Royal Jelly

Honey-smooth Overdrive and stinging fuzz blended in a single pedal

- Trevor Curwen

Beetronics is a California-based boutique pedal maker with a bit of a fixation on our tiny, striped, honey-producing friends. Its small range of handmade pedals have names closely related to bee culture, while the internal circuit boards are artistically designed to reflect apian themes: open up a pedal and you may see a PCB that looks like a honeycomb. While the company undertakes custom orders, it also has a Standard Series of three pedals with a distressed finish (Octahive, Overhive and Whoctahell), and the more pristine Royal Series comprising the Buzzter and the Royal Jelly. The latter is a collaboration with Howard Davis, a circuit designer known for his work with Electro-Harmonix in its hugely creative 1976 to ’81 period, and also with Pigtronix.