Products of Music How Neural DSP Became a Leader in Digital Modeling
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Mar 3, 2026 
Francisco Cresp, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Neural DSP, leads product vision and digital modeling research. He recounts the founder journey and how the team builds and prioritizes products. He discusses signature plugin development, porting software to hardware, capturing fuzz and analog nuance, and cautious exploration of generative AI in music tech.
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Founding Story From Pedals To Plugins
- Francisco and Doug began collaborating in Santiago and Finland, evolving from Doug's pedal prototypes to founding separate companies (Darkglass then Neural DSP).
- Early marketing videos Francis produced (M900) set the template for Neural DSP's product launches and UI direction.
How Neural DSP De-Risks Product Decisions
- Neural DSP moved from founder-led decisions to a structured discovery process with UX research, market data, and cross-team gates to de-risk products.
- Francisco coordinates vision, curates concepts with designers, and hands validated projects to product owners for execution.
Cut Through Feedback Noise By Owning Visibility
- Maintain full visibility across teams and be the integrator who balances trade-offs when many cross-project dependencies exist.
- Encourage open debate and trust leaders but let the product win when opinions conflict.