
Nicholas Harris, founder of Catalinbread Effects, died on Wednesday after a tree fell onto his car according to a report from oregonlive.com. Per an Oregon State Police spokesman, the tree fell because of heavy winds in the area. Harris was 37 years old.
Harris and Catalinbread were well-known for constantly pushing the envelope of their effects with such massively popular pedals as the Echorec and Belle Epoch delays. For those in the pedal community, Harris will be remembered as an uncompromising innovator whose design ethos centered on producing the most compelling and interesting sounds possible, with little concern for market trends and fads. As Harris told the Tone Report in a 2014 interview: "We don’t take polls or host focus groups on what the marketplace thinks it wants ... Our primary focus is to make what we want for ourselves — gear that gets us excited and inspires us to play.”
It was that commitment to forging new sounds that earned Harris a reputation as one of the giants in the effects field. As described by Josh Scott of JHS Pedals: "I consider Nick one of the greats at what we do in this industry....He has left a permanent creative mark in time and will be missed by so many."
Our thoughts and condolences are with the Harris family, his colleagues at Catalinbread and the entire Portland music community at this time.
Update: Members of the pedal building community have set up a fundraising page on GoFundMe to help raise money for funeral expenses and other needs surrounding this tragedy. See more information via this link.