MIKE PIERA ANALOG MAN FOUNDER AND PROPRIETOR
Look back to those heady days when guitarists were rediscovering the glories of vintage standalone analogue effects pedals – but well before the ongoing boutique boom was underway – and there’s one man who bridged the divide: Mike Piera. His company Analog Man granted countless artists access to the succulent sonic glories of golden-age stompboxes and the tone fiend is still going strong.
Piera’s Analog Man has developed a top-flight reputation in the industry not simply because he was among the first prominent makers to improve and reintroduce several classic designs, but because he did it right.
To this day, Analog Man pedals define that tricky convergence of small-shop attention and appeal and professional production standards that has come to represent the pinnacle of the work of so much of the boutique-effects industry. And for all that, the company still maintains its slightly gritty, homegrown, built-in-the-back-room appeal.
At this stage, so many prominent artists have used Analog Man pedals that Piera finds it easier to note that just about every one of his guitar heroes has used his pedals than he does to start rattling off names. Still, Jim Weider, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett, Ed O’Brien, Brad Whitford, Noel Gallagher, Steve Rothery – and so many others – are definitely names worth mentioning. It’s an enviable position for a pedal nut to be in,
