You happy bro?

Nah, I definitely has a sad. I was diehard Maxon for several years, in large part because of Kevin. It was actually hard for me to even consider other stuff. lol Still have the CP9pro+ on the pedalboard.
 
Don't really know what this is about, but get a grip dude....

Can someone explain the deal here???
 
In this guys defense, the pedal market is a total red ocean, it's probably the worst business market imaginable when you consider there is no IP and you cant patent a circuit or innovate without handing your Amazon or Behringer competitor it's new product design made by children and the high end competitor making something better from your idea -and clearly this guy is trying to take the high road with Maxon and he cared deeply about what he's tried to do with his company. So it sucks for him

but I mean, Maxon is basically non-existent in the retail guitar pedal market right? -even with it's powerful legacy and story it doesnt have legs right now. Clearly Maxon wanted a distributor with better reach in North America, or a different marketing strategy -although any company is going to find this a near impossible task without a ton of $$$$$ to seed it.

Also, this guys 2 companies he's founded are "GodLyke Distro" and "Totally Wyked Audio" maybe this is a little bit telling on his pulse on marketing -and Maxon are in basically no stores nor featured anywhere I've ever been (even the shops with thousands of pedals may have a few here and there -but likely vintage) except maybe tradeshows -so can't really blame Maxon Japan for perhaps coming to this realization. They probably have big dreams too.
 
Says much about this guy that even after Maxon jerks the rug out he still tells us at the end of the video to still buy Maxon because they make a great product.
In this day he might actually catch fire with the TWA brand if just one of their units would get trendy. Kind of like the Pepers Dirty Tree has of late.

Honestly I wasn't really meaning to make fun of their current struggles, it was something I had heard about awhile back but still had never found a solid explanation of what was going on.
I must have searched something about Maxon or Godlyke and then this video popped-up on the feed. Just thought I'd share the reason Maxon has been so out-of-stock lately.

Anyone have a Maxon collection? I'm up to od808, od9pro+, cp9pro+, and pt9pro+.
 
Sadly, the legs Maxon did have (aside from the initial reputation and heritage of Maxon) was from this guy. He was always pushing limited editions, special runs and circuit tweaks to compete with other products out there of its kind. It is possible Maxon didn't like that? I would find that to be foolish but history sometimes likes to remain as it were in the beginning. When you get into their price point of some of these products (Apex, I am thinking of you) at $400 bucks for a boost / OD pedal that is a bit much IMO. Of course there is more to all of this than we will ever know on both sides but it is what it is.

Regarding Maxon being or not being in stores, I have always seen them and they do have presence with MF/GC and a lot of online shops. Sadly, without a major facelift I don't see young pedal buyers gravitating towards their pedal enclosures like they may other brands and lets face it, Maxon hasn't really been marketed like these other, newer pedal companies have. Take away the 808 and they lose a majority of their followers in my circles anyway.

The Pepers Dirty Tree was mentioned. That is a whole lot of pedal for not a lot of price and offers a couple of things most people can't find separately for its price. Great pedal (IMO).
 
Bogner said:
Sadly, the legs Maxon did have (aside from the initial reputation and heritage of Maxon) was from this guy. He was always pushing limited editions, special runs and circuit tweaks to compete with other products out there of its kind. It is possible Maxon didn't like that? I would find that to be foolish but history sometimes likes to remain as it were in the beginning. When you get into their price point of some of these products (Apex, I am thinking of you) at $400 bucks for a boost / OD pedal that is a bit much IMO. Of course there is more to all of this than we will ever know on both sides but it is what it is.

Regarding Maxon being or not being in stores, I have always seen them and they do have presence with MF/GC and a lot of online shops. Sadly, without a major facelift I don't see young pedal buyers gravitating towards their pedal enclosures like they may other brands and lets face it, Maxon hasn't really been marketed like these other, newer pedal companies have. Take away the 808 and they lose a majority of their followers in my circles anyway.

The Pepers Dirty Tree was mentioned. That is a whole lot of pedal for not a lot of price and offers a couple of things most people can't find separately for its price. Great pedal (IMO).
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I think one of the challenges Maxon had was they weren't getting on the boards of the pro players and big pedal evangelists who do create that essential buzz -It's a hard task to really get on those key boards -any pro player with visibility only has so much space on the board, more often they accept a pedal, it goes in the homes or studio and the player gives a quick social media post, is never promoted with any sort of zeal because they player has thousands of free pedals to sort through and love on. Pedal companies hemorrhage cash giving away pedals each year in hopes of catching firing on a hot players board. Maybe this guys wasn't willing to play that game or didn't get enough traction to start a fire - or knew that the pedals were quality or value enough to get traction without this -but he needed more time for this approach than Maxon gave him.

My guess anyway.
 
NegativeEase said:
In this guys defense, the pedal market is a total red ocean, it's probably the worst business market imaginable when you consider there is no IP and you cant patent a circuit or innovate without handing your Amazon or Behringer competitor it's new product design made by children and the high end competitor making something better from your idea
Click to expand...

Really puts the twin lies of copyright and intellectual property in sharp focus though.

We were sold these things as being necessary for creativity and innovation to exist . . . but in the completely un-copyrighted/no IP world of guitar effects pedals do we seem starved for options?
 
GuitarStv said:
Really puts the twin lies of copyright and intellectual property in sharp focus though.

We were sold these things as being necessary for creativity and innovation to exist . . . but in the completely un-copyrighted/no IP world of guitar effects pedals do we seem starved for options?
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Agreed, I think that an initial duration where there is a protection to fulfill an investment in development to stimulate innovation was a good idea for the reality we live in.

However, the presupposes that extreme wealth (excesses to need) should be the absolute human goal of work and innovation, which I fundamentally think is a problem with the world. I get it's an effective mechanism for innovation, but not the only mechanism and at the cost of the larger picture of species living in balance on earth.
 
Well, for a long time Maxon made Ibanez pedals and the Ibanez TS-808 caught on like wildfire while the Maxon branded 808 was just, there, really. Same pedal, different name, but buyers went for the Ibanez more often than not. So, in a way, Maxon not catching on was of their own doing being a contracted manufacturer for Ibanez.

This sucks from a business end for Kevin and his company. I'm sure they've regrouped and have others add in the pipeline to replace Maxon. It's what ya gotta do. He certainly had some personal investment in it as well with the Custom Shop so I get his reaction. Carpet pulled out from underneath without a foreword or anything for 5 months.
 
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ErikH said:
Well, for a long time Maxon made Ibanez pedals and the Ibanez TS-808 caught on like wildfire while the Maxon branded 808 was just, there, really. Same pedal, different name, but buyers went for the Ibanez more often than not. So, in a way, Maxon not catching on was of their own doing being a contracted manufacturer for Ibanez.

This sucks from a business end for Kevin and his company. I'm sure they've regrouped and have others add in the pipeline to replace Maxon. It's what ya gotta do. He certainly had some personal investment in it as well with the Custom Shop so I get his reaction. Carpet pulled out from underneath without a foreword or anything for 5 months.
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Bad news is the pedal market is a terrible business market overall, but the great news is this guy doesn't need Maxon to make great custom pedals or equal or superior value or launch an oversees contract pedal company to get down in price point to bang heads with the lower end -So I think he has great options to start over/retools and pursue being successful in the pedal space (as hard as it is for most)
 
NegativeEase said:
Bad news is the pedal market is a terrible business market overall, but the great news is this guy doesn't need Maxon to make great custom pedals or equal or superior value or launch an oversees contract pedal company to get down in price point to bang heads with the lower end -So I think he has great options to start over/retools and pursue being successful in the pedal space (as hard as it is for most)
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Oh, no doubt. The market is ridiculously saturated. When I started studying circuits and modding my own and then making a few boosters myself (early 2000's), I learned from day 1 from many, you will not get rich building pedals.
 
Tough sell because a lot of their stuff is near boutique pricing, and while I do believe it's super high quality, they're forever associated with the cheaper Ibanez stuff. The OD808 never appealed to me, though it's probably their top seller. I went for the OD9pro+ because of the extra options like 18v. I still kinda regret selling it. But I just got my hands on an 805...
 
moshuajusic said:
Tough sell because a lot of their stuff is near boutique pricing, and while I do believe it's super high quality, they're forever associated with the cheaper Ibanez stuff. The OD808 never appealed to me, though it's probably their top seller. I went for the OD9pro+ because of the extra options like 18v. I still kinda regret selling it. But I just got my hands on an 805...
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I use my OD9pro+ much more than the 808, although the 808 has a specific creamy smooth midrange quality that nothing else I have can really emulate (making it an amazing lead-booster IMO).

With the pro+ I've found that even going for the clean-boost sound it still needs a little gain from the pedal to be "right".
Even with the mid-boost engaged I use a bit of pedal gain to push the amp's dirt. With the mid-boost off I move the gain to 9:00 or above. (level max)
Another model that really seems to need some pedal gain even as a clean-boost is the old Boss SD-1.
 
Sadly, probably not long from now we will be saying remember that company called Maxon? At one time, back in the day, they made some pretty cool pedals.
 
Bogner said:
Sadly, probably not long from now we will be saying remember that company called Maxon? At one time, back in the day, they made some pretty cool pedals.
Click to expand...

Many great builders have sadly gone the way of the dinosaur. Systech is the first that comes to mind.
 
Homebrew Electronics made an awesome sounding BBD delay, mimic mock II. Relatively bright, and effortless crazy feedback.That's another thing: the Maxon AD9Pro was only 450ms and very difficult to push into that endless sustaining feedback. It did sound warm and very low noise, but expensive for what you get imo. Pretty happy with the Boss DM-2W.
 
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