How FEA Labs Began
Friends of mine have been telling me throughout the years that I should make and sell the stomp boxes that I was building for them and myself.  I always thought that my friends drank too much beer. Most of what I had made already existed in some form and I didn’t think that there would be a market for what I had to offer.  While I was shopping for a new compressor for my bass rig I was then convinced that my friends might be right after all.

I have tried several compressor stomp boxes with my bass guitars over the years. Some of them were vintage units, some were new designs, some were so-so and some were just awful sounding. I liked the concept of the dual band compressors that I had tried but none of them were exactly what I was looking for.  They were non-transparent or noisy and one of them even made a great distortion box. I then realized that what I was looking for did not exist in a single stomp-box, so I started to experiment with what gear I had lying around…

What has evolved into the “perfect bass compressor” for my rig, turned out to be an accumulation of equipment. It was a clean pre-amp, a variable active crossover, two channels of optical compression and a mixer to get it all back into the amplifier.  Then the task was to put all of this equipment into a stomp box.  After many months of building, testing and tweaking I had what I long sought after. I have a compressor that has nearly no background noise (hiss), does not alter my instruments natural tone (transparent) and the compression is perfect for bass guitars, especially for my basses with dropped tunings. With great pride and success of my “perfect bass compressor” I decided that I would build them for the more discriminating musician that is looking for a true studio quality compressor in a stomp box. Thus, I created FEA Labs.

How It’s Made

Contact Information
Please use the Contact page for general inquiries.
Frank Appleton:  CEO, Chief Engineer, Manufacturing
Glen Appleton:  Sales and Marketing Support, Promotional Director
Ryan Appleton:  Production Manager and Social Media Director

Warranty Information
All FEA Labs products are fully covered for a period of 5 (five) years for electronics and the foot switches are covered for 1 (one) year against defects in material and workmanship.  Abuse, neglect, and modifications are not covered under the warranty and may result in additional repair costs.  The customer will be responsible for shipping cost to and from FEA Labs for repairs.

Please contact me before attempting to return a unit for repair.
All repairs made outside of the warranty period will be very reasonable (usually only the cost of the parts).  Your satisfaction is priority one.

Frequently Asked Questions
Please view the FAQ page to find frequently asked questions and answers

Shipping Information
Please view the Shipping Information page for full details.