgeez]

Yeah, that pedal looks good.

I wish Keeley would've let me design how The Absolüte Würst sounds.

Then it really would've been the absolute worst instead of only the sorta worst that it actually is.

[popvulture]

Glad y'all dig!

And Chank, I would've loved to hear your true vision of the Absolute Wurst

As for doing these in the future, I'm happy to help any builder out with a design in exchange for a pedal kind of deal. It's a ton of fun for me, and art-for-pedal sounds like something I wouldn't get sick of...

[Chankgeez]

Your "graphic design in trade for a pedal" scheme seems like a good deal to me.

[Ev_O)))]

Ha shit I remember that happening over on TGP, that's rad. Good shit man!

[sylnau]

Yeah, that pedal looks good.

I wish Keeley would've let me design how The Absolüte Würst sounds.

Then it really would've been the absolute worst instead of only the sorta worst that it actually is.

You should ask Kelley for it.

[popvulture]

Your "graphic design in trade for a pedal" scheme seems like a good deal to me.

Haha, I mean that's where my money goes anyway--might as well try to take one ingredient out of the equation