Tonecat are a boutique pedal company operating out of Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.
Thanks to the genius and wild imagination of Mr. Tonecat himself, a.k.a. Ryan Andrianto, their range of guitar pedals combine whimsy, fun, great sound and creative design.
“I’m a musician, I play guitar.” begins Ryan. “And I always buy gear.” he says with a smile.
An all too familiar feeling for a lot of us guitar players.
“I’ve got way too many [guitars] at home, and I mess around with pedals and stuff, and part of me is always trying to mod things, because I come from an artistic background.” he explains.
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Ryan continues, clarifying that a lot of his creation comes from asking himself ‘What if?’ and initially inspired him to create a range of ‘BlankSlate’ Overdrives that came with a customisable faceplate, expanding further on his artistic origins, allowing users to paint and create their own enclosure.
This led him to a small batch of guitar pedals, and all of a sudden Ryan had pre-orders on his hands, now having to meet demand.
Asking about an electronics background, Ryan concedes that he doesn’t have one, though it’s obviously been no barrier to creating great sounding equipment. He acknowledges though, “I’m a hi-fi guy,” and has an understanding about that end of things.
“Swapping opamps and trying to customise things, that’s what I’m really good at. I trust my ear a lot.”
He’ll explore different components, understanding how they affect the signal, and allows himself to be guided by that. Ryan is mostly focused on creating tools that he himself would like to use, so it’s no surprise that other guitarists are finding similar value in his range that expands from the original ‘BlankSlate’ into the ‘Claw and Order’ overdrive, ‘R^T Trap’ distortion and the newly unveiled ‘Vanishing Tail Echo’ pedal.
“I’m not an idealistic type, but I understand that whether it’s a pedal or guitar or whatever, it needs to have a value proposition. It needs to address the pain point of someone.”
Mr. Tonecat
While Tonecat pedals are boutique, built in Melbourne and sold in small batches, Ryan is weary of falling into the niche of overpriced, inaccessible equipment, instead having a focus on creating affordable, great sounding equipment that inspires its user.
“Looking at all these boutique pedals, that cost two grand, a lot of money.”
We laugh for a moment, having both spent time browsing electronics websites for opamps and resistors, the components often cost less than a dollar, but make up the circuits that fetch astronomical prices. The R&D is where the cost comes in, but the pieces of the puzzle cost very little.
“I thought ‘What if I give that freedom to the buyer, that doesn’t cost the world, and you can still create your own boutique [with the BlankSlate]. So that’s my first value proposition. You can have your own character, tonally or aesthetically, as well in the enclosure.”
Ryan explains the lore of Tonecat further, having created Tonecat as a character that continues to inspire further guitar pedals and stories.
“I’m quite close to my daughter, she’s nine turning ten.” he beams. “So we tell a lot of stories, we imagine— my cat’s name is Jiji— and that’s the real Mr. Tonecat.”
“He’s the one that’s bothering me all the time. So we imagine Jiji is actually a superhero, we imagine Jiji is going to Paris. So my ideology always starts with a story; maybe he’s a superhero, so maybe that’s a drive [pedal]. [In this story] he’s a spy, maybe it’s an echo-type thing, because the tail vanishes, so it comes with a story.”
“It starts with a story, and then comes the pedal, not the other way around.”
Ryan isn’t trying to make a pedal for everyone, understanding that appealing to a mass market is what will make him vanilla and bland, instead solving problems for himself and having fun creating a growing range of guitar pedals. Tonecat pedals have great sound, using whimsy and fun to inspire new sound, solve problems and follow the story and adventures of Mr. Tonecat.
To browse available Tonecat pedals, shop their Reverb store here.
