Wattson Classic Electronics

What We Do

The Classic division of Wattson Electronics focuses only on modern reproductions of classic effects pedals. You've probably seen some vintage classic pedals for sale online. The prices they command reflect their rarity, as well as how much they are cherished by guitar players. Not every player is fortunate enough to be able to find one of these vintage classics, and even fewer can afford the astronomical prices. Our goal is to make the tone of these vintage pedals available to guitar players at prices they can afford.
Other pedal makers have also produced reproductions of many of the same pedals we offer. Some have done an excellent job of engineering, and have captured the tone of the original pedals accurately. Others have not done quite as well, and you can hear the difference. We believe there's more to making a great reproduction of a classic pedal than being able to reproduce it's tone. We believe that it's equally important to capture the style - the aesthetic beauty - of the vintage originals. This is where most pedal makers have come up short. No matter how great a pedal sounds, somehow it's just not the same when you look down at your pedal board and see an aluminum brick.
At Wattson Classic Electronics, our goal is to produce reproductions that capture both the tone and visual beauty of the original classic. But, we don't stop there. We also add features which the classic originals may have lacked, as long as those features don't change the tone, such as a "True Bypass" switch, or a DC power adapter jack.
In the end, you get a pedal that has all the visual and aural beauty of the original, combined with just enough modern engineering to ensure that your pedal will look and sound great for years to come.

Our Philosophy

Tone Is Everything!

Reproducing the exact same tone as the original is the highest priority. If we can't do that, then we won't build the pedal. It's that simple.

Reproductions - NOT Clones

We build modern reproductions of classic effects pedals - not exact duplicates of them. We love these vintage classics because of the wonderful tone they add to our music, but that doesn't mean they were perfect. These vintage pedals were designed for mass marketing, so the manufacturers were very cost conscious. They often used the least expensive components they could find, or left out useful features, in order to keep costs down.
We won't do that.
Our goal is to produce pedals that provide the same classic tone and visual appeal as the original, using the best quality modern components and features.

No NOS Is Good NOS

Ever heard the term "planned obsolescence"? This refers to a product which was designed with the full knowledge and intention that it will become obsolete at some point in time and need to be replaced. We view the use of NOS parts to be a form of planned obsolescence.
For the uninitiated, NOS means "new old stock". Though this term seems like an oxymoron, it actually refers to parts which are "new", in the sense that they haven't been used yet, and "old", in the sense that they were originally manufactured many years ago, and have been hiding in a box or on a warehouse shelf ever since.
There are justifiable reasons for using NOS parts. If a part is no longer being manufactured, or the modern version of the part is significantly inferior, then a NOS part may be your only option for repairing a piece of vintage gear, or producing a limited number of replicas.
While NOS parts may be fine for repairs or small production runs, we don't believe any new product design should depend on them. The fact that these parts are no longer being manufactured means that the supply is limited, and the number is constantly shrinking. Once they are gone, then it won't be possible to build the product anymore, and it won't be possible to repair the products which have already been built. Most of the time, we find we can get the exact same tone with modern parts by making small adjustments to the circuit. It might seem sacreligious to re-engineer a classic design, but it's a lot less scary when you realize that this was the same process the original engineers used when they designed the original gear. Not only does this ensure we'll be able to keep building our gear for years to come, it helps to preserve the NOS parts for people who really need them to keep the real vintage gear working.
If we can't get the exact same tone using modern parts, then we won't build it!

Customer Satisfaction

We realize that our reputation is the key to our success, and we stake our reputation on every pedal we sell. Every customer has the potential to contrubute to our success or failure because every customer's opinion affects our reputation. A happy customer will tell his friends about our products, and then they'll become customers, too. An unhappy customer will tell his friends, and we'll lose them as potential customers.
Getting customers begins with making great products. Keeping customers depends on having great customer service. From the time a customer places his first order, and for as long as he owns any of our products, we want to be there for him if he has any problems. That's why we guarantee our products will perform flawlessly for a full year from the date of purchase. If anything goes wrong during that time, then we'll repair or replace it free of charge. We'll even pay for the shipping. If something goes wrong after the first year, we'll repair or replace the product for a reasonable fee which will NEVER exceed 50% of the cost of the new product, no matter how much it costs us to repair it.