Keeley Electronics

Drawing on his background in electrical engineering, Robert Keeley has spent more than two decades building reliable and innovative pedals, from his top-selling Compressor to one notably trippy device

- ANDREW DALY

IN 2001, ROBERT Keeley, a topflight engineer out of Oklahoma City, founded Keeley Electronics. His goal was — and still is — simple, and he explains it like so: “If a player can become more expressive with my pedals, I'm super happy.”

In the quarter-century since his company's founding, largely through the success of his Compressor pedal, which essentially cloned what Boss had done years ago but brought it into the 21st century, Keeley has established himself as one of the biz's premier tone-makers.

A few things set Keeley apart from the pack, such as his insistence on staying independent and upholding a cut-above-the-rest quality standard.

“I've strived to do as much as possible in-house,” Keeley says. “From the initial concepts to engineering, development and manufacturing, I like to keep everything here. I don’t farm out any part of it. And because I have a background in consumer and professional electronic repair — and I'm an electrical engineer — I feel like that puts me ahead of some others, technologically.”

That's probably true; Keeley isn't a salesman by nature or trade. He's just a guy who loves to make noise — and help other people do the same. And he's still doing it, with the Compressor logging more miles as a top-seller on Reverb, and through a slew of new designs, too. Keeley plans to enter the MIDI fray soon, and stompboxes like the Octa Psi fuzz and Noble Screamer overdrive are also out there making waves. And who could forget the Vapor Drive, aka the first pedal that allows users to smoke and/or vape marijuana out of it?