Like many other music gear companies, Heuristic started over the pandemic. Lots of free time, a career crossroads, a search for meaning, and here we are today. The original vision was a lot more complex; a DSP platform, digitally-controlled analog, that sort of thing. Some cool experiments and prototypes came out of it, but ultimately we had to take a step back and accept that while it all seemed doable on paper, launching a physical product is a very long and difficult process that we'd never undertaken.

Enter Fulcrum. It grew out of some concepts we liked and was cheered on by Chris and Kyle at Black in Bluhm, who gave a lot of the earliest feedback and helped us refine the feature set to meet their needs. "It's just a boost pedal, how bad could it be?" we told ourselves at the beginning.

It turns out doing switching power supplies the right way takes time. Getting the bypass switching perfect takes time. Nailing the mechanical and graphic design takes time. Tidying up all the tiny details that really make or break a design takes a lot of time.

...and we're really happy with the results! I would describe the process less as perfectionism and more trying to not leave any stones left unturned. Everything is difficult the first time, and each iteration carries forward the institutional knowledge and frees us up to think about other, cooler problems.

Life threw us a few curveballs last year, but the past six months in particular have been incredibly busy behind the scenes, and we're beyond stoked to share the fruits of all this labor soon.

Off the bat, things I can share:

Fulcrum

A full restock is happening, and we'll have more bandwidth this year to keep a full inventory with less focus on large batches. It turns out more people will buy your products when they're readily available!

We have a new inverted color-way that will release when the restocks go live. This version will be available in perpetuity, and all profits from it (roughly $100 per pedal) will go to charity. There will be a full write-up on how this will work coming soon.

Fulcrum is now on revision 2, which address a few extremely rare issues and replaces the relay with fully solid-state switching. The end result sounds identical while consuming less power and having a slightly lower noise floor. Even more importantly, it's a lot easier for us to assemble!

A New Product

There will be a new Heuristic pedal by the end of the year. Nailing everything down is taking time, but there will be a lot more movement and news to share on this soon!

Collaborations

For the past year we've been heads down on R&D for several platforms that are more in the original Heuristic spirit, and they're finding their way into pedals from our friends at Mask Audio Electronics and Winnipeg Electrical Company.

Collaborations have quickly become the lifeblood of Heuristic, and being able to lend a hand in helping other builders achieve a vision remains one of the most enjoyable aspects of this business! Last year we got to co-design the WEC Blues DLX, which features a shockingly complex switching system. An even more over-the-top custom switching setup found its way into Fowl Sounds' Magic Circle pedal for Midwife, which will be shipping soon.

Music gear is a very crowded space filled with compelling and creative ideas. It's really difficult to carve out a niche and have something original to say. Designing and building things the Right Way takes a lot of time and effort. We don't want to produce a product unless we feel we have something original to say, and doing that means going a bit more off the beaten path and investing heavily in developing platforms to achieve our goals.

It's been fun seeing a plan come together over so many years, and we can't wait to show you where it's taking us!