I’ve worked with Joe Gore at Guitar Player, spent some time in the studio with him, watched him play gigs here and there, and consider him a friend, but the dude still surprises me. Just when
I’ve worked with Joe Gore at Guitar Player, spent some time in the studio with him, watched him play gigs here and there, and consider him a friend, but the dude still surprises me. Just when I thought I had him appropriately categorized in one of my mental file folders as a master guitarist, a fantastic writer, an ever-curious tone fiend, and an overall cool guy, he goes and transforms himself into a boutique pedal tinkerer, and then builds a bona fide company around his designs. I guess I need another folder.
While Gore Pedals still have the rough-hewn, mad-scientist look of something fashioned from his grandpa’s workbench, both Gore’s early DIY builds and the current factory-produced models have received fave reviews from GP and other publications, and they are used by top players such as Richard Fortus, David Torn, and Mike Keneally. Here’s a peek into his pedal process…
What triggered your interest in building stompboxes?
I went into it completely ass-backwards. I’d designed thousands of digital sounds for Apple, other clients, and my own use, often mimicking and mutating analog tones. Only later did I pick up a soldering iron.
I don’t believe you have an engineering degree, so how did achieve the circuit knowledge to start making this stuff?
I consulted old schematics, and I relied on the collective knowledge of the DIY stompbox community—especially freestompboxes.org. After 100 or so clone builds, you’ve inevitably concocted your own mutants and hybrids. I don’t sell clones, but I couldn’t have created anything fresh without having studied them.
When you started out, were you looking to fill a specific niche?
Yes. It was a very specific niche—sh*t I wanted the ones that no one made. After using pedals since