21st Century Realizer

21st Century Realizer

Keeley Electronics turns 21 years old this month.  I have to admit I felt a little uneasy when I put my name on the front of my first compressor.  Not because I was concerned with the sound quality, but because that meant I was committed to this pedal thing for life.  If I put my name on something, I would have to stand by it forever.  The 9/11 attacks had just happened and there was all around a sense that things had permanently changed.  That was the gravity which bore the Keeley Compressor’s destiny.  I probably built less than 20 completely by myself, before I started to commission my students to build pedals.  It’s now grown to 35 people and we build everything we can under one roof at my new factory.

Now, twenty one years later I have a team of engineers, programmers, designers, and artists that put the Keeley name on and the sound quality inside the pedals.  The Realizer is a perfect example of my designers coming together.  Craighton Hale designed a circuit layout and board, Aaron Tackett crafted the code, and Robby Harris came up with the graphics for our new limited release Realizer Reverb.  The Realizer features our Soft Focus Reverb like the Yamaha FX500 that we developed in 2018.  We also created brand new reverbs with crazy tremolo-bar type pitch bends.  We also created our own Reverse Reverb that pairs with fuzz and distortion insanely well.

We’ve come a long way since hi-fi country guitar compressors.  The Realizer is like magic compared to what I was capable of years ago.   I want to thank my team and all of you reading this that helped us grow over the years.

Check out a 21st Century Realizer!

21st Century Realizer

(Also check out the Loomer version!)