According to Tsakalis AudioWorks, it feels like yesterday when founder Chris Tsakalis was looking for feedback on a newly built, tube-driven overdrive from players he had been repairing gear for in Athens, Greece. That first attempt, which grew into the Gravity Spot, was enough to catch the attention of the local music scene, and it eventually became the foundation for the wider Tsakalis AudioWorks lineup.
We caught up with Tsakalis AudioWorks at the NAMM Show to check out their latest pedals, and it was easy to see how far that first pedal had carried the company.
The Gravity Spot remains the clearest example of that approach. It is a two channel, all tube overdrive built around a pair of ECC83 tubes running in cascade mode at roughly 230 volts, paired with a British style EQ covering bass, mid, treble, and an edge control that shapes the overall voicing. Each channel can be switched between three gain settings and three voicing modes, giving the pedal a wide range from clean headroom to sustained, high gain drive. Like the rest of the line, it is hand built in Athens and housed in a lightweight aluminum enclosure rather than a mass produced case.
The rest of the Tsakalis AudioWorks pedals include the ROOM 40 boost, built around a Marshall style circuit, along with the Six, the Molecular Boost, the Nerve MkII dual distortion, and the AC Master, an overdrive built around the sound of pushed 1960s British amps.
Tsakalis AudioWorks shared the show with fellow Athens builder Crazy Tube Circuits, another Greek pedal company working the same corner of the effects world. Seeing two independent Athens shops within a short walk of each other said plenty about how much of the interesting work in pedals right now comes from small, hands on builders rather than the show’s larger names.
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