Carl Cook

There are people who sell instruments, and people who have spent their lives inside music. Carl Cook is the latter.

Over thirty years as a working musician, producer and educator has given him a ground-level understanding of what musicians actually need, not from the outside, but from inside the room. Over sixteen years designing, developing and curating instruments, effects and brands at the highest level has given him an equally rare understanding of how the best products are made, who makes them, and what separates the ones worth owning from the ones that aren't.

Few people have operated seriously on both sides of that line. Carl has. Static Devices is where those two bodies of experience meet.

On the music side: signed to Polydor Records, producing alongside John Leckie, working in Scandinavia with bands who went on to top the charts.

On the retail/business side: working through Eastwood Guitars to collaborate directly with Dennis Fano on the Rivolta brand, bringing back the Bass VI format, developing the Peter Hook Series with Hooky himself, working closely with Warren Ellis from his second-ever Eastwood prototype through to the Ten Tenor, Black Ned and CDR. Designer of the Valco FX pedal range. Co-owner and Creative Director of Spaceman Effects.

The Rivolta Mondata CC, his concept, his redesign, built on Dennis Fano's framework, and signed off with his own initials, earned a 9/10 and "touched by genius" from Guitar.com. It was not a fluke, and it was not a coincidence.

As a proud and often frustrated lefty, he has made it his priority throughout to represent the left-handed market, because nobody else was doing it properly.

Carl's curatorial approach doesn't stop at the gear. The collaborators and partners within Static Devices are held to the same standard: deep expertise, genuine passion, and a refusal to do things the "standard" industry way. That is the only company Static Devices keeps.

"It comes down to a single question: Would we stake our own reputation on it? If the answer is no, it doesn't get through the door."

Carl is that person you call about gear. The only difference is, now there's a system.