I got my start building pedals one day in 2016 when I began wondering whether it would be easier (lol) and more economical (lolol) for me to make my own vintage-style effects, rather than try to source them locally or on the internet. Leveraging my career as a Product Manager for a tech company, and my academic background in Music and Signal Processing, I just opened my web browser and started reading specifically about the Foxx Tone Machine. It didn’t take long until I started ordering my first set of parts. And when those arrived, I headed straight to my makeshift workshop (the balcony of my apartment) and started soldering away.
In its own way, building pedals has brought me back in touch with old friends and helped me make new ones. To this day, Carcharias Effects has been my way of ensuring that I would always strive to stay in my element, to always move forward, and to passionately pursue whatever it is that I love doing.
Who I Am
My name is Daniel, I’m an American-Israeli living in the Tel Aviv area of Israel. I was raised and educated for the most part in the States, but life somehow found me after college on this side of the globe. I have been a musician for most of my life (guitar, bass, drums, cello, piano, tenor voice, and pretty much try to learn any instrument I can get my hands on), and in general a builder, tinkerer, and programmer as I got older.
The story behind the name Carcharias
Since I was a little kid, I had always been fascinated with sharks, and particularly the great white (Carcharodon carcharias). Great whites had made their way into my dreams before—but one night in 2007, shortly after moving to a foreign country, I had a vivid dream that I was walking along a beach when I came upon a great white shark, helplessly stranded on its back on the shore.
In my dream, I approached the beached leviathan cautiously, reaching out to touch it, overcome with fear at the enormous animal, and marvelling at the thought that had the both of us only been a few meters away from shore, I would have been at the bottom of the food chain—and the shark at the top.
That year, as I struggled with a new language and culture, I came to realize what I had in common with that shark, struggling to breath outside of its natural surroundings. Whereas the shark would have needed to continue swimming in order to survive, all I would have to do to ensure my own survival was to continue doing the thing that I was born to do—music.
Over a decade later, that image of the beached great white shark continues to inspire me to be true to myself, and to keep doing the things that I was born to do.
Pronunciation
“Carcharias” is pronounced car-CARRY-us. Rhymes with ‘aquarius’, if that makes it easier. Here’s what the internet has to say about it:
Manifesto
As an environmentalist, I believe that we all have a duty to reduce waste as much as possible. I realize that this sometimes seems to be in direct contradiction to the nature of the pedal-building game, which tends to be a highly wasteful one.
Regardless of this, I have made it my personal pledge to uphold the four R’s—reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle—in my business in as many ways as possible. That means that perfectly good, high-quality components will be salvaged and repurposed if they can. This also means that I will reuse shipping materials like plastic baggies or tissue paper padding to pack my pedals or PCBs when I ship them out to you. The boxes I use for shipping, as well as the packing tape, are all made out of 100% recyclable material. It sometimes might not be glamorous, but, well, the Earth is my priority.
When you receive one of my products in the mail, I ask you to keep the cycle going and do your best to reuse or recycle as much of it as possible.
Services
I offer a variety of services related to pedal builds and design. Contact me and let’s find a solution together!
Specialty Pedals
I sell ready-made pedal designs of my favorite circuits. Always updating, check the store to see the latest releases available for sale.
Mods
Unleash the full potential of your old and basic pedals with simple (and not-so-simple) modifications. Choose between internal or external controls.
