Flattley Pedals is a British pedal maker that creates a range of boutique, high-end effects for musicians. I first bumped into them at the Manson FX-Fest back in 2018. This month, I had the opportunity to speak with Paul Flattley, the owner of the company, and ask him some questions about his work.
What got you into building effect pedals?
In 2016, we started manufacturing handmade pedals in the UK. We are a family-run business and pride ourselves on manufacturing all of our products in the UK. These include our PCBs and our graphics, which are designed by my daughter, Phoebe Flattley.
I started as an Avionics Technician in the British Royal Navy, working on helicopters, and remained in Civil Aviation for over 3 decades. With a family background of working musicians, I learnt to play the piano and guitar at a young age and have a big musical interest. I was always the one who got asked to fix music equipment for everyone, being especially good with the soldering iron.
I was constantly looking inside FX pedals, modifying them to change the sounds/ranges of them, until one day my wife told me that I should build my own.
The rest, as they say, is History 😊
Who/What are your biggest influences with pedal building?
I cut my teeth on the overdrive and distortion circuits, which was how it all started. Getting various types of clipping to vary the tones and sounds; however, I was also intrigued by the old 80s types of chorus and flangers, so this also had a big influence on my knowledge of circuits and how some of the modulation circuits we design work.
What is your favorite part of the process of pedal building?
I like all of the stages of pedal building to be honest, from the design concepts of the circuits, breadboarding, schematics, to initial PCB manufacture, and the circuit working as advertised.
However, I do like the visual concepts of how the product will look and working with my daughter for the initial graphics/colour schemes and finishes.
How would you describe your style of pedal building?
Well, we only build analogue effects, but I like this as the sound is always organic and takes on another persona when played at volume for live gigs. We also try to manufacture the products that have as little unwanted noise as possible, making them fantastic for recording work.
Our products also work well with digital products such as multi-effects, so this allows people as much versatility as possible and combines amazing sounds together from both sides of the digital/analogue worlds.
UK Manufacturing
We also have as much as possible sourced from the UK for example enclosure painting in Peterborough, product packing boxes in Lincolnshire, product identification plaques in Gloucestershire, blank pcb’s manufactured in Gloucestershire, I do all the laser etching of the knobs and foot toppers, I populate the blank PCBs and assemble all the components to complete the final product.
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made whilst learning your craft?
Well, I’m sure there are plenty of them, but the one that stands out the most to me was omitting the 1meg ohm resistor from the circuit, so all you hear is the switch clunk in and out when operated. Quite a few PCBs were wasted.
Why should musicians buy one of your pedals?
Our aim as a pedal maker is to continue manufacturing the highest quality products that we can, whilst giving the consumer a versatile, sonically sounding product that is full of amazing tone and enjoyment.
We also give working musicians a product which is functionally useful for them, as we put in halo light rings to ensure they do not blind them on stage and aluminium foot toppers on the switches, which give more contact area as standard features on all Flattley products.
Do you have a personal favourite style of effect?
My all-time favourite effect is the Flattley Revolution dynamic 3-in-1 overdrive pedal. This covers all the types of music that I enjoy and like to play.
It’s closely followed by our Valkyrie vintage chorus, Nirvana analogue delay, and The Wah.
“Gear of the Year”
The Revolution pedal won a “Guitarist Choice” award in August 2021 in Guitarist Magazine and then went on to win the “Gear of the Year” award in the January 2022 edition of the magazine. I also really like the vintage-style flangers, too.
What are your plans for the near future? Are you developing something you can maybe tell us something about?
Our plans for the immediate future are to continuously promote Flattley Guitar Pedals as one of the leading boutique guitar and bass pedal manufacturers globally, offering a wide choice of product types. In the current development stages, we have a valve tone overdrive pedal, which will be a low to medium gain overdrive pedal simulating valve tones.
This product will be called “The Joker” and will be Flattley’s new release when exhibiting at NAMM Jan 2026
There are also plans for a ‘dual’ pedal which will include a plexi overdrive and tone booster functions, along with switching to change the product order of lead in. This product is likely to be released at the Guitar Summit 2025 in Germany or the SHG Guitar Show 2025 in Italy.
Plans for 2026 are to do a 10th anniversary version of our first ever production pedal, which was called “The Reaper,” along with the graphics being created by my daughter, Phoebe Flattley, which was her first ever Flattley pedal graphic. Most likely, this will be released for the Guitar Summit 2026, a major event closest to the anniversary date.
Where To Buy?
Be sure to check out Flattley Pedals’ full range of effects at the site below, and you can order directly from the company with free delivery for UK orders.
They make some excellent, high-quality, boutique effects, and they always look amazing, too! This company wins many awards for their work for a reason, and so if you have yet to check them out, then I would highly recommend that you do.
If you enjoy reading about how guitar gear is made, then check out more of our Meet The Maker interviews.
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#Flattley Pedals #Boutique Pedals #Guitar FX
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