Early Shin-ei Advertisements

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From the very beginning of my vintage pedal journey I have been captivated by the Japanese effects giant, Shin-ei Electric. It was one of (if not THE) first company I ever legitimately researched, after seeing what was clearly a dominating amount of pedals they produced throughout the 70s. The endless OEM brandings combined with three of the most classic effects of all time (Uni-Vibe, Super Fuzz, FY-2) made the history of Shin-ei a super intriguing topic for my ocd nerd brain.

But unlike the vast majority of US pedal manufacturers that were relatively easy to research, the more layers I peeled, the further away I got from learning who was behind Shin-ei and what their actual connection to pedal history was. To this date, we (well, I ) still don't know any names of anyone who worked for what has to have been a huge factory (and one that ran for at least a decade). Nor do we know if they actually designed any of the effects they built. Nor do we know something as simple as how a foreign brand, like Apollo, would have found out about Shin-ei and hired them to produce gear with their logo attached...

So today we continue with what I've been able to find over the past couple of years, with a little help from some friends over in Japan. We have 3 advertisements (all from 1969, I believe) that show Shin-ei in a moment of transition, from "Shin-ei, the manufacturer of microphones and pickups", to "Shin-ei, the manufacturer of guitar effects and more". As far as I know, none of these have been available on the internet until now :)

Above is the original ad, and below is the Google translated version (probably not a perfect translation). This is from the early Spring of 1969 and shows Shin-ei advertising an entire line of various pickups. 

It is currently believed that they had been around as early as the late 1950s, manufacturing pickups for the various Tokyo-based guitar companies.

One thing to note is that we see no mention of effects pedals or Companion as a brand. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, but I feel like it's important enough to point out.

This one, dated to April of 1969, is special because by all accounts Honey had gone bankrupt just a month prior. And I had long held the belief that Shin-ei produced the Honey effects, but recently I've come across some big evidence that tells a different story.

The small blurb at the end of this ad reads, "A specialized manufacturer of guitar microphones, vocal microphones, and transformers". To me, this implies that they did not yet manufacture effects pedals. 

Related to this, is the 1968 Honey catalog that contains a line of microphones. A big part of me thought that if I could just match up the mics sold by Honey that were also sold by Shin-ei, then I would crack the code! Unfortunately, there were zero matches...

This one is important! And while I unfortunately don't have a specific date attached to it, my assumption is that this ad is from some time in mid-late 1969.

The Companion logo is different than any we've seen on any effects we know of. Additionally, we see our first pedal, that appears to be a wah. But while it is similar, it's actually like no other Companion branded wah known to exist. The treadle portion with the small arrows pointing to the input and output jacks, we have seen before in the earliest run of Surf Siren Wahs. So what I believe we're seeing in this ad, is the very likely the first Shin-ei/Companion effect pedal.

Another important part of this ad is the phrase: 

"We can produce a microphone based on your design, even if it is just one unit."

This says to me that they have now officially entered the world of Original Equipment Manufacturing, and are willing to work with companies as large as Hohner, or as small as Mana (see this article on many of the different brand badges found on Super Fuzzes).

I had previously stated that I hadn't found any evidence that Companion existed as a brand before March of 1970. And while I don't have a specific date on this final ad, the handful of clues it does provide would make it appear that possibly by the end of 1969 Companion was in and Honey was out. And Shin-ei Electric was on the precipice of becoming the largest manufacturer of Japanese effects for the coming decade.

*One thing I would like to point out is the article we put up a couple months ago regarding the Japanese Wedge Fuzz. In there I posit that Shin-ei did NOT produce the famous Sekova wedge fuzzes, even though they did have a relationship later on. If what we're seeing in these ads is proof that they didn't start manufacturing effects until the second half of 1969, then it would have been impossible for them to have made the wedge fuzzes.

thanks for reading,

-ed