Alfonso Hermida picked up his first guitar at age 8 and has been reluctant to put it down ever since. Expensive guitar equipment was outside his reach, so he began fabricating simple pedals in Puerto Rico while attending high school and playing in bands. Hermida earned his bachelor and master degrees in mechanical engineering. He obtained a position with NASA/Goddard Flight Space Center in Maryland where he spent 12 years working as both an aerospace and electrical engineer designing scientific equipment for space. He also earned another master degree in aerospace engineering, authored and edited computing books, wrote numerous magazine articles and taught engineering at three universities.

At NASA, Hermida rediscovered pedal design on the internet. While casually making repairs for friends and local music shops, he fell in love with the tone in Robben Ford’s version of “Golden Slumbers.” After five years of research and design, Hermida released his first pedal, the Mosferatu, based on this sound. Ford used more gain on the track than usual, and requested that the pedal deliver more dynamics, more tone, and less gain. Hermida then revisited an earlier pedal design which soon became the Zendrive.

Since 2003, Hermida has released a variety of master effects pedals including the Zendrive 2, based on the original solid state Zendrive while incorporating a tube. These pedals, along with the original Mosferatu, have earned numerous accolades including Guitar Player’s “Editor’s Pick” and Premier Guitar’s 5-pick rating.

Hermida’s newest pedals are the Nu-Valve, an overdrive employing rare miniature tubes, and the Reverb, a design originally developed for a well-known guitar player’s amplifier. He was recently featured in the October 2009 Premier Guitar “Builder Profile” and has participated on the Tone Wizard panels in the New York and Los Angeles Amp shows