In 2001, Robert Keeley, a top-flight engineer out of Oklahoma City, founded Keeley Electronics. His goal was – and still is – simple: “If a player can become more expressive with my pedals, I’m super-happy.”
In the quarter-century since his company’s founding, largely through the success of his Compressor pedal, which essentially cloned what Boss had done years ago but brought it into the 21st century, Keeley has established himself as one of the biz’s premier tone-makers.
A few things set Keeley apart from the pack, such as his insistence on staying independent and upholding a cut-above-the-rest quality standard.
“I’ve strived to do as much as possible in-house,” Keeley says. “From the initial concepts to engineering, development and manufacturing, I like to keep everything here. I don’t farm out any part of it. And because I have a background in consumer and professional electronic repair – and I’m an electrical engineer – I feel like that puts me ahead of some others, technologically.”
Keeley isn’t a salesman by nature or trade. He’s just a guy who loves to make noise – and help other people do the same. And he’s still doing it, with the Compressor logging more miles as a top-seller on Reverb, and through a slew of new designs, too.
He plans to enter the MIDI fray soon, and stompboxes like the Octa Psi fuzz and Noble Screamer overdrive pedals are also out there making waves.
Some aspects of the pedal-making business make Keeley shake his head. He has no regrets, though he might do one or two things differently given the chance.
“If I could go back and do it again, I’d cut out the stop along the way called ‘addiction,’ and I’d have hired a business partner to help me navigate working with dealers and retailers,” he says.
“I’d focus on the engineering and not so much on the sales side. Thankfully, sales have generally been there to allow me to continue forward. In general, however, I’ve been very lucky with the decisions I’ve made.”
What got you started in this biz?
“I saw that I could build Ross Compressor clones and mods to provide people with better-sounding gear. I love working for myself and building gear, I have an electrical engineering degree with an entrepreneurial spirit, and I’m a guitar player who’s always looking to sound better – so I’m rarely satisfied with the current selection of gear.”
When Keeley started, what were your observations of the effects scene, and how did you hope to shake things up?
“It was very easy in the beginning because no one else was doing mods to pedals. I could take a popular pedal, say, the [Ibanez] Tube Screamer, and look at the list of complaints about it. People wanted more of this or that, more gain and less mids, for example. Then I’d create a mod to solve the problem.”
You’ve often said you’re not a good engineer, which is hard to believe. Are you being modest?
“It probably is modesty; I graduated sixth in my class at OU [University of Oklahoma], so I was definitely above C+/B-. [Laughs] I should say I don’t have a lot of experience designing my own boards or even putting my thoughts on paper. I like to have the people around me figure out how to make my dreams happen.
“I provide the design overview and help with clarifications and questions along the way. I tell them when it’s not working the way I want. I have good troubleshooting skills. I understand the electrical and computing concepts of professional and consumer-level audio electronics.
“All the brain work is done by Craighton Hale, an electrical engineer, and Aaron Tackett, who has 10 years of effects and DSP programming. I’m afforded the luxury of daydreaming about new ways to create effects and help guitar players become more creative and dynamic.”
What was the first pedal you made on a large scale?
“The Compressor was the first Keeley pedal, and it’s still my most successful. We’ve sold about 500 to 1,000 per month for the past decade or more. It was the most popular pedal on Reverb in 2024 when looking at new and used sales through that platform.
“That pedal has evolved from being built one at a time at the kitchen table to having pick-and-place [CNC] putting components on the circuit board. It does one thing many guitar players want – it fattens up your tone and adds sustain without [adding] a lot of distortion.”
How about the Germanium Super Phat Mod? What was the science behind that?
“The way I like to have the boards designed is to put a lot of mods or special versions into the original design so we can grow the pedal and the idea in the future; many pedals we release are part of a platform to reduce the amount of unique boards.
“The Ge SPM is a perfect example where we added a germanium transistor boost, maybe about four to six parts extra, as a possibility for future development.”
What’s the story behind the latest Keeley creation, the Octa Psi?
“The Octa Psi is my dream of putting a high-gain analog fuzz together with a mind-blowing pitch shifter. It took three years before all of the different aspects came together. The user interface was a huge turning point in the pedal concept and design, making it easy to switch between dry/wet and all-wet, order switching, expression pedal use, or momentary pitch bending, etc.
“And then I could focus on perfecting the nuances of the fuzz. I knew it would be a first, so I had to make sure it was easy to use. I spoke with [guitarist] Larry LaLonde of Primus, and he told me the pedal is so fun to develop music on; he joked that he didn’t want to make music unless he had an Octa Psi. What a huge compliment!”
Other Keeley pedals include the Rotary, Halo Core and Noble Screamer. These are classic sounds, so what is the key to putting the Keeley stamp on things?
“If I can’t make it any better-sounding, then I feel it’s done and I can release it to the public. In the past few years, I’ve become fond of using the Audio Precision APx515B Series Audio Analyzer to make sure I have the lowest noise and the least amount of unwanted distortion in the signal and my products. I like to combine new features with an incredibly great tone.”
With the way the market and economy are, has it been difficult to source quality components to uphold your standards?
“That’s not my biggest concern. Sometimes parts change, and we have to redesign – that’s a big headache for me. Or parts become expensive to get because of tariffs, etc. That makes you plan a lot more and look for ways to make it yourself.”
Are there any new products you can tell us about?
I have a pedal that you can smoke/vape weed/THC out of. It’s the first rechargeable pedal, and it produces the most amazing distortion
“All kinds of stuff! Craighton has developed Keeley’s first high-voltage tube design. We have at least two huge artists that have requested signature delays, loopers… My team has put work into these ideas and concepts already, so we aren’t years away from new offerings. I’ve just started to play with our Core Series of pedals.
“I have phasers, choruses, octave generators and a variety of other prototypes out in the field already. I’ve not explored any of the fertile tone grounds in one series of drive pedals. Each one of those pedals can get a sweet set of mods for germanium or a nod to old-school Keeley modifications to each of the tones.
“We have plans to add MIDI this year, so that opens up a ton of possibilities. Can you imagine a MIDI Bubble Tron Random Quantum Filter-izer? I just did. [Laughs]”
Is there a Keeley pedal that totally failed that still makes you scratch your head?
“I have a pedal that you can smoke/vape weed/THC out of. It’s the first rechargeable pedal, and it produces the most amazing distortion. It charges at 5 volts through a USB or the standard 9-volt battery, but I can’t sell it on Amazon, eBay or Reverb because it’s a tobacco or vaping product.
“There’s lots of laws and barriers against me selling my invention. So I scratch my head and take a toke from my cordless Vapor Drive pedal. [Laughs]”
How do you measure your impact and legacy on the modern pedal and modding scene?
“I measure it in a couple of ways. The funniest metric is the number of knock-off clones I have; that gives me an idea as to how I’m perceived in the pedal world.
“The number of times that mature artists say they want to develop an effect with me is a good indicator as well. If people who have been happy with their tone over the past 10, 20 or 30 years are now enthusiastically coming to my shop for new ideas, that means I have lots going right for me at the moment.”
Smaller companies are selling, but you haven’t. Will you stay independent for as long as you can?
“I don’t plan on selling my company. There may have been a time in the past, but this is what I love doing. I like the idea of creating a manufacturing business that can sustain generations of employees. Martin, Gibson, Fender, Dunlop and Electro-Harmonix have done it; maybe Keeley can.”
- See Keeley Electronics for more information.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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