// The Person Behind the Iron
Builder.
Engineer.
Player.
My name is Justin — husband, father, musician, and the sole builder behind every pedal that ships from Analog-Forge.
I’m an old-school trained electro-mechanical technician with 30+ years of hands-on engineering experience. I’ve designed, built, and managed carrier-class telecom and enterprise networks across the central U.S. Today I serve as a Senior Cybersecurity Analyst for a Tier 1 research university system — responsible for the security and integrity of infrastructure serving over 300,000 users across 11 universities, 9 state agencies, K–12 systems, and municipalities.
That background isn’t a detour from pedal building. It’s exactly why I build the way I do. Systems that protect 300,000 users cannot fail. Gear that goes on stage shouldn’t either.
// Justin · Analog-Forge · Handwired in the USA
The People Who
Built the Vocabulary
01 Engineering & Design Influences
The Architects of Tone
The engineers who proved that a circuit’s character is inseparable from its physical construction — and that ingenuity at the component level changes everything downstream. Their work isn’t history; it’s the foundation every Analog-Forge build is built on.
02 Guitar Influences
The Players Who Set the Bar
Touch, dynamics, and tone vocabulary — everything that makes a player identifiable in three notes. These are the ones who proved that feel matters more than technique, and that the right gear in the right hands is an irreplaceable thing.
The Analog Argument
Guitars are analog. The original amplifiers were analog. Speakers are analog. And most importantly — your ears are analog.
My tone philosophy is grounded in that reality. I am a tube, transistor, and transformer audio aficionado — not out of nostalgia, but out of physics. The way an analog circuit breathes with your playing isn’t a feature you can model. It’s a consequence of real components reacting to real current.
I use DAWs, plugins, and amp sims. Digital is a necessary part of the modern workflow and I’m honest about that.
But no matter how sophisticated those tools become, they will never be the same as real gear in a real room. The air moving from a real cabinet. The touch-response of a real tube stage. The sag of a real output transformer when you dig in.
Digital dominates because “close enough” works for people who’ve never felt the difference. Analog-Forge exists for the ones who have.
Chasing a tone on a record isn’t the same as being in the room. By the time a signal hits tape — through what feels like endless circuitry — it is no longer a Les Paul plugged straight into a Marshall Bluesbreaker. My goal is to close that gap, one handwired circuit at a time.
Precision Is a
Professional Habit
Boutique pedal building is, at its core, an engineering discipline. Signal integrity. Component tolerances. Noise floor. Ground loop elimination. Thermal stability over time. These aren’t audiophile talking points — they’re the same problems I solve every day at enterprise and university scale.
When you engineer systems that cannot go down — carrier-class telecom infrastructure, security architecture protecting hundreds of thousands of users — you develop a zero-tolerance relationship with “close enough.” A cold solder joint on a network switch and a cold solder joint on your overdrive pedal fail for exactly the same reason: someone accepted less than correct.
I don’t accept less than correct. Every build is inspected joint by joint, tested under real signal conditions, and verified before it ships. Not because it’s good marketing — because that is what 30 years of engineering teaches you to do.
Foundation
Electro-Mechanical Tech
Old-school trained. Physical systems, wiring, and real-world fault diagnosis from day one.
Engineering Career
Carrier-Class Telecom
Designed and managed enterprise and carrier-class network infrastructure across the central U.S.
Current Role
Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
Tier 1 research university system — 11 universities, 9 state agencies, K–12, and municipalities. 300,000+ users.
The Connection
Signal Integrity Is Signal Integrity
The discipline behind fault-tolerant networks is exactly what goes into a pedal that will not fail at the gig.
How I Think
About Every Build
Principle 01
Discrete or Nothing
No integrated op-amps. Every stage of the circuit is built from individual components — selected by hand for how they sound and how they behave under real playing conditions.
Principle 02
Point-to-Point Wiring
No PCBs. Components are wired directly to each other the way boutique builders have always done it. The result is more resolving, more alive, and built to last decades of hard use.
Principle 03
“Close Enough” Isn’t
Cheaper components exist. Faster methods exist. Neither one ships from this shop. If something sounds or performs better, it goes in. That’s not idealism — it’s professional habit.
Principle 04
Every Joint Is Inspected
Every solder joint is visually inspected and signal-tested before a build leaves the shop. Cold joints cause more failures than bad design. They don’t leave here.
What Goes Into
Every Build
Enclosures
Hammond Aluminum
Powder-coated or raw aluminum. Heavy, quiet, and shielded. The kind that dents a stage floor, not the kind that breaks on it.
Passive Components
Metal Film & Carbon Comp
Selected for character and application. Metal film for precision, carbon comp where harmonic coloration matters. NOS and vintage components where available.
Semiconductors
Discrete Transistors
NPN, PNP, germanium, silicon — selected and matched by hand. No chip shortcuts. Just devices doing what physics intends.
Solder
60/40 Tin-Lead
Kester 44. Flows right, joints look right, stands the test of decades of hard gigging.
Hardware
Switchcraft & CTS
Jacks, pots, and switches that feel the way quality should feel. Nothing rattles. Nothing fails on the third gig.
Wiring
Cut to Length, Routed with Intent
Signal paths kept short. Ground loops hunted down before they can breathe. Shielded where the job calls for it.
Ready to talk about
your next build?