Meet David Sestito

We recently connected with David Sestito and have shared our conversation below.

Hi David, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

In early 1998 when my daughter was starting to play guitar and listening to some heavy bands. She came to me and said, “Hey dad, hear that Korn guitar sound? Can you make me something that does that kind of distortion?” Hum, I figured why not. I used to use guitar effects in our band Darkstarr, but now I had electrical engineering expertise. So I made that distortion unit, which she used and liked very much. That enticed me to dust off my old guitar effects. I tried my using my EH Memory Man delay, but it was not working well. I thought a while and said, “Heck, I should be able to design something at least as good, and with some extra features and better sounding”. So I proceeded to design my first Echo guitar effect. It was so close, but after spending many months working and tweaking, I scrapped it in frustration because it did not meet my expectations. I literally threw it in the garbage!

I started over again with a whole new hybrid electronic design approach. Five months later, success was at hand with the Echomaster Delay. A friend was producing Greg Howe & Victor Wooten and I was invited to meet Greg at the studio, who ended up used the Echomaster on the Extraction CD. From there a similar design philosophy was used to create the stereo Ultra Chorus that exhibited some beautiful chorus tones!

A love for ultimate sounding guitar effects and tone emerged as a mission in my life! I would go on to spend countless hours developing products that I loved and thought others would love too. I formed DLS Effects INC in 1999 and continued to expand my product portfolio. I would go on to provide guitar effect products to Aerosmith, Rascal Flatts, Rush, Tesla, Daughtry and many others, plus was invited to many shows. I felt a great purpose providing these guitar effects for the bands I grew up listening to, who ended up using my products as part of their art and sound! DLS Effects is still going strong today with my purpose with passion for creating ultimate guitar effects never wavering!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I grew up in upstate New York and in the late 70s and 80s played lead guitar in many bands. I would write and produce songs and eventually formed a band called Darkstarr. We used a booking agent in Rochester NY, cut several records, and toured around the Northern USA and Canada. At that time I used many guitar effects to enhance my guitar sounds and music. After the Darkstarr breakup in 1982, I married my longtime girlfriend and pursued electronics, which was another passion of mine. I took evening classes to learn more about electronics design and eventually went to work for a local electronics design and manufacturing company.

Thanks to my daughter asking to get a certain guitar sound, I ended up using my past effects experience with the evolving electronics design expertise to start designing guitar effects. When I eventually started the company DLS Effects in 1999, I only had 2 guitar effect products. After many rejections, I was fortunate to have Musictoyz.com become a DLS Effects dealer. I eventually received a call from Teddy at Musictoyz that he received an order from Aerosmith for one of my products called the EchoTAP. The Aerosmith guitar tech was happy with that product and subsequently contacted me about my chorus effect, and if I would modify it to stereo for guitarist Brad Whitford. I did this and was eventually invited backstage for a nearby Aerosmith/Cheap Trick show, plus invited on the crew tour bus afterwards. What an awesome experience watching my effects being used by a pro band live! Form there the word got out about DLS Effects and sales grew with more touring guitarist and musicians at all levels. This further ignited my desire to design even more guitar effect products, which allowed DLS Effects to expand our dealer network worldwide!

This was never just about the money from a business…… it was about a passion to design superior guitar effects and the reward seeing musicians happy with their guitar sound and stoking their creativity and enjoyment.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back and even today, we all need passion, learning and staying power to adequately chase our dreams. The reality is there will always be problems and naysayer comments to deal with. That hurts and may be a setback, but if you objectively analyze the issues and try not to take things personal, you will have learned, adjusted, and be better off for it. Its tough to face adversity, but keep moving forward and believe in yourself and what your passion is trying to achieve.

When I started designing guitar effects, even some people close to me questioned why I was investing so much time, money and energy into something that would probably never pan out. There were also failures along the way that were discouraging. However, I didn’t listen, learned from the failures and trusted my passion and desire to grow. By not quitting, I would eventually go on to achieve more than I could have ever expected! This included meeting many of the guitar heroes I grew up listening to such as Alex Lifeson (Rush), Frank Hannon (Tesla), Daughtry, Heart, John Oates, REO and many others.

There is never a guarantee of success, but either way you will build character and should be proud of yourself for your efforts. Sometimes an endeavor does not pan out, but you will utilize the skills learned and mental awareness and evolve to the next venture that may become successful. Either way, be proud of yourself for persistence, learning to overcome, the skills learned and trying your best!

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?

An ideal DLS Effects client is any level of musician who values guitar playing and the sound of their instrument. Some of the greatest rewards is hearing from guitar and bass players about how much DLS Effects products enhanced their sound, sparking excitement and creativity and making playing their instrument more fun.

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