In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Angelo Mazzocco and Terry Burton, co-founders of Meris.

We discuss their founder stories, their approach to both software DSP and hardware development, how challenging it is to build and sustain a music technology business in today’s market conditions, and the pair also answer some quick-fire questions, and questions from the community.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Oliver Ackermann, founder of Death By Audio.

We chat about Oliver’s founder story, his approach to both analog and digital pedal design, his thoughts on the current state of affairs, from social issues to the rise and impact of AI, and he answers some quick-fire questions, and questions from you too.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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I asked some of the biggest names in effects pedals to name their favourite stomp boxes of all time. Some choices were all about the sound, some were just classics and others were the reason they got into pedal building in the first place.

Across my conversations with Mike Piera (Analog Man), Jamie Stillman (EQD), John Snyder (EAE), Brian Wampler (Wampler Pedals), Joel Korte (Chase Bliss), Brady Smith (OBNE) and Steve Bragg (Empress) on the Products of Music show, these are the pedals they chose and video links are also included with exact timestamps.

Analog Man

The choices by Mike Piera (also known as Analog Mike) were less about formative inspiration and more about pedals that just sound great and work in his own rig. Most have earned a place on his current board (space permitting).

Electro-Harmonix C9 Organ Machine

The EHX C9 Organ Machine “springboards off the revolutionary B9 to mine another rich vein of classic gold and provide players with nine more definitive organ and keyboard sounds”, according to the manufacturer.

The pedal was released in 2014 and provides control over percussive click, modulation, attack/sustain, drawbar setting or high frequency content. It also allows you to blend your dry signal to create layers.

Mike loves running the C9 into his own chorus pedal and the red side of the King of Tone to create a “dirty Leslie-style sound”. To his ears, it sounds better than many of the real organs he owns.

This is a full-circle choice too. Mike began by playing a Farfisa organ through effects pedals in his younger days and used it to perform guitar-like parts.

“Now, I’m playing organ parts on the guitar, and it’s a lot of fun,” he told Products of Music.

MXR Phase 90

The MXR Phase 90 is a legendary, single-knob analogue phase shifter pedal introduced in 1974.

Mike keeps an original 1974 Phase 90 on his board and particularly enjoys using it with muted picking, a technique that Ian McDonald of King Crimson and Foreigner once told him about.

The Phase 90 has appeared on many classic recordings, including Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love”. David Gilmour also used one for live performances of Pink Floyd’s “Breathe”, although the original studio recording featured a Uni-Vibe. More on that in Mike’s next choice.

Uni-Vibe

The Uni-Vibe is a classic late-60s modulation effect originally created to mimic a rotating Leslie speaker, which is known for creating a throbbing and swirly phase-chorus sound.

Mike struggled to name one definitive favourite Uni-Vibe, so he used the term more generally. He owns three vintage originals, although none currently fits on his board.

His more practical solution was to build a compact alternative into another pedal:

“I don’t have room for it on my board, so what I have is a Dunlop Octavia, and I added an [Analog Man] Sun Face and a Danelectro Chicken Salad Uni-Vibe to it. It’s not great, but it works.”

As an aside, Josh Scott of JHS Pedals provides a great Uni-Vibe 101 rundown here.

Jamie Stillman (EarthQuaker Devices)

Jamie’s three choices would make a pretty versatile pedalboard, although a tie for the final spot means he technically gave us four…

Death By Audio Apocalypse

The Apocalypse was Jamie’s immediate and emphatic first choice. He did not elaborate further during our conversation, but his enthusiasm for the pedal is well established, as he has previously described it as one of the best-looking designs he has ever seen.

The pedal is a jack-of-all-trades fuzz pedal. After being dramatically overdriven, “the signal is routed to one of five selectable post-amplifiers for five wild and unique fuzz tones. Toggle through its five signal paths and choose your desired apocalyptic sound,” states the company.

The Fuzz Face circuit

Rather than choosing a particular model, Jamie selected the Fuzz Face circuit itself.

The Fuzz Face, first released in 1966, was designed by Ivor Arbiter as a simplified version of the Maestro Fuzz-Tone.

It is a circuit that Jamie has explored extensively throughout his career. The EQD Erupter, for example, grew directly from his experimentation with the circuit.

Strymon El Capistan / DigiTech Whammy

Unable to separate them, Jamie tied the Strymon El Capistan and DigiTech Whammy for his final choice.

The El Capistan provides warm vintage delay tones, a 20-second sound-on-sound looper, and a built-in spring reverb.

Meanwhile, the DigiTech Whammy gives players “hair-raising ‘dive bomb’ effects, gripping pitch bends, and lightning harmony shifts”, according to the manufacturer.

The El Capistan occupies a space between pristine digital fidelity and the instability of an ageing tape echo:

“It’s, like, shockingly hi-fi… lo-fi. Somehow, it is just very inspiring to play through,” Jamie told Products of Music.

The Whammy didn’t get a further explanation, although it is evidently more than a passing choice. Jamie selected the compact Whammy Ricochet when invited to assemble a pedalboard from Sweetwater’s effects collection in 2023.

John Snyder (Electronic Audio Experiments)

John’s choices lean heavily into inspiration, including one pedal he credits with setting him on the path to building effects himself.

DigiTech PDS 20/20

John’s top pick was the DigiTech PDS 20/20. First released in the 1980s, it was a dual-footswitch digital delay and modulation pedal that provided up to two full seconds of delay time at full bandwidth, and contained built-in chorus and flanger modes with adjustable speed and depth.

The pedal also helped inspire Big Time, his recent pedal collaboration with Chase Bliss.

“One of my goals is to take four PDS 20/20s and put them in a matrix mixer, because I could do a whole drone set with just that and it would be really fun,” said John.

Caroline Wave Cannon V1

The original Wave Cannon was Caroline Guitar Company’s first pedal, a loud, aggressive distortion and fuzz released in 2010.

For John, its importance is personal.

“It was just this incredibly inspiring pedal. It’s a big, loud, raunchy distortion, it does exactly what you want it to, and has just enough noise options to keep it exciting. I definitely would not be building pedals if not for falling in love with the Wave Cannon at a guitar store in probably 2013 or so.”

Red Panda Tensor

The Tensor combines tape-style effects, reverse and pitch shifting, and has remained a fixture on John’s board since he first bought one.

“For me, it’s my favourite sort of time-travelling pedal. I can almost use that pedal without looking at it. I just know that interface so well, and it means I can perform with it and improvise with it.”

Brian Wampler (Wampler Pedals)

Brian was originally asked to name his single favourite pedal of all time. Rather than settle on one, he gave several shout-outs to pedals he rates highly, including ones that he thinks could be underappreciated.

Bogner La Grange

The La Grange was an amp-in-a-box guitar overdrive and boost pedal designed to emulate classic mid-60s British Plexi amplifiers and modded high-gain amps from the 80s and 90s.

Brian highlighted the Bogner La Grange for the realism of its clipping and overdrive character.

“I don’t know how well it did, but man, I’ve always loved the realistic clipping texture of that pedal.”

Revv pedals

While looking through the pedal collection behind him, Brian also gave a quick mention to Revv, describing the company’s pedals as consistently great.

He could have been referring to one of the lower-gain models in the line-up (although it was not confirmed), such as the G2, which was “developed alongside Nashville’s premier session guitarists to quickly achieve a wide variety of touch-sensitive edge-of-breakup & transparent crunch tones that satisfy the needs of the most demanding players”, says Revv.

Marshall pedals

Brian highlighted Marshall’s more recent Plexi pedal in particular which looks to capture the dynamic range, clarity and rich tonal character that “defined the vintage roar of the original 1959”, the company states.

He also mentioned the JVM variant, although its higher-gain character is less suited to his tastes.

“The Plexi is awesome. That’s probably one of my favourite non-Wampler pedals right now, because I’m into this Plexi phase.”

That phase began after years of being primarily a Fender amp player. At the time of our conversation, he had recently purchased a PRS HDRX 20, which took him down the Plexi rabbit hole.

“I bought it on a whim. Sam Ash was going out of business and it was a good price. I took it home, fell in love with it and thought, ‘I really need to dive deep into Plexis for a while.’”

Joel Korte (Chase Bliss)

Joel’s choices reflect both his early years at ZVEX and his fascination with pedals that achieve something technically unusual.

ZVEX Fuzz Factory

Joel’s first choice came from the company where he learned his craft before founding Chase Bliss. Designed by Zachary Vex, the Fuzz Factory has become one of the most recognisable and awesomely unpredictable fuzz pedals ever made.

ZVEX Lo-Fi Loop Junky

His second choice was the Lo-Fi Loop Junky, which delivers a 20-second analogue phrase-sampling looper with “very low fidelity, frequency response that cuts off at 2.6 kHz, brick-wall compression, hiss, distortion and a warped-record vibrato feature that makes your guitar sound like an ancient radio transmission, but your direct guitar sounds especially sparkly,” according to ZVEX.

Unlike the Instant Lo-Fi Junky, the original Lo-Fi Loop Junky was not a pedal Joel worked on himself.

“Zack did that one. I did the Instant Lo-Fi Junky. It just captured my heart. That warbly, vibrato, compressed sound is still one of my favourite sounds today. I just love it.”

Foxrox Paradox TZF

The Foxrox Paradox TZF was the very first guitar stomp box designed to create a through-zero-flange in almost-real time. It was in production between 2002 and 2006, and fewer than 500 were made.

According to its designer Dave Fox: “When I went to the Institute of Audio Research in 1983, I was curious about through-zero-flanging, so I asked one of the professors if it was possible in real time. He told me no - it's impossible. You would need a time machine so you could get sound from the future in order to get that over-the-top sweep. I understood his point, but the first thing that occurred to me was - what if I delay the dry signal? It's almost-real time.” Quote source.

Joel owned the original Paradox, rather than the later TZF2 version, and was particularly inspired by the analogue through-zero flanging.

“One of the things I know most about is analogue bucket-brigade technology, and this is super hard to do.”

Through-zero flanging requires two delay lines to cross over one another. Achieving that in analogue circuitry is especially difficult because the separate clock frequencies can interfere with each other, creating noise and unwanted artefacts.

“It was hugely inspiring to me. My spin-off and inspiration from that was the [Chase Bliss] Spectre. The pedal is just legendary, and the engineering behind it is so impressive.”

Brady Smith (Old Blood Noise Endeavors)

Faced with the pressure of naming his three favourite pedals of all time, Brady gave himself a more practical brief: build a desert-island pedalboard.

EarthQuaker Devices Gray Channel

Brady’s first choice was the now-discontinued EarthQuaker Devices Gray Channel, a dual overdrive based around the DOD 250 circuit, a classic hard-clipping overdrive and one of the pedals that got Jamie Stillman to start building pedals and launch EQD.

The Gray Channel is two channels of “a simple hard clipping overdrive that leaves the character of the guitar and amp intact”, according to EQD.

“I use that all the time,” said Brady.

Empress Effects Bass Compressor

For compression, Brady chose the Empress Bass Compressor. This was a pedal he had already praised earlier in our conversation and had recently been enjoying immensely.

It is a high-end, studio-grade compressor with input and gain reduction metering, independent attack and release controls, a mix knob for parallel compression and more.

Looking at his increasingly practical pedal selection, Brady conceded:

“God, this is a boring board…”

Meris LVX

To cover everything else, Brady turned to the Meris LVX, a modular delay system which “breaks the paradigm of pre-set delay types in favour of freedom and flexibility”, according to the company.

“One of the Meris pedals would be good [to] cover all my bases. The bigger delay they have, the LVX. That would get me to where I needed to be.”

Steve Bragg (Empress Effects)

Steve’s choices centred around a particular theme: pedals that turn the guitar into something closer to a retro games console.

Mid-Fi Electronics Glitch Computer

Steve’s first choice was the Glitch Computer, a pedal he cannot imagine ever being displaced from the top spot.

It is a high-gain fuzz with “poorly tracking two-octave-down harmony, from slight glitches to full-on random arpeggiation”, the company states.

“It kind of makes things sound like a video game. I love that pedal.”

Empress once ran the pedal into a ParaEq for an early demonstration video, a combination Steve said he thought sounded particularly good.

Parasit Studio Arcadiator

The Arcadiator was a gift from a former Empress employee and features an acid-etched Pac-Man design on its enclosure.

The pedal is a CMOS-based fuzz that does square wave fuzz, octave down, octave up, pulse width modulation, alternating octaves modulation and more.

“It also kind of makes everything sound like a computer game. It’s pretty sweet.”

Chase Bliss Lost + Found

Steve’s final choice was the Lost + Found, a limited Chase Bliss release featuring 12 different effects, with six on each side.

Lost + Found is Chase Bliss’s first true multi-effect where its modes can be blended in countless ways, with a “full spectrum of textures inspired by the effects that have captivated and perplexed us over the years”, notes Chase Bliss.

“I was recently able to start diving into this thing, and it’s pretty wild. Some of the algorithms on their own are just wild, like the Impulse Synth and the Grain Tumbler.”

Wrap-up

These choices are only a tiny part of the wider conversations on Products of Music, where I speak with the founders behind some of the most interesting companies in music technology about how they built their businesses, developed their ideas and created the products they are known for.

Future guests will be answering these questions and plenty more, so subscribe to the Substack to be notified of future episodes and read bonus content like this. Please make sure to also subscribe to the YouTube channel to watch the full interviews.

Answers accurate at the respective times of recording.

In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with John Snyder, Founder of Electronic Audio Experiments (EAE), about his journey, approach to product development at the company, tips for aspiring pedal builders, as well as his new reverb pedal with a pre-amp in the works.

To learn more about the company, visit: www.electronicaudioexperiments.com.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Steve Bragg, founder of Empress Effects, about what makes an Empress Effects pedal an Empress Effects pedal, his founder story, the company’s approach to product development, and much more.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Martin Kidd, Chief Designer and Co-Founder of Victory Amplification. We discuss his founder journey, perspective on Cornford Amps ceasing trading, the birth of Victory Amps and his approach to product development. We also have some quick-fire questions and community questions.

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We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Brady Smith, co-founder of Old Blood Noise Endeavors, about his founder journey, how the company approaches product development and inside stories from one of the leaders in experimental and ambient pedal effects.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Francisco Cresp, co-founder and CPO at Neural DSP, about his founder journey, how the company approaches product development and inside stories from one of the leading names in digital modeling for guitar and other instruments.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

In this episode, host Adam Wakeling speaks with Analog Mike Piera, founder of Analog.man, about his approach to product development, the infamous waitlist for the King of Tone, the state of the guitar and pedal market and what the future looks like for the company.

To learn more, visit: https://www.analogman.com/

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We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Tosin Abasi, CEO, and Ivan Chopik, COO, of Abasi Concepts, about their founder journeys; approach to product development of extended-range instruments and pedals; and the current state of the guitar and pedal market.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Jamie Stillman, Founder of EarthQuaker Devices about the impact of tariffs on small US businesses; why Jamie is not concerned about the current generation of digital modelers like the Quad Cortex and Helix, as well as how EarthQuaker Devices approaches product development at the company.

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About the company:

We’re a group of pedal makers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Our first pedal, Warped Vinyl, was an analog vibrato with a digital brain. The idea was to match the quality and character of analog processing with the anything-goes flexibility of digital control. We make digital circuits now too, but the approach is the same: Offer new and deeply personal ways to interact with effects.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Joel Korte, founder of Chase Bliss, about his founder journey, the ‘chase bliss way’ of product development, as well as his successes, failures and effects pedal market insights.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Dave Friedman, founder of Friedman Amplification, about his approach to product development at the company; the analog versus digital debate; and what the future of boutique amps looks like.

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Brian Wampler, Founder of Wampler Pedals. From the humble beginnings of modding pedals in his garage to producing some of the most sought-after boutique pedals in the industry, Brian Wampler’s journey is one of passion, innovation, and a relentless pursuit of the perfect guitar tone.

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In this episode:

🟠 Product strategy insights for developing music hardware
🟠 Inside stories from Fender and Universal Audio
🟠 Tips on progressing in Product Management

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Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Rob Chapman, Founder of Chapman Guitars.

In this episode:

🟠 The origin story of Chapman Guitars

🟠 How YouTube became pivotal for growth

🟠 Staying agile while manufacturing physical products

🟠 Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and founders

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Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Daniel Steinhardt, Founder of GigRig, about his 20-year journey building the company to be one of the market leaders in in guitar pedal power and switching technology. Dan has also co-built a successful YouTube channel with over 420,000 subscribers.

In this episode:

🟠 The inspiration for Dan to build a new product from scratch

🟠 How YouTube became pivotal for early product growth

🟠 Navigating the challenges of manufacturing physical products

🟠 Practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and founders

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In this episode:

Host Adam Wakeling speaks with Tommy Stalknecht, co-founder and CEO of Single, the direct-to-fan platform for Shopify. Since its inception in 2018, Single has transformed the way artists engage with their audiences by empowering them to sell music, merch, video and memberships directly to fans.

Under Tommy's leadership, Single has facilitated the sale of over 5 million digital albums, reported 16 million albums to Billboard, and hosted livestream events for millions of viewers worldwide.

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This year’s event saw a number of new launches, iterations and product reissues, and brought the whole industry together under one roof to share new product innovations.

At the show, MQA Labs released a suite of tools for engineers called QRONO that focuses on overcoming the “flatness” often present in digital recordings.

The problem, according to the company, is related to the fact that we can perceive distinct auditory signals as close together as 7 microseconds [1-3] (see image below).

“This precision was critical for early humanity’s survival,” the company states in its Whitepaper. “As it applies to music perception, it provides the fine texture, clear delineation and spatial impression of musical instruments. Audio processing that fails to preserve these time details will blur sounds together. For decades, digital audio technologies and systems overlooked the critical importance of this level of accuracy. Armed with this new knowledge, it’s imperative to double-down on efforts to improve and fix this aspect of digital audio.”

Their solution is to design DAC filters that do not exhibit pre-ringing and stop ringing fast enough to not blur events that can be discerned by our hearing. “QRONO d2a uses proven engineering practice combined with thoughtful and creative solutions to create a breakthrough in digital audio reproduction.”

Keep in down

Elsewhere, Celestion launched Peacekeeper, a low-sensitivity, dual voice coil, attenuating 12in speaker for guitarists and other amplified musicians.

The innovation here is in its unique dual voice coil design, which the company claims can enable musicians to get the “sweet spot” of sound without needing volume to get there, something no other speaker has yet achieved. The reduced input sensitivity allows it to be driven harder, thus acting as a natural attenuator for guitar amps, which previously required musicians to use a separate attenuating device to achieve.

There were also a number of iconic instruments being ported into the software world this year, namely Novation’s collaboration with GForce Software on its Bass Station and Roland bringing its Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus “officially” to DAWs.

The Bass Station, loved by the electronic music world since its launch in the early 1990s, delivers 16-voice polyphony and unison mode in its software version and has an in-built arpeggiator and sequencer.

The JC-120 Jazz Chorus guitar amplifier, meanwhile, was celebrating its 50th birthday this year. The new official software version will be compatible with VST3, AU, and AAX plug-in formats and includes extended parameters for modern production environments.

In the instrument space, Nord unveiled its new Piano 6, which brings advanced layering capabilities and greater flexibility for performance. Players are able to combine two independent sample-based synth layers and piano layers.

Some of the keyboard’s noteworthy effects include: dedicated effects section per layer; modulation effects with rate and amount; global Reverb with send per layer, pre-delay, chorale and bright/dark mode, among others.

Coming together

A surprising development at this year’s show was the announcement of Native Instruments’ Native Kontrol Standard (NKS) Hardware Partner Program.

In its release, it stated that industry leaders Akai Professional, Novation, Nektar, Korg, and M-Audio are adopting the NKS ecosystem to power seamless integration with Native Instruments software. This connects music makers to over 2,000 NKS-compatible instruments and effects from more than 250 brands.

“This expansion highlights the impact of collaboration,” said Simon Cross, Chief Product Officer at Native Instruments. “It marks an important milestone in our mission to provide musicians with an open, connected platform, making professional-grade tools, instruments, and technology more accessible to creators everywhere.”

Classics reimagined

In the guitar world Marshall teased “a new take on a classic” amplifier and a “stomping new line-up” of FX pedals ahead of the event.

At the show the company presented five new compact overdrive pedals modelled from its classic range of amplifiers, following the recent product trend towards making things smaller and lighter.

However, the company still focused on its traditional market at the show, announcing new modified valve amps (1959, JCM800) as well as a a new JCM 900 Studio model.

The modified versions have taken the classic design and modernised them with mid-shift functionality, two overdrives and a ‘tight sound’ switch to produce a tighter, snappier low end.

All talk, no show

NAMM 2025 was a stronger showing compared to its post-covid 2024 edition that returned to its regular January slot. However, times have changed and heavyweights such as Fender did not have a booth to display its vast array of guitars, but just personnel to meet the dealers.

The guitar company’s CEO, Andy Mooney, told Guitar World: “I think we really missed the personal interaction with the dealer base. That, I think, is the single biggest thing.”

“Even though we’re going back, what I felt had happened at NAMM – which is what had happened in my two previous lives at Nike and Disney – is that trade shows take on a life of their own […] It becomes Booth Wars – ‘My booth has to be bigger than your booth’ – and you end up spending tons of money for a very short period of time. We were kind of thinking, ‘Is this the right way to go forward?’”

He continued: “For Covid, we were compelled to do something differently and what we found during Covid when we did the online events, we were able to do them at much less cost but reach deeper into the organisation.”

Time will tell if other large manufacturers will follow this approach for next year’s event.

As a home-studio musician and podcaster, I’ve encountered my share of audio challenges. High ceilings, ambient noise and room echo have all been persistent issues, disrupting the clarity of my recordings.

I’ve experimented with all sorts of fixes, from EQ adjustments to hanging a large bed sheet over my desk to dampen sound. Needless to say, these solutions were far from ideal. So, I started researching software options that could help mitigate my studio’s environmental impact on recordings. That’s when I came across the Waves Clarity VX DeReverb plugin.

Here is how Waves Audio describes the plugin:

Got great vocal recordings ruined by unwanted background noise—air conditioner, room rumble, rain, traffic, airplane flyovers, background talking, etc.? Solve these issues with Clarity™ Vx, whose advanced Neural Networks (the same engine as in the larger Clarity™ Vx Pro) are trained to recognize vocals, and separate them from noise.

The plugin is simple and intuitive, featuring just five main controls. You can select a neural network, adjust the imaging, tweak vocal presence to maintain clarity and use the large “DeReverb” dial to achieve in the right amount of noise reduction. Within about 30 seconds, my vocal recordings—previously full of unwanted room echo—sounded significantly clearer and more focused, as if I’d recorded in a semi-treated studio.

I recently did a video demo of the plugin alongside the Universal Audio C-Suite C-Vox de-noise plugin, which is a good complement to this plugin.

Hear the plugin in action:

I did push the DeReverb dial to see how much further I could go, but, as mentioned in the video above, turning it too high caused my voice to sound muddy and muted. The plugin works best with moderate settings, so finding that “sweet spot” is key.

Overall, the Clarity VX DeReverb is straightforward and effective. It’s a minimalist tool that conceals its technical complexity, leaving users with only a few controls to fine-tune.

The only drawback is that it doesn’t remove ambient noise during vocal passages—only reverb and echo, and if you are faced with a really bad echo, it is not going to work miracles. To handle background noise, you’d need to extend your plugin chain with a separate de-noise tool. The full Clarity VX suite includes this feature, though at a higher price (I personally use the C-Vox C-Suite for noise reduction). For these reasons I’d rate the standalone Clarity VX DeReverb plugin four stars.

One tip: consider picking up the plugin during a sale, as it’s frequently discounted.

TL;DR Verdict: The Waves Clarity VX DeReverb is an intuitive and effective plugin for tackling room echo and reverb in vocal recordings, though it doesn’t remove ambient noise while speaking. Ideal for home-studio setups with echo issues. Best purchased on sale.

This review was not sponsored, nor contains any affiliate links.

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