The Apatura story
I am a recreational guitarist. In live gigs I often encountered a common problem: when switching my pedals on and off I also hit the knobs, thus changing the pedal settings with unwanted tonal consequences. There are some known workarounds. You can use a rubber band, tape or raisers. All of them can be helpful to some extent, but none of them were both functional and good-looking. I want my gear to be both.
So I decided to find a better solution for my own pedal board. The basic idea was to make a cover that would protect the knobs but still leave them visible for easy tone adjusting. I introduced the idea to my son who works with materials and design. He suggested using 3D printing and promised to do the model drawing if I gave him the measurements. So we did and the first prototype proved that the idea works. At that time my other son, an industrial designer, joined the team and we decided to make a pro level product. We made several prototypes with my own pedal board serving as our test bed. We tested different material thicknesses and measurements and finally we were satisfied with the result. I made covers for the pedals in my own pedal board and the original goal was achieved.
Because covers made my pedal board work much better, it seemed a good idea to find out if anyone else would be interested. I talked with Kimmo Aroluoma, a pro who knows a lot about guitar gear. He considered the idea to be good and also took a cover for HIM guitarist “Linde” Lindström, who tested it during HIM’s South American tour. Feedback after the tour was encouraging.
So I decided to find a better solution for my own pedal board. The basic idea was to make a cover that would protect the knobs but still leave them visible for easy tone adjusting. I introduced the idea to my son who works with materials and design. He suggested using 3D printing and promised to do the model drawing if I gave him the measurements. So we did and the first prototype proved that the idea works. At that time my other son, an industrial designer, joined the team and we decided to make a pro level product. We made several prototypes with my own pedal board serving as our test bed. We tested different material thicknesses and measurements and finally we were satisfied with the result. I made covers for the pedals in my own pedal board and the original goal was achieved.
Because covers made my pedal board work much better, it seemed a good idea to find out if anyone else would be interested. I talked with Kimmo Aroluoma, a pro who knows a lot about guitar gear. He considered the idea to be good and also took a cover for HIM guitarist “Linde” Lindström, who tested it during HIM’s South American tour. Feedback after the tour was encouraging.
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The next step was meeting blues guitarist Erja Lyytinen. We installed covers for her TC Electronic Flashback and two Mad Professor overdrive pedals and she tested them during her European tour. After the tour we met again and Erja was convinced. She ordered a new set, all black, for two TC Electronic pedals, two Mad Professor pedals and Xotic SL drive. This is what she said after using the covers for a while: “If you don’t have to pay attention to something, it usually means that all is good. After having Apatura pedal covers in my pedal board I noticed that I didn’t have to think about turning knobs in the covered pedals."
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If Apatura covers can make things easier for a pro level guitarist like Erja, they are certainly worth checking for anyone who has problems with unintentionally moving pedal knobs.
Lauri