So after much soul-searching, cogitation and divination! We’re finally on Patreon at last.
So all of you who have voiced your support for GPX in the past - hopefully now is a good time to get involved!
I’ve had some fun with the Patreon visuals - in fact - I spent the whole of the Easter holidays getting the ThorpyFX Collaboration and Patreon Page sorted - also doing the various campaigns needed to support those activities. I’ve included a number of my all-time favourite pedals in the header - can you pick them all out!?
As for Patreon itself - I’ve seriously been considering the options for that for nearly a year now, and feel I’ve finally got the formula about right.
I’ve set up a Forum - [HERE] - so you can input further on each of the 3 Tiers - on what you like and what you feel might need to change / evolve.
From experience, most of you seem to want more contact with me - mostly for consultation and advice - and to pick my pedal database of a brain! So the tier offerings are mostly base on that!
I created various dollar bill visuals as below to indicate Budget, Industry Standard, and Luxe pedal models - I’m rather pleased with how those came out!
Here are the 3 Tier offerings at launch! :
For $1 | £1 - you get to be part of the Guitar Pedal X community - and have access to updates on Patreon, competitions / give-aways, access to the Guitar Pedal X Forums, and general local meet-ups.
For $5 | £4.50 - you additionally get direct email correspondence, access to specialist content, and access to a regular Jitsi Meet event.
For $10 | £8.50 - you additionally get direct video correspondence, access to steering committees, and will be featured on the Guitar Pedal X 'GPX Legends' Page.
The plan is for local meet-ups to be somewhat informal chats / show-and-tell - where after a while and as those evolve we will be bringing in various guests - and the idea is that eventually we will end up with some sort of mini festival or similar - I have various ideas in that regard.
Obviously depending on numbers to a degree, but certainly from the start I will likely be using the Library (as pictured above) and Theatre rooms at my local Victoria Pub - which are correspondingly suited to 20 and 25 people. To start off with we will keep it fairly compact and bijoux - and as we evolve we will look to progressively bigger venues - typically back-rooms of pubs and bars - there are several highly suitably premises very near me.
The regular Video Conferences as such will use Jitsi Meet - which I've used very successfully (but after some 'teething' troubles!) to communicate with my good friend and avant-garde guitar virtuoso Henry Kaiser.
Jitsi gives us some degree of flexibility - but depending on numbers we may very well need to move to a more evolved service - we shall see!
Top Tier Patreons can have private Jitsi Meets with me - or using similar technologies - like Facebook Messenger, Skype, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams - or Zoom even - while I don't yet have a Guitar Pedal X account for that so time spent there will be limited.
There will obviously have to be some limits placed on one-to-one sessions - while we will play those fairly loose and easy for the first few weeks - where numbers of Patreons at that level should be relatively low. As the numbers grow we will recalibrate.
A Podcast / YouTube presence is very much on the cards - I have easy access to a number of London facilities - while I'm actively seeking a partner / co-host which I feel is essential for what I want to do. I feel a lot of the Pedal / Guitar Gear Video and Podcast content out there has a tendency to be overly dry and static - it needs more life as far as I'm concerned and more interaction / banter!
So I'm looking to do more of a Zoo-style Radio show - something like a cross between Steve Wright in the Afternoon, and Howard Stern - with lots of lively areas of discussion - and lots of 'Guests' real and 'fictional' popping up at various times - with topical and current soundbites sprinkled throughout the show. It needs to be smartly time-managed - around 1 hour in duration and should leave people wanting more!
We will have several different segments, like :
I really need someone who is good with jingles, stingers, stabs and effects - and someone I can have an easy and joyful banter with - on differing viewpoints!
I have lots of ideas - it's really just about finding the perfect partner/s for what I want to do - if you feel you're up to the challenge and the right person for the role - so let me know!
If you have any ideas / suggestions on how to move things forward - please get involved in the discussion here :
and of course please support me on Patreon :
www.patreon.com/GuitarPedalX