Designing Pedals By Breaking Them | Death By Audio

Welcome to Products of Music, a podcast sharing inside stories and expert insights on product innovation in music technology.

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. 

Chapters:
00:00 Preview

01:12 Intro

02:32 Oliver's founder story

04:30 25th anniversary of DBA

07:15 Inspiration and ideas creation

09:10 Digital DSP in Death By Audio pedals

12:26 Early stages of development insights

15:05 How Oliver makes pedals better

19:40 Sponsor segment (+ me playing)

20:46 Experimentation versus intention

25:00 DSP process at Death By Audio

28:50 "There are no new effects pedals"

29:20 Speed Tripper

30:16 New pedal - Amp Crash

33:10 Chaos versus order

36:00 Graphic design insights

37:37 Oliver's favourite DBA designs

39:31 What Oliver is most concerned about

40:37 AI is potentially terrifying

47:25 Thoughts on Death By Audio clones

51:33 Olivers favourite DBA pedal

51:51 Most underrated DBA pedal

53:45 Top 3 pedals of all time

55:49 Community questions

01:03:30 Outro

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