Engineers from Analog Devices and Kurzweil.

Source Audio is a digital-effects company from Woburn, Massachusetts, north of Boston. Its own accounts of its start differ by a year. A 2007 version of its website, preserved by the Internet Archive, said it was “founded in January 2005 by former engineers, scientists, and executives of Analog Devices, Kurzweil Music Systems, and Thomas H. Lee Partners,” and that it showed its first product at the Winter NAMM show in January 2006. Its current About page says it was “founded in Woburn, Massachusetts in 2006 with the introduction of its first product,” and Guitar World also used 2006 in July 2026. We give both: the company was formed in 2005 and began selling in 2006.

The company does not name a single founder. A management page archived in June 2006 listed Roger K. Smith as president, after 19 years at the chipmaker Analog Devices, where he had been product line director for audio and video products; Jesse Remignanti as vice-president of engineering and inventor of the Hot Hand technology; and Robert H. Chidlaw as chief scientist, after 20 years at Kurzweil Music Systems and Young Chang — alongside a chief operating officer from the investment firm Thomas H. Lee Partners and a head of operations. Smith later became chief executive, and Guitar World identified him as “CEO and Co-Founder” in 2026. We describe Remignanti as the company’s pages do: as an engineer and the inventor of Hot Hand.

That first product was unusual. Hot Hand was a ring worn on the picking hand that turned movement into control of wah-type filter effects. A press release from Analog Devices in April 2006 said it used that company’s ADXL320 accelerometer, and quoted Guitar Player editor Michael Molenda calling it “one of the coolest and most innovative sonic tools debuted at the 2006 Winter NAMM Show.”

Pedals built around software.

Source Audio moved into conventional floor pedals in 2008. Its press releases from that year record the Soundblox line — a Multiwave Distortion and Tri-Mod Flanger, Phaser and Wah — introduced at Winter NAMM in January and shipping by June; the Multiwave Distortion offered 21 distortion effects and could be modulated by the Hot Hand. The company’s technology page credits the multiband approach behind its successor, the Soundblox 2 Multiwave Distortion, to Bob Chidlaw, by then chief technical officer.

Its engineering ties to Analog Devices continued. The company says it and Analog Devices jointly designed the SA601, which it calls “the first system-on-chip for guitar effects,” a single chip carrying a complete analog and digital signal chain; it publishes white papers on that chip, on Analog Devices’ SigmaDSP processors and on Hot Hand. We give the “first” as the company’s claim.

The current range leans on software. Source Audio’s Neuro app, for desktop computers and phones, lets players download, edit and share effects for its pedals, and the company says Neuro 3 can increase a pedal’s functions “10x.” Pedals on its site in 2026 include the Collider delay and reverb, the Ventris reverb, the Nemesis delay, the C4 synth, the EQ2 programmable equaliser, the Artifakt lo-fi pedal, the Pathways reverb and tremolo and the Encounter delay; Guitar World singled out the Artifakt, Encounter, ZIO and Collider. The company lists users including David Gilmour, U2, David Bowie, John Mayer, Aerosmith, Phish, King Crimson and The Cure, and says it has won awards from Premier Guitar, Guitar Player, Sound On Sound, Guitar World, Bass Player and Electronic Musician; it does not say which, and we have not checked them.

Design and documentation.

The seven makers in this group are smaller pedal companies, some building analogue circuits by hand, some writing their own digital processing. Five are American, one Canadian and one English.

Analogman is Mike Piera’s workshop in Bethel, Connecticut, where the Connecticut Mirror reported in 2024 that he has worked full-time since about 2000. Source Audio says it was founded in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 2006; in July 2026 the companies announced that it had become part of Ernie Ball, the string maker.

Meris, which Terry Burton, formerly of Strymon, told Guitar.com he started in 2013, says its pedals are designed and built in California. Red Panda says it began in 2009 and assembles every pedal in its metro Detroit workshop. Old Blood Noise Endeavors lists a shop in Oklahoma City, and Guitar World reported in 2025 that its pedals are hand-made at its Oklahoma headquarters.

Fairfield Circuitry says it has worked since 2008 and does all its manufacturing in Hull, Québec. Origin Effects, founded by Simon Keats, says it hand-builds its pedals in Buckingham, England; the UK company register lists Keats as its controlling shareholder.

Apart from Source Audio, we found no record of an outside owner for any of these companies, and much of what is said about where their pedals are made comes from the companies themselves.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A small pedal maker joins a string giant.

Source Audio was independent for two decades. On 8 July 2026 it announced that it had become “part of the Ernie Ball / Music Man family,” and Guitar World and Premier Guitar reported the deal the same day; no price was given in the reports we read. Guitar World called it the first time the string maker had moved into premium effects, beyond its own volume pedals, and said Source Audio would keep operating under its own brand, with existing pedals staying on sale. Ernie Ball’s chief executive, Brian Ball, said the pedals “inspire musicians to find sounds they didn’t know they were looking for”; Smith, described by Source Audio as its owner, said Ernie Ball “gives Source Audio the scale, support, and reach to keep growing.” Source Audio’s announcement added that Josh Scott of JHS Pedals had been first to reveal the deal and that a collaboration with him was planned.

Where the pedals are made is less clear. Source Audio presents itself as a Woburn company and in 2026 called itself “a very small team,” but we found no statement on its website about where its pedals are manufactured or assembled, so we do not say. One name trap: the pedal maker is at sourceaudio.net, while SourceAudio at sourceaudio.com is an unrelated music-licensing platform.

For a design guide, Source Audio shows how a pedal brand can be defined by software and engineering papers as much as by its enclosures. Compare Strymon, which Guitar World named as a competitor, and Chase Bliss, another maker of deeply programmable pedals. For this guide we use circuit navy, signal cyan and aluminium grey with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Source Audio’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.