and utopia for all

The origin of the Anasounds Utopia family is as simple as it gets. We wanted a delay with the warmth and musical qualities of a tape echo or a bucket brigade pedal without the loss of treble and the maintenance issues of those classic models. And we also wanted control to face many musical situations. From the start, the PT2399 chip was a no-brainer.

The Utopia V1 is the simplest version of our delay, the one that took the guitar work by storm back in 2015 but remains current by being very easy to use with a sound that has inspired many players.
But we couldn’t rest on our laurels and decided to design two more models for the Utopia range.
The Utopia Deluxe is a maxed-out version of the original one with a tap tempo, modulations that are easy to set up and a built-in preamp.

But then there’s the evil twin, the Dystopia, that has been designed to appeal to lovers of chaotic and noisy machines.

Right from the start, the Anasounds brand was going to be synonymous with a quality delay.
Even before the brand got its name, founder Alexandre had already tried out many prototypes before settling on the PT2399 chip that had convinced him of its huge musical potential.

The very first model back in 2014 was simply using the datasheet, taking the PT2399 as it was designed, without any additional filtering. The results were promising, if a little synthetic-sounding.
Those first delay pedals, with sliders to adjust the three settings, were the real start of Anasounds. Alexandre knew the model had potential but still wasn’t quite there yet, so he went back to the drawing board.

Creating the original Utopia was not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, rather a first burn-out in the name of the never-ending quest for sound, the quest for a perfect delay halfway between the warmth of vintage gear and the clarity of modern devices, without a single compromise.

Guided by that sonic vision, Alexandre went about it in a very matter-of-fact way, trying out circuits, modifying them, playing, listening, spending long hours trying to understand what makes a great delay.
By day, he was working as an engineer for a corporation. By night, he was burning the midnight oil on the Utopia. Anasounds was only a name, but the will was there.

When the Utopia came out in 2015, it instantly became the best-selling pedal of the new brand.
The Anasounds catalog was still pretty thin, but the delay quickly became the pedal that made a difference, and it remains a best-seller eight years later.

Musicians were quick to request a tap tempo in order to enjoy the Utopia sound with more flexibility. But the idea of a regular Utopia with added tap tempo didn’t sit well with Anasounds who wanted to make the delay better in every possible way. Engineer Loick got hired in 2020 to face that daunting task, working tirelessly for three years as a duo with Alexandre in order to reach a result that they could be happy with.

Eventually, by summer 2023, the first truly satisfying prototypes began to appear, starting with the Dystopia, a « negative » version of the Utopia.
Its goal was to create sounds that don’t exist in any other pedal that’s currently available with a host of exciting features.

But the idea of a more « regular » delay with a nice pristine sound remained out main quest, we wanted it to be flexible but easy to use at the same time.
This is how the Utopia Deluxe became a reality with its tap tempo, warm and musical preamp and its highly usable modulations.

The final result was worthy of the best delays, both organic and highly precise.