Anyone remember RAK pedals?

nonesuch

Another thread about old music magazines from the 1980s reminded me of this copy of Making Music from 1986 that I had hidden away.

There's an advert in there for RAK effect pedals, that I have no memory of whatsoever. Does anyone know anything about them?

They obviously look like a rebranded Boss pedal, but apart from that I know nothing at all. And looking at the advert they were possibly only available in Scotland!

Sassafras

Blimey!
They even use the same font as Boss.

Moe_Zambeek

They make me feel slightly ill thinking about them - memories of the cheap crap that was all you could get back in the 80s and early 90s in small town music shops, where Boss seemed as expensive and exotic as Chase Bliss might be now. Kind of the pedal equivalent of Hi-tec trainers when you really wanted Nike.

I couldn’t tell you how they sound; probably just straight copies of other circuits just made rally cheaply.

Sassafras

They're not actually much cheaper than the originals at that time.

Ddigger

From memory, pedals were not cheap at all.  I think Sassafras is right the Boss versions were £10-15 more.

I seem to remember Boss pedals being £10-20 more than DOD/Digitech.

Basic pedals today are cheap as chips.

ICBM

They were plastic cased if I remember rightly, although they didn't seem fragile and they sounded fine. I think the circuits were direct Boss knock-offs, but I could be wrong - it's years since I've seen one.

jca74

And based on that ad, only available in Scotland!

mudslide73

My mate had a Rak wah which was pretty good if not super durable.

Funkfingers

Blimey!

The Edge with hair.

exocet

I remember the "self assembled" Boss pedals that were branded Amek c.1982.
 I'm guessing they had lower import duties than the traditional finished product. If I remember correctly, the PCB was fully assembled, you just had to add pots with flying leads and install in the pedal housing.

BillDL

I have a RAK stereo volume pedal, Wah, and chorus pedal in a box in a cupboard somewhere.  I would have bought them near the start of the 80s.  As mentioned earlier, they have tough plastic casings that make them lighter than metal ones, but the pedal mechanism and knobs were resilient enough.  A lightweight Wah is a bit of a nuisance, but it had good sticky rubber feet.  There was also a PSK brand that I have a feeling may have been made in the same factory.  I am sure these were made in South Korea in the era when South Korea wasn't held in nearly as high regard for electronic components and devices as they are now.  The pedal hinge, switch and spring mechanism were stronger than the current Behringer pedals, but they cost comparitively more at the time.

If you look at the advert you will see that at the time of the advert the RAK range was only available through SMIRA (Scottish Musical Instrument Retailers Association) members.  I'm thinking that SMIRA Purchasing Ltd probably had no-name pedals branded as RAK (in the same way that the GAP buying consortium - GuitarGuitar, Andertons, GAK- have some "own-brands" liveried for them, and JHS - John Hornby Skewes - have their own brands), and that PSK may have been the same pedal sold to other companies, but I could be wrong.  It looks as though Jim Deacon guitars used to be a SMIRA own brand.

@exocet ;; I have a feeling the pedal kit company was Amtek.  I recently repurposed the red metal enclosure from my compressor pedal kit (bought around 1982) to make an AB pedal.  I'm sure that I had to solder all the components to the printed circuit board, but it was a long time ago.  They were very well made kits and that compressor was as good as the couple of 2nd-hand Boss pedals I later bought.

exocet

BillDL said:

@exocet ;; I have a feeling the pedal kit company was Amtek.  I recently repurposed the red metal enclosure from my compressor pedal kit (bought around 1982) to make an AB pedal.  I'm sure that I had to solder all the components to the printed circuit board, but it was a long time ago.  They were very well made kits and that compressor was as good as the couple of 2nd-hand Boss pedals I later bought.

You're nearly right, just tracked one down, it was Amdek

Amdek DSK-100 Distortion | Vintage 1981 (Made in Japan) | Fast Shipping! https://reverb.com/item/49903427-amdek-dsk-100-distortion-vintage-1981-made-in-japan-fast-shipping?utm_source=android-app&utm_medium=android-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=49903427

BillDL

Thanks @exocet. That brings back some memories looking at the little red Amdek plate on the pedal.

Ddigger

Used by Mogwai, apparently.

Makes sense, as they are a Weegie band.

I lived in Glasgow in the late 80s and Sound Control in Jamaica Street sold them.  Probably still available in dodgy pawn shops around the Trongate and Barras.

26.2

“John Martin Music, Bo’ness”  

ICBM

BillDL said:

There was also a PSK brand that I have a feeling may have been made in the same factory.  I am sure these were made in South Korea

...

I'm thinking that SMIRA Purchasing Ltd probably had no-name pedals branded as RAK (in the same way that the GAP buying consortium - GuitarGuitar, Andertons, GAK- have some "own-brands" liveried for them, and JHS - John Hornby Skewes - have their own brands), and that PSK may have been the same pedal sold to other companies, but I could be wrong.  It looks as though Jim Deacon guitars used to be a SMIRA own brand.

Yes, that’s all correct.

I’m pretty sure PSK was the actual manufacturer - I seem to remember that’s on the PCBs - in the same way as Samick and Cort made guitars for other brands but also released them with their own names on as well.

BillDL

There are several things in the advert that make me feel quite old.  McCormack's in Bath St, Glasgow and Magnum Sound, Wishaw are both gone.  The Music Centre, Hamilton is still there, but I don't know about the others.  when Magnum Sound closed guitar players lost a real amp expert named Bill Heggie B.Sc. (elec) who knew the insides of amps like few others did.  The dialling codes are from a time before there was a 1 after the leading 0.  The boxed section says "Order by post.  Cheques and postal orders payable to: "  For the benefit of younger people reading this, if you didn't have a bank cheque book you went to the post office and bought a postal order to put into your snail mail envelope with the handwritten order form that you cut out of the magazine.

ICBM

BillDL said:

There are several things in the advert that make me feel quite old.  McCormack's in Bath St, Glasgow and Magnum Sound, Wishaw are both gone.  The Music Centre, Hamilton is still there, but I don't know about the others.

Gordon Simpson's and Mev Taylor's in Edinburgh - both of who I worked for - are gone too. Or actually, Simpson's isn't entirely gone but is now an online-only small parts and accessories retailer, who I still do part-time work for.

Magnum Sound I am all too familiar with from the stickers they put on the amps - 'Supplied and Serviced by Magnum Sound' - seeing that always produced a sinking feeling about the bodged and sometimes borderline unsafe electrical horrors lurking inside...

BillDL

Not being an electronics expert I couldn't really say how expertly my amps were repaired by Magnum Sound, but they always worked well and didn't produce smoke any more after they had sorted a couple of mine out 

MooseAboot

Lots of memories.  I had a RAK wah volume that i only just parted company with.  ( seldom used as with subsequent wahs).  I have a bellied jim deacon acoustic under the bed that is probably going to go pop at some point.  And many hours as a youth trying all the different pedals out with a pink marlin sidewinder upstairs in Gordon Simpsons.  Probably trying the patience of mr simpson himself.  My stack of making musics got recycled about 5 years ago.

portals

My first post here...

Nice, I have the grey/black RAK Compressor CPS-2 pedal bought from Music City in the Cow Wynd in Falkirk circa late '87, I used it live in my gigging band in Glasgow from 1988 to mid '90s mainly for a volume boot for solos with light compression,

Signal chain was:
Jim Dunlop Cry Baby -> RAK compressor CPS-2 -> RockTek distortion DIR-01 (nuts!) -> BOSS super chorus CG-1 in to whatever amp was available to save lugging gear about.

Only real gig of note we did was supporting The Primitives in Glasgow at QM Union around '90 I think. Bizarrely they are playing with Hugh Cornwall at QMU later this month...might go along to see if the guitarist Paul remembers me ;-)

Occasionally I borrowed other pedals however above was used in most gigs.

I recorded many 4-track demo's as I had a Roland W-30 sampling workstation (that I still use although The Prodigy still buy most of them for spares on ebay), a Yamaha MT3X 6 channel mixer 4-track recorder (still have and use as mixer), and Quadraverb GT for recording and mixing FX sends....happy days.

Before that tech I wrote on Casio CZ-230s mini synth that had 4 track sequencer, loved how you could easily program drums / bass line / and still have 2 notes polyphony available

This is the pedal except it was branded RAK not PSK as shown in pic