Anasounds

The story: from a French workshop to the Utopia

Anasounds began as a competition entry. In 2014, Alexandre Hernandez and Magali won the "challenge jeunes pousses" with a MIDI multi-FX pedal designed for stage use; the project never started, but it led them to think up the first products: the Feed Me, the Centaur and the Phase Lag¹. The company was officially registered on 1 January 2016, and that year BPI France provided extra funding for its R&D project¹.

In 2017, Yann Cayrol joined the R&D team, and Anasounds formed distribution partnerships with Filling Distribution for western Europe and LPD music for the USA¹. That same year the FX Teacher DIY range was created, and work began on an optical tremolo and a DSP reverb¹⁷.

The original Utopia delay is the pedal Anasounds credits with turning the brand into what it is, its best-selling pedal since 2015, and alongside the Savage it helped the company gain recognition and find its place among boutique pedal makers²³. The Utopia runs on external 9V DC with negative polarity and includes a hum and noise filter inside the pedal, with OPA Texas Instruments integrated circuits⁸⁹.

La Grotte and the Jack White collaboration

The Element is Anasounds' spring reverb pedal. Jack White bought it and used it in his studio and on his pedalboard⁵, and after playing the Element he got in touch with Anasounds to design a spring reverb for Third Man Hardware, his signature product brand⁵¹⁰.

The result is the La Grotte, designed by Anasounds in close collaboration with Third Man Hardware and Jack White⁵⁴. It answers a long-time wish of Jack White's: a compact, fully mechanical spring reverb pedal for his pedalboard, usable with any amp¹¹. As shipped, the internal settings are Jack White's favorites⁴. The pedal comes in two finish options, both black and yellow, plus a limited edition swirl finish exclusive to Third Man Records¹¹.

The people behind Anasounds

Anasounds describes itself as a French company on a human scale⁵. Alexandre Hernandez and Magali founded it, and Yann Cayrol joined the R&D team in 2017¹. The company presents its development work in collective terms: the High Voltage distortion, for example, was developed by "the anasounds team, advised by fans of ac/dc"¹², and the Ages harmonic tremolo came out of the team's work on cut-off frequencies, gains and noise avoidance, with an embedded attack detector for a more lively interaction with the pedal¹³.

Handmade in France: wood enclosures and hand-soldered circuits

All Anasounds pedals are handmade in France with high-quality components⁶¹². The construction process has two distinctive parts:

• Woodwork: designs are engraved on bamboo and mahogany wood with the laser system of Thermoflan, a French company based in Montpellier. The wood then goes through a finishing routine of wetting three times, sanding four times and varnishing five times. A light change of color can appear on the wood over time, which Anasounds says is completely normal⁶.
• Electronics: all circuit cards are hand soldered and hand assembled in the workshop in Nice, and finished pedals go through quality controls covering audio, visual, electronic and material checks⁶.

Thanks to the precision and speed of the Thermoflan laser, Anasounds can also make custom designs on demand⁶. The FX Teacher line is designed and manufactured in France in Anasounds' workshops under the same conditions as the Origins line¹⁴.

The product ranges

Anasounds groups its catalog into saturations, modulations, time-based effects and others, alongside handmade jacks and parts for DIY cables⁶. Representative pedals include:

The Trémolo, made in France with high-quality components, is the first Anasounds pedal to use a microcontroller, giving what the company calls infinite possibilities for sound and settings, with footswitches that respond to short or long pushes¹⁵. The Spinner expression pedal grew out of that work: months of research on its magnetic system, with the metallic part built by a local French craftsman¹⁶. The Bumper adapts impedances between pedals and devices¹⁷, and the K+ is a modular power supply for pedalboards¹⁸. RockBoard's PedalPedia lists the Germanium Boost as a handmade boutique boost pedal from French builder Anasounds, alongside the Tape Preamp¹⁹²⁰.

FX Teacher: the DIY range

FX Teacher is a range of DIY pedals created from scratch by the Anasounds team and available in DIY form only, launched in 2017¹. The idea is to assemble an effect pedal while learning how it works and the basics of audio electronics⁷. Buyers get unlimited access to a knowledge database and can interact directly with the designers by submitting comments on the blog articles¹⁴.

The Full Story kit, a distortion/fuzz pedal with huge sustain, offers six different sound colors for each Tone Card directly on the pedal before touching the two internal terminals and changing the cards²¹. An assembled-and-tuned option is also available: pedals are delivered ready to play with the team's favorite components and internal settings, plus a bag of bonus components to mount on the terminal blocks using only a screwdriver⁷²². The Tape Preamp pedal likewise started as an FX Teacher project before becoming an assembled product²³.

Anasounds also runs FX Teacher masterclasses where the price includes the kit given on location and the instruction; participants who already received a kit can bring it and pay only the difference, and everyone comes home with a working pedal²⁴.

Support, warranty and DIY help

Anasounds' warranty has one important exception for second-hand buyers:

Team-built pedals carry the normal guarantee, and the Ego Driver, for example, ships with the same quality and guarantee as the Origins line²⁵. B-stock pedals are sold with the same audio guarantee as regular units, with some aesthetic defects from manufacturing⁸. For DIY support, Anasounds asks that requests go through the comments section of the relevant blog post only: no emails, no chat, no calls regarding DIY²⁴.

The range (70)

News