In Conversation With...Lichtlaerm Audio!

Boost Guitar Pedals are absolutely delighted to welcome Lichtlaerm Audio to our brand roster. We’ve been huge fans of Daniel’s work for several years and it’s an honour to be able to bring his gear to our customers.

Fresh from a successful NAMM ‘25, Daniel was gracious enough to answer some of our questions to help shed a little light on what Lichtlaerm Audio is all about and why we should all be excited to get our hands on the gear!

Where did the name Lichtlaerm come from?

It means light pollution or "noise from light" and is the name of one of my favorite albums by the German Hardcore Punk band, Alpinist - as the band split up years ago, this is my tribute to them.

When did you first start building effects pedals? Was there a specific moment or experience that inspired you to dive in?

I started back in 2012/2013 - mainly building kits. I studied Musicology with electronic engineering as a minor but was forced to drop out of university due to a severe heart disease which put my life on hold for a few years. I spent this time studying everything about audio electronics that I could find and decided to give it a try as a full time job and haven’t looked back since.

You’ve got some really impressive artists on your roster. How did you come to work with Mike Sullivan from Russian Circles, a guy with an enviable collection of great pedals?

In fact Mike bought a few of our pedals without me even noticing - which is strange because I remember almost every name from our order list (with by now over 12,000 pedals made!) - but simply couldn’t remember him ever ordering even though Russian Circles as well as Dakota, Dakota (his old band) are some of my favourite bands of all time.

He reached out and invited me for a gig in Berlin and we just got along really well. We’re in touch all the time and have come to a point where I would call him a friend - we meet whenever he’s in Europe or just a few weeks ago when I was in LA. He’s been the one who got me in touch with a lot of people that I’d call friends as well by now: Arv and Tom from Hiwatt, Sacha from Dunable Guitars, Mark from We Lost the Sea - and in fact we just started brainstorming for a collaboration pedal which I’m super excited about!

What was the first pedal you made as Lichtlaerm Audio?

The Altar fuzz was the first original one and is to this day one of my favorites. It has gone through several revisions and is probably our most versatile dirt pedal. The one that really put us on the map was probably the Key & Gate, though - which is probably the most sold noise gate in the EU nowadays.

What was the inspiration behind the PandorA?

Like a bunch of our pedals: a happy accident. I am working on a full amp in pedal format right now and with complex designs I start with modules that I can tweak separately. With this project it was the PandorA (power amp), a gain section (that will turn into the Ragnarok), and several EQ sections. The PandorA worked so well as a standalone unit that we decided to just release it - and it became one of our best selling pedals overnight.

What was the initial vision or philosophy behind Lichtlaerm Audio? How has that vision evolved over time?

Ohh… I’ll try to shorten this in a way that will fit here :D

In the first place I never wanted to run Lichtlaerm like a business and more like I would run any artistic outlet: unapologetically do what I think is the best I can do - not think too much about margins, and add everything that I personally would want in a device.

Honestly not a lot has changed about this except that the economic framework is forcing me to make enough money to make a living and pay my employees a good living wage. But still to this day, the compliment that I love hearing the most is the one we get the most: "I always wished someone designed this - it’s like a musician thought of this."

I guess this defines the vision still: never lose touch, never forget where you’re coming from and keep a human part in the company, even if it has to work as a business.

A few of your pedals feature an added charge pump to increase the operating voltage. What’s the thinking behind this and what does it do?

A charge pump is, in the simplest explanation, a circuit that’s increasing or inverting supply voltages - sometimes both. Based on this, a charge pump increases headroom (the threshold where a signal starts clipping) and changes inherent properties of some active circuits (Op-amps can work with a bigger bandwidth, for example).

So we’re implementing them to give bigger ranges for active EQs and other headroom-reliant circuits, to give more control over saturation and avoid unpleasant clipping, and generally run parts closer to their ideal operational circumstances.

Tell us about the incredible artwork on your pedals?

Love that you’re asking about this! We literally have the best artist on board that we can wish for: Aphelior, aka Vanessa was a godsend. I found her art on instagram around the time of our relaunch and just asked her if she would like to work with us and she was super-excited about it.

I have worked with a lot of artists over the years: for Lichtlaerm Audio, in my bands or elsewhere, and no one comes close to her professionalism and sheer quality of work. Usually I pitch an idea to her - 90% of it's based on literature (mostly fantasy & fiction such as Lovecraft, Lord of the Rings, the Bible…) - and she proposes 3-4 sketches within a few hours and I’m struggling to decide which one is the best because they're all so good! You can probably see that I’m so happy we have her on board and so thankful she’s working with us and that I can call her a friend by now!

Besides that, we sometimes work with other artists as well - the older pedals have different artists and sometimes I just find something online and feel it’s so perfect that I’ll try to get a license for it. There’s the Medusa, for example, that Kasia Jasmina did - she worked with bands like Gojira, Ghost, and our friends from Khemmis.

What’s your favourite Lichtlaerm Audio pedal, and what’s your favourite pedal from another company?

The favourite Lichtlaerm pedal changes every now and then - and I shouldn’t have a favourite child, right? But I do love the Altar and Amber Spyglass. The ones I use the most are probably Aesahaettr in front of the Prometheus and the Kassandra, though. Usually the ones I’m working on or that are new also get a lot of love: the As Above, So Below and the Ragnarok for example.

My favourite guitar pedals from other builders (impossible to choose just one!) are: Science Amps Mother, ZCat BIG Reverb, and Chase Bliss Mood :) 

What do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities for the guitar industry in 2025?

Hmm… I think there’s so many: international politics are very unstable, which influences planning, international business relations and markets. This will probably not get better any time soon and will pose big challenges. I’m a person that loves collaborating with people all around the globe and this is not getting easier.

Marketing is one thing that is challenge and opportunity at the same time: you can reach the whole world with a single post nowadays. This is great for people who know how to use it to their advantage but also lets companies with great products and ideas go unseen if they don’t want to engage with this. I think a big opportunity is that people focus on more than just the big players: there’s more than Gibson, Fender, Marshall and Mesa. People look for human beings behind a company that they can identify with - it’s a chance for companies like ours and other small ventures.

What are your plans for the future?

More pedals, more amps, maybe a Lichtlaerm guitar! I’m a workaholic and never stop learning new things; I’m doing several courses in 3D-design/CAM right now and have A LOT of almost finished projects on my computer. More digital effects, maybe plugins (talking to several companies right now).

Besides that, I am planning to start a side-brand of Lichtlaerm later this year - I’m a huge fan of noise rock, post rock and shoegaze and I would love to do more for these genres and the ideas don’t fit into the Lichtlaerm vision entirely!

We’re also working on a full line of pedals for bass right now that should be out this year: we've been postponing this for way too long and people are asking all the time!

We’re also doing our festival again after it was such a huge success in 2024. Generally we’d like to do more with and for our local music scene: book shows, provide affordable backline & van rental, and maybe even open a venue at some point.

I will definitely not get bored.