THIRD MAN HARDWARE

With a line of products that range from the Triple Threat, a three-in-one distortion/phaser/echo pedal that you can probably afford after mowing a few lawns, to the Fender Jack White Pano Verb amp, Third Man Hardware aims to inspire guitar players of all skill levels

- Jacob Paul Nielsen

NOT MANY PEDAL companies have the luxury of road-testing their products. Then again, not many guitar pedal companies are run by Jack White. The team at Third Man Hardware is — perhaps surprisingly — small. Of course, there's White, the creative heartbeat of all things Third Man. Then there’s Christina Inman and Dan Mancini. Inman, whose official job title is “The Wrangling Hellcat,” handles most of the business side of Third Man Hardware while also managing merchandise for Third Man Records. Mancini, who describes Inman as a “total badass,” has a Third Man business card that reads “Dan Mancini: Waste Management.”

Though these job titles might seem arbitrary, they actually reflect the many hats Third Man employees wear. For instance, when Mancini isn’t repairing and maintaining gear at Third Man's Nashville studio (as his job title suggests), he’s on the road as White’s guitar tech, crash-testing prototypes he’s helped develop for his day job at Third Man Hardware.

You'd been Jack’s tech for a number of years before you got started with Third Man Hardware, right? When did that happen?

It was 2019, when we were still developing the Triplegraph with the Coppersound guys. Jack had already done one or two pedals with Third Man Hardware before. We were going out with the Raconteurs, and I started helping in the final stages of development with little odds and ends. Christina had been helping keep the project moving along, asking me lots of questions along the way. Slowly, everyone was realizing I was a pretty good fit to help make things happen. [Now] I help out with the development and the technicals and creative elements of the gear with Jack.

How was the Triplegraph developed?