De-Feedback Plugin for Working Musicians: More Gain, Less Feedback with Devin Sheets
Gig Gab - The Working Musician's PodcastShow Notes
You’re invited into a legacy family audio business that refused to accept “good enough” on feedback control and instead chased the impossible: a truly zero‑latency, AI‑driven way to push your PA louder without squeals. You follow Devin Sheets from growing up on sound gigs to roaming European stages, then back home to build De‑Feedback plugin for working musicians, a live sound feedback plugin and on‑the‑fly impulse‑response generator that listens like a seasoned engineer: separating human voice, room reverb, background noise, and feedback in real time so you can grab at least 6 dB more gain before things start to howl. Along the way you see how NAMM sparked the idea, how inverse impulse responses and probability math beat old EQ and gate tricks, and how “homebrew AI” meant sneaking into every empty church at 3 a.m. just to teach the model what real rooms actually sound like.
You also learn how to think like a modern working musician: using social media to find the right AI programmers across the world, leaning on LLMs to translate, collaborate, and even rate contractor work so you can move faster without losing control. You come away knowing you can drop a dedicated De‑Feedback box or plugin into almost any rig, from churches to touring consoles to tiny clubs, take it with you even when someone else is behind the board, and quietly stack the deck in your favor. In the end, it’s a roadmap for how you run your own gigs and career: stay curious, embrace new tools, protect your sound, and Always Be Performing.
00:00:00 Gig Gab 524 – Monday, March 9th, 2026
March 9th: National Meatball Day
Guest co-host: Devin Sheets from Alpha Labs
00:02:12 Let’s Grow this Legacy Family Business
Grew up doing sound
Also a musician
Lived in Europe
Then came back and said, “let’s grow this family business!”
00:03:44 We haven’t “just solved” this feedback problem
Went to NAMM for the first time, and was inspired
There are automated EQ-based or gate-based systems
PSE plugin from Waves
5045 for feedback
00:04:57 Why isn’t there a “balanced audio”-type solution for Feedback
Balanced Audio fixes hums and it just works.
00:08:24 NAMM is a great inspiration…and it inspired Devin and his team to seek a feedback plugin solution
People get entrenched
Inverse Impulse Response methodology
00:12:35 Training the AI to listen for three things: human voice, reverb, and feedback
Created a de-reverb algorithm and went beyond that
A probability calculation does the math
00:16:05 Truly zero latency for the plugin
Workflow latency remains
00:19:32 I don’t have any coding or AI background, but I have a gut feeling AI will fix this feedback problem
Others: It’s harder than you think
Devin: I knew that it needed to happen
00:20:58 Finding an AI programmer who was interested in doing
Experimented with some programmers, failed, learned some things!
00:21:09 Social Media to the rescue!
Late 2023: Devin found a group of AI programmers who would be interested
Sending large amounts of money to China…it’s a risk!
00:26:30 At 3am, a text message: I think I’ve done it.
Devin immediately started testing it himself
“It seemed to work.”
00:27:17 Installing De-Feedback in Churches
Sponsors
00:30:57 SPONSOR: Claude.ai – Ready to tackle bigger problems? Sign up for Claude today, which includes access to Claude Cowork, too, when you visit Claude.ai/giggab
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00:34:20 What is an impulse response?
Impulse Response: An audio picture of how the room sounds
Popping balloons in a room/environment and recording the sound is a common approach for creating impulse responses
00:38:33 De-Feedback is an on-the-fly IR generator
…and analyzer that’s trained on the human voice, room reverb, background noise…and feedback
00:41:55 Finding the right programmers was the key
…in addition to actually having the idea
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