In May of 1975 Michael left MXR® and went on to establish Whirlwind®, the indisputable world leader
in audio interface... the rest is history.
Well, almost 40 years into it, Michael has decided to recreate the pedals that got him started in the
business in the first place by launching his “Rochester Series Pedals” which are handwired, American
made replicas of the original pedals that still work night after night in the rigs of the greats like Keith,
Eric, and Eddie. When asked if he would do anything differently? Michael simply replied... “Yes, I’d add
an LED, direct bypass, and a 9 -Volt power input”, so we did. Whirlwind is proud to re-introduce the
three coolest pedals on the planet. Now plug ‘em in, and make a little history of your own.
1975
1972
By 1972 it was clear to him that he had stumbled on to something monumental, but the big question
was how to spread the word. Traditional advertising was available but at a staggering cost and even
then its reach was unable to accurately target the people that needed to know... guitar players. The
answer was priceless, Michael literally spent his evenings going from nightclub to nightclub, plug-
ging his handwired effects boxes into the rigs of any guitar player that would let him. Needless to say,
every single player ended up buying one at the end of the night. Michael knew he wasn’t going to
get rich this way but how else could he spread the word? Then the “Magic” moment happened on a
rainy night in 1973 at “The Red Creek”, a little club in Rochester NY. Jessie Ed Davis, the guitar play-
er from the famed band Taj Mahal and session player for the Beatles and Eric Clapton was the fea-
tured act and he and Michael hit it off to the tune of staying up until 4:oo AM playing guitar in a dark
and dingy green room. Jessie fell in love with the pedals and insisted that he get two more for his
“buddies”. After a few months, Jessie invited Michael to his home in Marina Del Ray to meet some of his
“buddies” . To Michael’s surprise and absolute astonishment, he found himself standing in Jessie’s living
room, face-to-face with one of his first customers, none other than John Lennon. Within a few short
years these pedals became the most sought after effects of the 1970s.
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