Written by Source Audio CEO and Founder, Roger Smith.

I have spent quite a bit of time pouring over tributes to Phil Lesh from all corners, including the roster of artists who have incorporated Source Audio’s products into their sound over the years. Billy Strings, Warren Haynes, John Mayer, Mike Gordon, Eric Krasno, Andy Falco, and Trey Anastasio are among those who wrote heartfelt personal tributes to the groundbreaking bass player of the Grateful Dead, who passed away Friday morning a week ago.

King Crimson fans rejoice! Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai, and Danny Carey (of the band Tool) are on the road playing songs from King Crimson's 1980s releases. We're talking songs from the records Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair. This incredible period in King Crimson's career marked a rebirth. Fresh after recording some brilliant guitar on Talking Heads' Remain In Light, Belew joined forces Levin, drummer Bill Bruford, and guitarist and founding Crimson member, Robert Fripp. Following quite a long hiatus from their previous 1974 release, Red, King Crimson were back with a new sense of purpose and potency. Discipline, released in 1981, was every bit as adventurous and vital as the band's late 60s and early 70s work.

The new lineup of Belew, Levin, Vai, and Carey call themselves BEAT, named after the second record in their 80s trilogy. Anybody who calls themself a guitar or bass enthusiast... aficionado... addict, needs to attend this show. The thought of Adrian Belew and Steve Vai sharing the same stage for an entire evening is the "stuff that dreams are made of." 

All of us here at Source Audio were thrilled to learn that Adrian Belew has added our Nemesis Delay ADT and Artifakt Lo-Fi Elements to his touring rig. Our friends over at Premier Guitar just posted a couple of excellent videos with Adrian, a comprehensive Rig Rundown as well as an thoroughly engaging interview. â€‹

On the night of July 18, 2024 the Source Audio team witnessed something very special. Hometown hero Noah Kahan stepped on stage for the first of two sold out performances at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the legendary home of the Boston Red Sox. We are very happy to report that Source Audio pedals were at the feet of many of Kahan's band members that night.

This was, no doubt, an intensely emotional night for Noah Kahan, a guy who grew up just down the road in nearby Stafford, Vermont. The last two years have seen the meteoric rise in Kahan's career. In a very short time he grew from a well respected club act with a growing fanbase to a Grammy nominated folk-rock sensation.  Kahan had already put out two albums when, in July 2022, he released the single Stick Season, followed by a full-length album of the same name. Stick Season marks the moment when his career caught fire and he made the jump from touring 1,000 seat clubs like Boston's Paradise Rock Club to playing sold out shows at Madison Square Garden and Wembley Arena, an appearance on Saturday Night Live, and duet performances with Gracie Abrams, Post Malone, and Olivia Rodrigo to name a few. 

Growing up in Vermont, Kahan knows the brutal New England winters all too well. That bleak climate combined with the isolation of a worldwide pandemic were major sources of inspiration for much of the material on Stick Season.  It is a record drenched in the spirit and the despair of region. The performance at Fenway Park - a place that many would call the "heart of New England"- was truly a concert for the ages. It's rare that an artist can make a ballpark filled with roughly 38,000 people feel intimate, but heartfelt songs like Northern Attitude, Stick Season, and Homesick spoke directly to this Northeastern crowd. An entire ballpark full of locals screaming along to the lyric, "I'm mean because I grew up in New England" was just one of many powerful moment throughout this magical night. 

Much of the credit for Source Audio's presence on Kahan's stage has to go to our old friend Alex Bachari. Alex has been in Kahan's band since the very beginning, he has also been one of Source Audio's greatest endorsers. Alex's bass pedalboard is equipped with several of our pedals, including the ZIO Analog Bass Preamp, Atlas Compressor, Aftershock Bass Distortion, and Gemini Chorus (Learn more about Alex on his dedicated artist page). He was also nice enough to send us this sweeeeeet photo of his view from the stage during the Fenway Park soundcheck. Alex also turned his bandmates on to our pedals. Guitarist, Noah Levine and keyboardist Dylan Jones both use Source Audio populated boards. 

We are making some serious updates to the entire Source Audio Neuro Editor experience, and we would love to hear what all of you think of where we are and where we're going. So at this critical moment we are asking for a little bit of your time. We want to hear from everyone who has an opinion of the Neuro Editor, from active users to people with serious complaints. Thank you for helping us! We think that this will lead to much better Neuro Editor and Source Audio pedal experience, and we look forward to seeing what the future holds.

We recently had the immense pleasure of spending some time with Tony Levin, a true legend in the world of bass (and the Chapman Stick). Tony visited Source Audio headquarters while he was in the area visiting friends and enjoying some downtime just before Christmas. He actually grew in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston about 20 minutes away from Source Audio's home in Woburn, MA - he's a fellow New Englander!!! We had a blast talking music and music gear with this pioneering master of low-end. 

​There’s something about the crisp, sprawling, all-encompassing iciness of a New England winter that undeniably evokes the Cocteau Twins’ music and textures.  Or perhaps this is merely a self-projection under the guise of seasonal elements to justify why I’m listening to the Cocteaus in this moment, when in reality, their albums are perfectly reasonable for any moment in time.

BOSTON, MA - Industry veteran Ray Maxwell has joined Massachusetts-based effects pedal company, Source Audio as CEO. Maxwell previously served on the management team at Eventide, leading a pivot into plugins and pedals. Previously, Maxwell held positions at Lexicon, Rocket Network, and Digibid.com.

We need to send out a big THANK YOU to the great people at Premier Guitar Magazine for honoring the Atlas Compressor with their "Premier Gear" award. PG reviewer Dave Hunter wrote, "Atlas offered what felt like near-infinite adjustability - everything from singing sustain, squash-and-swell sounds to detailed, harmonic-rich, and muscular jangle." We have tremendous respect for the amazing editorial work they do over at Premier Guitar, so it's a tremendous honor to be recognized by them. We highly recommend checking out the Atlas review as well as all the other great stories on their website and in the magazine.

The Source Audio Sound Laboratory never stops! Our latest project is a small but very handy item that provides instant MIDI capabilities to all of our small One Series pedals. This is a great way to gain remote access to as many as 128 presets with MIDI program change messages (PC) on pedals like our C4 Synth, Atlas Compressor, and Spectrum Intelligent Filter. â€‹

We were big-time excited to learn that Reeves Gabrels included our Multiwave Distortion (updated to the Ultrawave Distortion Lab) in his list of "five pieces of gear I can't live without" in a recent Guitar Magazine article. We have known Reeves for a long time. He, along with Adrian Belew, Steven Wilson, and Earl Slick, was among the first group of innovative guitarists to embrace the unique sound possibilities of multiband processing. He talked about the pedal in the Guitar article: "The reason the Multiwave Distortion is indispensable to me is that it lets me get stuff that I can't get from any other pedal. You can imitate with it - you can do your Fuzz Face, tube overdrive and what not - but you can also create totally unique sounds."