Who is Anasounds? — The JHS Show

In today’s episode, we’re going to look into a pedal company called “Anasounds” [pronounced Anna-Sounds, not Ahna-Sounds]. The company owner and founder, Alex Ernandez, explained that the French pronounce it Ahna-soon-duh, but he prefers the way it’s spoken (in his own words) with “the beautiful American accent.”

Yeah. That’s the first-- and honestly, probably the last --time that anyone has called the American accent beautiful, but I’m rolling with it.

The Anasounds HQ is located in the South of France, literally off the French Riviera. For perspective, the nearest river to the JHS shop is the Little Blue River, which is full of trash and meth needles and lent its name to the Battle of Little Blue River during the American Civil War.

The Anasounds owner and head engineer is a guy named Alexandre “Alex” Ernandez, whose job description is basically to do all the things the other employees don't want to do. He also has a pretty awesome side project called PALF, which is a YouTube channel. PALF stands for “Pédale a la Frances.” You could say that this is the French JHS Show, but you could just as easily say that the JHS Show is the American PALF.**

**Wasn’t PALF also that sitcom from the eighties about aliens? Or am I thinking of Mork and Mindy?

The name Anasounds is short for “analog sounds,” which means that these pedals are based around analog topologies and a more simplistic approach to pedal design. They also incorporated an incredibly unique enclosure style: wood-topped pedals. Specifically, laser-etched bamboo. Alex’s fiancée Margret was inspired by a friend of hers who was creating jewelry with a laser, so she suggested that Alex could do the same thing with his pedals.

It’s like the old adage says: necessity is the mother of invention. Or, in this case, the fiancée.

The Element Spring Reverb

The Spring Element Reverb is a reverb pedal, but it’s fully analog. Pas numérique.

Yeah, I’ll give you a second to wrap your brains around that.

The photo honestly does a better job explaining how this pedal works than I can, but here’s the short version: Alex took the brains or electronic guts of a classic spring reverb unit (like a Fender Reverb Tank) and put it in a small, much more portable guitar pedal. Here’s where the analog dynamic comes in. You have three different analog tanks that you can plug into the pedal, and the size of the tank is directly proportional to how much decay and how much of a drip sound you get. These analog spring reverb tanks may not look like typical guitar gear (there’s a strong chance you’ll have someone come up after your show and ask when you learned to play the theremin), but they sound fantastic.

Savage Overdrive MKII

The Savage is modeled after the Klon Centaur. I don't know how exact the circuitry is, but I put it on the settings I like, and it nailed it, so this pedal has my stamp of approval. This pedal has been described as “always powerful and redoubtable.” According to Alex, they chose to keep the vintage electronic structure to maximize warmness and tone dynamics.

The wood etching on top of the pedal also looks like some sort of angry French moose, which is intriguing.

Ages Harmonic Tremolo

The Ages Harmonic Tremolo is an oddball, but in the best way. Harmonic tremolo is already one of the most misunderstood and hard to find effects on the market. In its original form, it's a tremolo, but it has aspects that feel like a phaser, plus you can coax Univibe sounds out of it. Maybe it can also turn lead into gold. I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly.

All these features add up to a completely unique tone that’ll have your bandmates asking where in the world you got it, to which you can smugly answer, “France.”

Freq Up Custom Boost

Next up is the Freq Up Custom Boost. “Freq” stands for “frequency,” and this is basically a Tube Screamer without tone control but with a frequency toggle. It’s a really cool, out of the box idea, and if you like Tube Screamers, this is a fun option.

Fair warning: Anasounds has announced that they're going to quit making this pedal soon, so if you want the Freq Up Custom Boost, you need to buy it now. Alternatively, you can deluge Anasounds with a letter campaign begging them to keep making this pedal until the end of time. It’s worth a shot, right?

Phase Lag Vintage Phaser

The Phase Lag Vintage Phaser is basically Anasounds’ take on the classic Ross Phaser. It’s a 100% analog modulation, a really simple and easy to use OTA phasing effect pedal.

Just get one. You’ll be glad you did.

Feed Me Fuzz

I’m just going to be honest with you guys: the French know how to do fuzz pedals. I don’t know if it’s something in their diet, or some sort of genetic memory, X-Men style gift, but they do. Anasounds is no exception, and they have several unique options in the fuzz department.

First up is the Feed Me Fuzz, which is Anasounds’ take on the Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face. Like the OG Fuzz Face, the Feed Me Fuzz has no knobs. It doesn’t need knobs. You don’t need knobs. You’re better than that.

Bitoun Fuzz

The next fuzz on the list is the Bitoun Fuzz. This is a little fancier than the Feed Me Fuzz. For starters, Alex was inspired for this pedal by a French artist called Eugène Boudin, best known for his impressionist seascape paintings. How does that translate into the sound of guitar distortion? I’m not honestly not sure. But it’s definitely French.

Sound-wise, this pedal is pretty out there. It’s a mix of a Fuzz Face and a Shin-Ei SuperFuzz, with added Big Muff tones. It's really aggressive and really cool, plus it gates. I love this enclosure style, because the wood top literally looks like there’s a bite taken out of it. I originally thought this was a reference to “biting tone,” but according to our comments section it’s actually “a cheeky nod to 'Nice' biscuits.” #themoreyouknow

Sliver Tremolo

When I first saw the Sliver Tremolo at NAMM, I thought it was really cool. Basically, you can use this on its own (it's a fantastic tap tempo trem) or you can plug in the expression controller which utilizes magnets and propellers to produce a tremolo. The propeller was apparently inspired by fidget spinners, which just makes me love it more. What I really love is that if you use it with the expression controller, the Sliver Tremolo produces a different sound literally every time you play it.

Basically, the French know what they’re doing, y’all.

Spinner Distortion

What I'm about to say is real: the Spinner Distortion is possibly the best AC/DC-sounding pedal I've ever heard. Like, this is shockingly close to the sound of AC/DC.

When you're learning guitar and you want to play AC/DC, you always use an absurd amount of gain, but when you actually listen to AC/DC you realize that even though it's rooted in distortion, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to their sound that you can’t get with just any ol’ distortion pedal. Or rather, you couldn’t, until the Spinner Distortion hit the market.

Utopia Tape Echo

The Utopia Tape Echo is a tape delay simulator with pretty basic controls on the front: delay, repeat and mix, with a toggle for modulation. There are some trim pots inside for tape effect, modulation rate & depth and intensity. You definitely get bang for your buck with this pedal.

Fun fact: Anasounds literally developed this topology from scratch, which is pretty baller

Lazy Comp

The Lazy Comp is a really solid optical compressor. The best thing about it is that it has one control and zero bad sounds.

Honestly, I’m not sure there’s anything else to say. Go buy one.

Cerberus Overdrive

The cerberus is a three-headed dog from Greek mythology (though you might know it better as Fluffy from the Harry Potter series), but it’s also a pretty rad overdrive pedal from Anasounds. Basically, the Cerberus Overdrive is a three-way overdrive that has the sound of a Tube Screamer, an OCD and a Marshall. This is a very versatile overdrive, so I love having it on my board.

Honorable Mentions

Anasounds has a really diverse lineup, so I couldn’t wrap this up without adding in a few honorable mentions: the Bumper Buffer (an adorably small buffer that looks like a music box but buffers like a beast) and the FX Driver (a fully stocked pedal-building kit which allows you to build your own Anasounds pedal).

What I love about the FX Driver kit is that it opens the door for anyone to build pedals-- because they can. Pedal-building isn’t rocket science. I wouldn’t be in this business if it were, trust me; I have the D’s on my high school report card to prove it. Pedal-building is actually incredibly simple. Yeah, there’s skill involved, and yeah, you have to put in the work to really be good at it, but at the end of the day anyone can build a pedal.

So buy this kit and build one. Then play it at the next Battle of the Bands. Then when your friends ask where you got that super cool drive pedal, you can say, “I made it,” like a freakin’ boss.