THE SCHMIDT CROWD
If you’re into effects pedals, you might have noticed pedalboards made by Schmidt Array cropping up more and more on stages in recent years. Used by an eclectic range of pro players, from Tele-twanger extraordinaire Josh Smith to J Willgoose Esq of Public Service Broadcasting, their curving, retro-looking cases attract the eye and mark them out from the common run of cattle-grid-like pedalboards.
Intrigued, we decided to drop the company a line, knowing very little about it beyond the fact that it’s based in Germany. So when we called, we were surprised to hear a British voice. The founder of Schmidt Array is Martyn Smith, who married a German woman and emigrated from Rushden, Northants to Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia many years ago. It doesn’t take a linguist to realise ‘Schmidt’ is simply the German equivalent of ‘Smith’ – and the story gets more interesting from there.
A professional engineer, Martyn got into making pedalboards 10 years ago after buying a few pedals for use in his band and needing something to mount them on. Ever the tinkerer, he was baffled that most commercially available pedalboards mounted two rows of effects on a flat chassis, making it unergonomic to operate the back row of effects.
“I was convinced that the ’board had to be two levels and you had to be able to open one of them to put
