The Avionics Guy
Before Paul Flattley ever soldered a guitar pedal, he spent three decades soldering helicopter electronics.
His career started in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, working as an avionics technician on helicopters. He went on to serve aboard HMS Ark Royal. Later he moved into commercial aviation, working for a helicopter operator in Qatar. Throughout all of it, he was repairing guitars, amps, and pedals for friends in his spare time.
It was his wife Jan who finally pushed him to stop fixing other people's gear and start designing his own. By 2015, Paul was prototyping original circuits. Flattley Guitar Pedals launched the following year.
A Family Operation
Flattley has been a family business from day one.
Paul builds every pedal by hand. His daughter Phoebe creates all the original artwork that appears on every enclosure. Jan keeps the business side running. The brand's skull motif started with a Grim Reaper tapestry Paul found at a flea market in the Monastiraki district of Athens. Phoebe took that initial idea and made it her own, and it has evolved into one of the most distinctive visual identities in the boutique pedal world.
That family feel matters to us. We stock makers who care about what they build, and when a pedal carries artwork by the builder's daughter, you know nobody is phoning it in.
Analogue Only
Paul made one decision early on that has defined everything since. Analogue only. No digital processing, no modelling, no shortcuts.
Every Flattley pedal uses top-shelf analogue components, and Paul believes those circuits produce an organic sound that responds to your playing dynamics in a way digital simply cannot. At stage volume, these pedals come alive. The notes breathe. The dynamics shift with your touch.
That commitment to analogue has won recognition. The Revolution Dynamic Overdrive earned a Guitarist Choice award in August 2021, then went on to win Guitarist Magazine's Gear of the Year in January 2022. For a small family operation competing against global brands, that is serious validation.
The Ten-Step Finish
The Platinum range is where Flattley really separates from the pack.
Each enclosure goes through a ten-step finishing process. Hand-abraded, etch-primed, triple-coated with base primer, then layered with metallic holographic chrome flake before receiving custom hydro-dipped graphics. Three coats of lacquer follow, each wet-sanded and polished with three compound grades. The result is a depth of colour that photographs barely capture.
Aluminium control knobs are laser-etched. LED halo ring lights illuminate the footswitch. A sublimated aluminium logo plaque finishes each unit. Pick one up and you feel the weight and the precision immediately.
Flattley also offer Silver and Gold ranges for players who want the same circuit quality without the Platinum finish. The sound is identical across all three tiers. The difference is purely cosmetic.
The Range
The Centurion Transparent Overdrive has been the bestseller for seven years running. It is a Klon-style circuit that cleans up beautifully with your guitar's volume control and cuts through a band mix without colouring your tone. Guitar World called it "a great pedal for giving you more of what you've already got."
The Revolution Dynamic Overdrive offers three clipping voices: silicon diodes, op-amp, and red LEDs. That flexibility makes it one of the most versatile mid-gain pedals we carry.
Then there is the Type I Wah. External controls for range, inductor selection (Halo, Fasel, or both), gain, and Q bandwidth give you more tonal shaping than almost any wah on the market. Paul spent months analysing several genuine classic wahs to determine what gives old wahs "that sound," then built something that captures it while adding modern control. It arrived "rather fully formed" in his words. The illuminated base and etched knobs make it unmistakable on a pedalboard.
Why We Stock Them
We carry seven Flattley pedals in the showroom, and they represent something increasingly rare in the guitar world. Genuine handmade quality from a maker who understands electronics at an engineering level, not just a hobbyist level.
Paul's avionics background is not a marketing line. It genuinely shapes how these pedals are built. The same standards he applied to helicopter electronics govern his soldering, component selection, and testing. Every pedal meets RoHS, CE, and WEEE compliance requirements, comes in sustainable recycled packaging, and ships with a 12-month guarantee.
The carbon footprint is kept minimal too. PCB design and enclosure painting happen at facilities in Gloucestershire. UV printing for the Silver range graphics is handled nearby. The entire supply chain stays within a small radius in South West England.
Try One
If you have not played through a Flattley pedal, come and hear one for yourself. We have the full range in the showroom, and there is nothing quite like hearing the difference between a mass-produced overdrive and something built by a man who spent 30 years soldering military-grade avionics. Book a visit and we will plug one in for you.
We believe in stocking makers whose work speaks for itself. Flattley is one of those makers. Paul, Phoebe, and Jan have built something special, and we are proud to be part of how it reaches players across the UK. If you want to explore what independent makers bring to the table, start here.
