Delicious Audio / Paolo DeGregorio
Malcolm X Abram
Are you an experienced or brand new pedal obsessive? Do you scour your Googlebox looking for the best Klon clones, or wonder about the newest batch of multi-mode delay pedals, fuzz and overdrive pedals or which Big Muff clone is the muffiest? With the explosion of boutique pedal makers (Hi there, EarthQuaker Devices at your service!) pedal shopping and researching can be a major time suck and between the many talented pedal makers, reviewers and YouTubers it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information spread around the web. For enthusiasts and musicians who prefer a one-stop stompbox search shop, Delicious Audio may be just what you’re looking for. The info-packed site aggregates videos and features in-house reviews of new products, classics and just about everything else stompbox-related. We sat down with Delicious Audio founder Paolo De Gregorio to talk all things pedals.
EQD: How’d you get from covering young NYC bands to being in the pedal peddling business?
PDG: I moved to NYC in 2002 from Europe when I was still playing in some bands and producing others. I stumbled upon a local fanzine and I thought it would be cool to reimagine it with an angle focused on local emerging bands. The Brooklyn scene was exploding at the time with acts such as The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol at their peak and other ones like Animal Collective, Santigold, St. Vincent, The National, TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear coming up; the latter were on the cover of our first issue in 2004 when hardly anybody knew them.
I soon realized that the core audience of the mag wasn’t music fans but the bands themselves (talk about a scene that celebrates itself!). All our advertisers were music gear companies, not labels (main reason why the Deli stuck around for a while, actually). So I wanted to have a section of the mag dedicated to music gear, and Delicious Audio was born, first as a section of the print issue, then as a separate blog. The focus initially was on pedals, mics and plug-ins, but we couldn’t handle that much content so after a while we decided to focus on the item that is more intrinsically linked to the sound of so many of the indie bands we were covering, i.e. guitar pedals.
The Stompbox Exhibit, launched in 2011, was a product of the same effort: we needed an event for musicians, different from the regular live shows (of which we organized plenty, but that brought out music fans). Same thing with the Synth Expo, launched in 2014. In 2018, I decided to merge the two shows into one, with the Synth & Pedal Expo, which in retrospect was a very good move. In 2019 we had events of this kind in three US cities, two Canadian ones, two NAMM shows and we were getting ready for a 2020 event launch in London.
EQD: How long has Delicious Audio been online?
PDG: Around 10 years now, but in 2017 it became what it is now, an aggregator of YouTube videos about pedals, and a resource with thorough pedal shopping guides organized by very specific niches; for example, not just “reverb pedals,” but stereo reverb pedals or spring-style ones or multi-mode ones.
EQD: What, if anything, would you say is the biggest change in the pedal business since you started back in 2011?
PDG: It’s hard to say because at the time I wasn’t following it as thoroughly as I am now, but it seems like there are a ton more folks making and selling pedals out of their houses. Also, the ongoing trend seems to be one of a repudiation of single-function non-gain effects, where the most interesting designs blend several effects in original ways to create truly unique devices. The insanely hyped (and deservingly so) Hologram Microcosm or the Empress Zoia are perfect examples of that. EQD was among the first builders to go that route, obviously. And then, some things are still the same, as the seemingly never ending demand for dirt boxes that sound ever so slightly different from each other.
EQD: About how many categories / subcategories do you have and how do you decide how and which categories to break down even further (i.e., best pedals for reggae, etc.)?
PDG: I’m not sure, maybe 50 or so? We don’t really have music genre categories - that one about reggae is just an article. The moment you start thinking about what pedal shoppers want, organizing by detailed category becomes essential. Because while some folks search for the “best fuzz pedal” on Google, more experienced stompbox lovers may look for a “Fuzz Face-style pedal”. A three-knob BBD delay is a very different machine from a multi-mode delay with 10 knobs and an LCD screen.
EQD: What was your first pedal and did you immediately realize ‘this is my new obsession’?
PDG: As boring as it sounds, it was the good old BOSS DS-1. And as weird as that sounds, I’m not obsessed with pedals, but I do love them. My background is in electronic rock production though (synthpop to industrial), so I’m mostly interested in creative pedals, while dirt boxes are not very interesting to me. I’m not really a guitarist either - I dabble - but I love pedals and effects that create original textures and facilitate happy accidents.
EQD: What is the first thing you usually do when you first plug in a new pedal to test?
PDG: I play a single note. I like pedals that do crazy things to simple parts. The simplicity of a single note allows me to understand what’s happening inside the box.
EQD: Why do you think effects pedals have become so popular, collectible and tradeable? It’s not just working musicians anymore. There are plenty of bedroom-jammer gear nerds who amass sizable collections of pedals. How many different overdrives can one person possibly need?
PDG: The stompbox format, its look, function and price point make it automatically a collector’s item. Can you think of any other musical instrument that - in most cases - comes with graphic art? Can you think of a $50-250 device that can inspire you to write new songs?
I ask myself that question about overdrives every time I find myself having to write about one (or any other basic dirt box) on Delicious Audio, haha. I guess people have different brains and different ears and different ways to enjoy making music.
There is something to be said about simple gear. I think it’s a lot easier for a guitar player to focus on instrumental technique if your gear has a few knobs. Those like me who love to experiment and like pedals that open a whole spectrum of sonic possibilities normally are not very good guitarists (I’m not) - it’s the Brian Eno approach to technology. But I understand how a technically-proficient guitar player needs more subtle effects that enhance his or her tone in different ways within various musical contexts, hence the collection of overdrives that sound slightly different from each other. Although tone is so subjective and relative that I believe it often happens that change is mistaken for improvement. Most new people get excited by new things, after all.
EQD: What are your top three most interesting current pedals right now?
PDG: Being a more (knobs) is more kind of guy, I really like the Empress Zoia, the Hologram Electronics and the KMA Audio Machine Cirrus. The Chase Bliss stuff is stratospheric as well, and something very cool I saw recently was the Bananana Tararira, a very playful step sequencer/pitchshifter with an amazing look. I like playful stuff.
EQD: Top three pedals all time?
PDG: It’s impossible to answer.
EQD: Does the job allow you to spot trends in the stompbox world (i.e., the proliferation of shimmer and FV1 reverbs)? Any different or exciting trends you see happening in the pedal world?
PDG: Absolutely! The “synthification” of pedals is a major trend that’s been happening for at least a decade now, but it’s reached new heights in the last year or two. Some of today’s pedals are de-facto synths without keys; you see sequencers, filters, oscillators, LFO circuits inside these boxes, not to mention Control Voltage compatibility - it’s the same technology.
While the mini-pedal mania has faded a little, another recent trend can be summarized with the words “Stereo and depth of controls in a compact case.” For spatial effects like reverb and delay, there is no coming back from Stereo, and the miniaturization of components allow builders to cram more and more controls in a classic compact case. I almost feel like there’s a rush in doing what Strymon does but in a smaller format.
On the experimental side of things, granular synthesis has been one of the most exciting new niches to pop up in recent years, thanks to our local Montreal Assembly guy, Detroit’s Red Panda and also Chase Bliss Audio, among others. The latter also introduced the unorthodox but mind-blowing idea of moving faders. Nobody has copied that yet, but I did see a fuzz with faders pop up in the last couple of weeks!
Oh, I almost forgot the trend of pedal circuit designers becoming YouTube personalities - that’s an interesting one!
Malcolm X Abram is a recovering reporter and music writer and a proud 40 year guitar noodler. He lives, works and plays in the bucolic dreamland of Akron, Ohio in an old house with two dogs who don’t really like each other and way too many spiders.
