20 years ago I started a little site called "DiscoFreq's Envelope Filter site" as there were no overviews listing more than 20 envelope filters. After the envelope filters, I added other types of filters (including synth modules), then octavers, ring modulators, vocoders, talkboxes, fuzz pedals, phasers, flangers,... until I decided to add ALL pedals, including the hundreds and hundreds of distortion and overdrive pedals.
From the beginning, it was very important to me to include all the small builders. There was a small "wave" of new builders (after the "boutique pioneers" from the 90s) and a lot of those new companies at first only had a presence on eBay and forums like Harmony-Central.
A lot of those early brands disappeared and many of the "big" brands now didn't even exist yet. I've seen several other "waves" of pedal builders since (the next one was in 2007-2008, "helped" by the financial crisis at the time, a lot of Musikmesse (RIP) and NAMM shows and a lot of other changes (YouTube didn't exist in 2003).
I can't really make a big celebration of this anniversary right now as the last few years I had to slow down (divorce, moving a few times, evening course,...) and focus on keeping the site running, adding the new videos,... I did see the new brands and pedals and added many hundreds of each in a queue, but I couldn't keep up adding them.
I'd like to catch up again soon and finally give the site a big overhaul as well (there were previous attempts, but no results...).
I always had lots of plans and ideas, some of which have since been done by others like a similar site about synth modules, a system to "switch" pedals on/off in audio demos (working prototype for about 10 years),...
As I did it all on my own and in my spare time with very limited resources, I didn't really manage to add everything I want/wanted. I had lots of work just to keep it running and growing in the existing format, so I'm still interested in help from others, this really should be a community effort.
Help is very welcome with content, development (also for a related Raspberry Pi idea I have for years!) and sponsorships/advertisers (currently carrying a big part of the costs myself).
That way I hope we can add many more years to this site and celebrate the next big birthday
Cheers!
Bart / DiscoFreq