Audiostorm is a very tiny business based in Manchester UK run by Sean Chase Mandrake.
I’ve been into electronics since I was 7 years old, when I used to take apart radios and rewire anything I could get my hands on. When I joined a band in the 90’s I started making pedals for myself and my friends and have been doing it ever since.
I never intended to make Audiostorm into a serious business, it was always just a second income for fun. My main income came from being a studio technician when I was younger, then a programmer for a while, and eventually I gained a PhD in robotics and became a university lecturer.
Times change though and fee hikes attracted greedy businessmen to run the university instead of academics. We were asked to work harder for less money whilst the new bosses splurged wildly on huge pay rises and vanity projects. Many of my colleagues took redundancy and when the university decided I no longer needed an office I also lost heart. The final straw came in 2019 when my wife was diagnosed with cancer and I also decided the time was right to walk away and focus upon looking after her.
My wife was declared clear of cancer in Feb 2020.
With so many wake-up calls I have decided now to put more focus into doing what I love. In 2020 I trademarked Audiostorm and made it into a fully fledged limited business in order to have better access to parts and to be able to sell more easily around the world. I had grand plans to invest in proper premises and employees in the not-so-distant future, but both Covid-19 and Brexit meant that parts became hard to come by and selling was difficult and uncertain.
None-the-less I pursued plans for many more exciting and original pedal ideas. My focus to this point was mainly been on groundwork, things such as making a better website, learning how to use Amazon, cost-effective advertising work, negotiating the complexities of shipping, improving customer relationships and all the important parts of becoming a trusted and respectable business. My ideas for multi-band distortion, opto-compressors, parallel phasers, inductive recording tools, intelligent pedals, micro valve amps, multi-dimensional controllers and all sorts of fantastic and crazy ideas I had built-up in my mind kept me going. I really just wanted to make these things a reality and damn the cost!
In 2021 I found a unit to rent that was affordable, delivered the Quad Screamer kick-starter despite horrific delays due to parts shortages and took on my first two part-time helpers towards the end of the year. Although as yet I can’t afford to have them work very many hours for me their help has transformed how I work.
It’s now 2022 and I am about to launch this site. Once done I’ll be able to blog about my progress on the site itself and you can follow our journey as it unfolds…