ThorpyFx ELECTRIC LIGHTNING - Chris Buck signature Valve pedal and Boost

After multiple years of development and a solid year of road testing and we are here, the worst kept secret in the pedal world is now revealed. ThorpyFx and Chris Buck have collaborated to deliver a signature Valve overdrive and Boost.
Designed with Chris in mind, the ELECTRIC LIGHTNING delivers a dynamic overdrive that retains clarity and articulation all the way up to the upper reaches of the gain pot. The drive is equipped with a 3 band EQ for control over the tonality no matter what amp/guitar combo you use. The boost is a familiar high headroom boost but tailored to Chris’s needs it can be used to fatten up cleans or give extra saturation to the valve overdrive section.
Unlike many other signature products, the ELECTRIC LIGHTNING is designed specifically not to be a “one trick pony” Both Chris and Thorpy wanted it to be an awesome effect pedal regardless of your playing style and as such, you can craft the ELECTRIC LIGHTNING to your style for maximum satisfaction.
Enjoy!!

[@PaulDeMaio]

Beautiful work! 🤘

[@robinmcmillan8102]

Around 50years ago as a young boy my father would take me to Luechers in Scotland to watch the English Electric Lightenings take off full afterburner and nose vertically up by the end of the runway. That noise and feeling has stayed with me an experience I now know I was lucky to have. Great name for an overdrive pedal, love the graphic. Totally get it, problem is I need to buy one, I mean come on……….😂

[@thorpyfx]

Incredible noise, I can imagine that that’d be a core memory. Thanks for sharing

[@DMSProduktions]

@@thorpyfx I've heard F-111s take off at the end of a runway! Now THAT'S a noise! (Not to mention the sonic booms when they go supersonic!)

[@DMSProduktions]

Thorpy & Buck: A match made in (tonal) heaven! \m/

[@ColinShanahan]

Sounds incredible. Congrats Adrian, top notch as always 👌🏻🎸

[@JasonWharton82]

Awesome work, Chris is such an incredible player, seems like a match made in heaven!

[@rfpho1456]

Now you’ve done it…. Lightnings were a big thing when I was growing up - Binbrook wasn’t far from where my Dad’s family came from and due to family connections I got a tour round by 5 squadrons WC, including sitting in ‘his’ Lightning F6. Going to have to try and get one of these, sounds epic.

[@BrentGrowe]

Sounds great! Can’t wait to try it out.

[@MichaelSorensen-bl3ec]

Really great. I'd love to play like Chris, bit's just not in my DNA. Been playing more than 40 years, hard to change ingrained habits.

[@mattmanley7118]

Phenomenal well done!!

[@thorpyfx]

thanks so much

[@dustinarnold79]

Can't wait to try it out

[@searley888]

Magic!

[@riklionheart23]

Sounds awesome. Where was the video shot? Amazing looking gaff 😂

[@thorpyfx]

oh thats my house, just a cheap place............. Not really its filed and recorded at VADA studios near Stratford Upon Avon

[@alexfletcher9915]

Sounds phenomenal!! ⚡️🎛⚡️

[@RossD8]

Was there a nod to Richard Thompson's opening on Calvary Cross? Been wanting to try a Thorpy pedal, maybe this will be the one.

[@SandauxBeats]

Is this almost the same as Fulltone Fulldrive 2 Mosfet?

[@thorpyfx]

I thought the full tone was tubescreamer based. This is a tube overdrive and boost.

[@SandauxBeats]

@@thorpyfx I see. Thanks!

[@wsmithSav]

Curious how this would sound w/ a little 72 Princeton (vintage)?

[@whisperthiefmusic]

Is there a widget in the gigrig power supply ecosystem that is suitable to power this? Or is it the supplied power or nothing? 🤔

[@thorpyfx]

I believe the GEN-X-14 would be perfect for the job.

[@whisperthiefmusic]

@@thorpyfx and the “Supa-Nova” high power adapter looks about right too?

[@ChrisBuckGuitar]

@@whisperthiefmusic I've been powering mine with the Supa Nova for the last year or so 👍🏻

[@GazP23]

Hell yes! Sounds amazing, great job 😎🍺

[@thorpyfx]

thank you

[@kierenmoore3236]

What voltage does the tube actually run at in this pedal … ie is it running starved?

[@thorpyfx]

It’s running at +\- 15v. Ie it’s giving you that brown sound earlier. Hope you love the sounds.

[@f.duranleau4416]

@@thorpyfx Hi! Your Electric Lightning sounds really good! Ain't a 12AX7 preamp tube suppose to run at least 250 volts on the anode or plate?

[@thorpyfx]

@ not necessarily, you can run it in starved plate mode to reduce the headroom and enhance the dirt

[@Gibson1976uk]

It is possible for me to get one but I would have to sell some pedals! Which would have to include my peacekeeper! I have a question! Will this pedal still give me all that low gain goodness of a peacekeeper and a lot more :) I haven’t made my mind up but thoughts are floating around and I totally trust Thorpyfx, never tried a pedal that’s bad

[@thorpyfx]

Obviously they are very different pedals, the EL doesn’t have quite the flexibility to reproduce various different sounds that the low gain peacekeeper can…. But it can do a Lot. My advice is to try one if you can.

[@Gibson1976uk]

@@thorpyfx ok, thanks for the reply. I’m done in Bristol next week, could pop into PMT and see if they have one to try :)

[@jessevandendoren4235]

Sounds amazing, though I'm always a bit weary of taking real tubes on the road. Is the tube replaceable in case it breaks?

[@thorpyfx]

Hi, firstly We wanted to make sure that we had this part down. Chris has been gigging this around the world for about a year. He’s played on land and sea and traveled by air with his pedalboard having been thrown about all over the place. His pedal has survived this, but just in case We chose a really readily available JJs tube. the ecc83S. And it’s socketed. Hope that puts your mind at rest

[@Furtheronmusic]

The good news this is £429. I can't afford / justify that. So that means I can continue to say "Well I'd sound like Chris Buck if I had his pedal" 😉😂😂😂

[@ScribblyDave]

If you saved 20 quid a month you’d have the money in less than 2 years.

[@craigryallful]

It would probably be off his board by then and replaced with a boss angry driver 😁

Nice one. Do we have an easy access to the tube? Can we change it to experiment with different tube brands? From my experience I often prefer the JJ E83CC compared to the JJ ECC83S that this pedal seems to be loaded with. Thanks

[@thorpyfx]

We have socketed the tube. This wasn’t because we wanted anyone to experiment with tube type, but because that’s sensible engineering when dealing with a Replaceable item. The thing to note is, we bias the tube up on the oscilloscope to get them to sound as we expect and critically as Chris expects. Changing the tube will undo that fine tuning. So the answer is yes, but at your own risk.

@@thorpyfx Thank you for the thorough explanation. The custom bias thing makes sense indeed.

[@gfamily4364]

what guitar is that at the start of the video ?

[@thorpyfx]

That’s Chris’s customer yamaha revstar. It’s epic

[@tszegvary]

Will this be a limited pedal or part of the product line?

[@thorpyfx]

We very much hope people will love it enough to remain part of the product line, that’s the plan.

[@beaujeste1]

I desperately want one of these… but.. 😞

[@robbirose7032]

Is this based around a gunshot drive?

[@frankphvrvon3153]

I guess a British voice better tone shaping than a tube driver for exemple :p

[@thorpyfx]

its not, this is a different thing entirely.

[@robbirose7032]

@@thorpyfx fantastic

[@stanesposito2664]

Man, I like Chris and the pedal sounds good, but it's almost $600! I guess your target is touring pro or someone with a lot of extra cash. 😢

[@thorpyfx]

Hey man, USA MAP is $499. Our target market is every guitarist everywhere. We've made a zero compromise pedal and done so to ensure that whoever gets to use it can do so for a very long time. It costs more to engineer things this way, to handmake a compact valve pedal in the UK at this level just isn't cheap but i guarantee that it will deliver some of the most versatile stellar sounds you've ever had. Not only that, you'll be able to recoup the outlay by selling other pedals that you'll just no longer need. all the best, Thorpy

[@DavidRees43]

😎

[@fram5199]

Valve overdrive they say, than you see diodes in the circuit…

[@thorpyfx]

Come on, you know diodes are used for all sorts of reasons don’t you? In this circuit…. We use them as power protection, voltage manipulation, part of the boost circuit to soft clip at the top end…. They are also used as part of the switching circuit….. Anyway, diodes are tools, they are needed for lots of things.

[@jimmcdougall9973]

Well that’s like calling any Marshall, Fender etc amps “tube/valve amps”. They all have circuitry. A tube/valve cannot work on its own (try opening up a Friedman IRX). For that reason, this pedal is a tube/valve overdrive.

[@StillAGreatNight]

God dammit, this sounds SO good guys. THIS IS NOT HELPING MY BANK ACCOUNT🥸

[@JuanLuna-ew3zo]

😫