Harby Pedals is recreating the rarest vintage guitar pedals in a modern, affordable format.

Harby Pedals was founded in Idaho, USA, by British entrepreneur Joe Harby, with the goal of recreating rare and vintage guitar pedals in a modern, more affordable format.

Joe grew up in England. Music and art were key influences in his childhood, his father does fine art, and his mother was a concert pianist. His family moved to France when he was 13, and a few years later, he quit school to open a brick-and-mortar guitar store. After opening his second location, he took the business online and opened a distribution company that supplied other music stores in France.

In 2010 he met his future wife, Monique, who was attending his father’s art school. She went home to Idaho, and Joe followed her across the pond. He started a real estate software company and enjoys a myriad of hobbies and projects in his spare time. He loves getting into electrical or mechanical, whether it’s fixing a MacBook, writing code, restoring his classic 1977 Porsche 911, and of course, playing guitar.

In 2020, Joe was looking for an original Marshall Blues Breaker Mk1 and was shocked by the high price and demand for vintage pedals. Being an incurable tech junkie, he dug into the rare circuit schematics of discontinued pedals. He realized he could build his own that A) sounded identical to the originals and B) used higher quality components than other modern reproductions. So he started developing his first prototype in 2020 and launched his first pedal, Harby Centauri, in 2022.

Joe’s goal is to keep producing recreations of rare pedals that stay true to the originals. He’s got more designs in the pipeline, so keep checking in to see what’s been released. Currently, you can buy the Centauri, BMF, Noble Tone, and Centauri modified pedals.