Today might be a good day to press pause on your hunt for a vintage Lovetone pedal. ThorpyFX’s long-awaited and much-anticipated resurrection of the cult UK boutique pedal brand is nearly complete.
This has been a long time in the works. But the new pedals being cooked up by Lovetone founder Dan Coggins and Adrian Thorpe’s team are not going to be a slavish 1:1 replicas of the originals.
Replying to one comment on Instagram, ThorpyFX revealed that we can expect some modern updates from Lovetone 2.0, starting with the enclosures. Will they have the hinged enclosures of the originals?
“They will not,” confirms ThorpyFX. “But there is no need for that to be the case. Whilst we are looking to the past for inspiration and meeting sonic benchmarks and aesthetics, we have made sure these pedals are an evolution rather than a forensic clone…. in other words we are offering more capability and removing weaknesses.”
Lovetone was founded by Coggins in April 1995 and did not take long in transforming the guitar effects market, spearheading the rise of the ‘boutique pedal’ and amassing a cult following. The Edge from U2 and all three guitarists from Radiohead made use of Lovetone designs. And it wasn’t just guitar players who loved them.
Speaking to MusicRadar in 2019, Coggins said there were a number of producers who would put drums and keyboards through his designs.
“Norman Cook/Fatboy Slim bought two Meatballs and there’s a photo of him holding one up to each ear and a caption saying that they were his ‘secret weapons,’” said Coggins. “Our pedals were used on pedalboards, but producers liked them because they had this console thing where you could stick them next to the desk and use them for mixing.”
And Radiohead even found use for them on vocals.
“I was chatting to Ed O’Brien at a Johnny Marr gig and he was thanking me for the Lovetone stuff,” said Coggins. “I was telling him I loved what Radiohead did with the Meatball and Doppelganger on OK Computer. He said the Ring Stinger was used for vocals on Kid A, which made me laugh – it’s such a bizarre track, so it’s fitting they used the most bizarre pedal we ever made.”
The demand for Lovetone pedals is such that you might have to fork out with more than two grand for a vintage unit. Right now, there’s a Cheese Source fuzz/drive twofer on Reverb for £2,490. Players can get enough of them. ThorpyFX says the first two pedals are imminent, and each will be hand-built in the UK.
“We’ve been building them,” it says, replying to players’ queries on Instagram. “It’s taken ages TBH, but… first two are incoming soon. You know how we roll, there is nothing ‘just reissue’ about these. Smaller, more convenient, more features.”
Judging by the teaser pics on the Lovetone Instagram page, it certainly looks like the Meatball will be one of the first two pedals. The envelope/filter pedal loved by the likes of My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields and Johnny Marr is pictured in extreme close-up, alongside a brown metallic enclosure.
Could the second pedal in the release be the Brown Source overdrive/distortion pedal? It looks that way, though there is also an orange/red enclosure too.
One thing is for sure: We won’t have long to wait. Lovetone should officially be back this month. “We are on the final furlong to seeing Lovetone 2.0 ready for human consumption,” says Lovetone.
You can sign up for updates on the launch at Lovetone. We’ll bring you more news upon their launch. In the meantime, you can read all about the history of the Lovetone brand here.
