About Us

Like the idea of digital amp modeling but know the sound doesn't compare to the real thing?

We're right there with you. Maybe we can help.

Black Widow Audio Designs was founded in 2006 to help solve this problem. We did just that when we announced our debut product, the MGP-1A Modeling Guitar Preamplifier, which was voted in the top 20 new products at the 2014 NAMM Show by Audio Fanzine.

Here at Black Widow Audio Designs, we want to be a different kind of company. That starts with our philosophy of what a customer is.

We seek to eliminate the "Us vs. You" mentality of business today. We believe a great business can only be successful when they understand it's really "Us with You". This philosophy shapes how we design our products, too.

Year after year, companies continue to overhype their "revolutionary" products that you never needed in the first place. That's not us.

We believe great product should inspire and make it easier for you as a musician to create your masterpiece. A great product should never become obsolete. A great product should speak for itself.

This is who we are. This is Black Widow Audio Designs.

Our Story

While officially founded in 2006, the seeds for Black Widow Audio Designs had been planted long before. At age 14, founder Brian Rois picked up his first guitar and was hooked.

"I never had the raw talent of some of the guys I knew," says Brian, "my strength was always in the ability to hear a song and know where it wanted to go. I was a much better producer than a player, so the studio was my natural home."

At the time, DAW's and computers were just advancing to the point where you could get close to record quality from your bedroom. The problem was capturing professional sounding guitar tracks, especially those with heavy distortion, in the home studio environment.

New to the scene, however, digital amp modeling seemed to offer the solution. The fascination was short lived.

"I literally tried almost everything on the market at the time, but to get professional tones, I kept gravitating towards tubes. It was always some variation of gear, but tubes were always present."

Brian finally bought a 4-channel all-tube preamp from a well-known manufacturer and never looked back. That was the turning point; that is where Black Widow Audio Designs was born.

"I thought, if you could marry the ability to have multiple amplifiers like the digital devices with the organic sound quality of an all-tube amplifier, you'd have the perfect amp modeler. This idea stuck in my head for years. I wanted one so bad."

So after sitting on the idea for a couple of years, Brian set out to design it in 2006.

By 2008, we had our first 'proof of concept' prototype and by 2010 we had two more prototypes built and tested, along with three other complimentary ideas designed on paper. The prototypes validated a lot of awesome ideas, and of course, some not so awesome ideas. But that's why you prototype.

In 2011, we took all of the research, data, and experience gained in the process and created the product you see before you, the Black Widow Audio Designs MGP-1A Modeling Guitar Preamplifier.

Don't think for a second we are done.

We've got plenty in store for you. There's so much left we can't show you. But rest assured we will in due time...all in due time.