This AI guitar pedal lets you “sound like any song” with just one click – but does it risk taking the soul out of music-making?

Artificial intelligence has been reshaping music production for years, from automated mixing to generative composition – and now, it’s finally hitting the pedalboard.

Chicago-based startup Groundhog Audio has unveiled the OnePedal, a guitar pedal powered by AI that can match the tone of virtually any song in seconds. In theory at least.

The process is deceptively simple. Users select a track from the app’s library, which features over 100,000 songs, or upload their own. The system then isolates the guitar track, analyses its tone, and generates an effects chain that gets you as close as possible to the original recording. The AI model is trained to understand music styles, guitar gear, and production techniques, enabling it to predict the ideal settings and signal chains for each track.

Those settings can be saved directly to the pedal for offline use, making the OnePedal equally effective for bedroom practice, studio sessions, or live performances.

Navigating between songs and tones is just as effortless: a large central knob lets users scroll quickly through tracks, while a dedicated tone switch allows seamless switching between different sounds mid-performance. A 4-inch screen provides intuitive access to presets and settings, keeping the focus on playing rather than menu diving.

As Groundhog Audio founder Max Engle puts it, the OnePedal is about reclaiming time for creativity: “Guitarists shouldn’t have to spend hours dialing in knobs or scrolling forums to get the right sound,” he says. “We want to give musicians time back to focus on what they really love – playing.”

Beautiful-sounding as that argument may be, music-making purists might argue that handing over so much of the technical process to a machine risks stripping away the soul of music-making. For many musicians, the joys of experimentation, accidental discovery, and shaping a tone by ear are part of what gives music its character.

Still, tools like OnePedal are just part of a growing wave of AI-powered music tech. Audio sample library WAVS, for instance, recently launched its AI Sample Finder, letting users drag any audio file from their DAW timeline into the plugin to discover similar sounds. More than anything, these innovations illustrate how AI is increasingly taking over the technical heavy lifting, leaving musicians to weigh the balance between efficiency and creative expression.

The OnePedal launches on Kickstarter on 30 September for $399 (retail price $549), with limited-edition “Founding User” perks and lifetime software updates available to early backers.

Learn more at Groundhog Audio.