In April 1995, Dan Coggins gave up his night shifts as a BBC engineer and the Lovetone company was founded. That summer, Dan and partner Vlad Naslas took their Meatball envelope filter production prototype to effects guru Pete Cornish, who provided them with some solid advice moving forward. The Meatball was described by the company as an amazing envelope follower/triggered filter. Famous users include The Edge, Ed O’Brien and Kirk Hammett. A few companies have taken their own passes at the Meatball design since Lovetone shuttered around 2001.

The Meatball is a dynamic filter controlled by an in-built trigger, although turning the bottom left-hand switch to its Off position disengages the trigger so that the Meatball can be used as a static filter. The same switch also sets the trigger to react to either the full bandwidth of the triggering signal, or to only half. In the Half position, bass frequencies roll off at 150Hz, so that random bass rumbles won't trouble the trigger. However the setting is purely for the trigger's benefit and does not actually attenuate the audio. Most of the other controls adjust the various filter parameters, apart from the Sensitivity knob, which sets the trigger threshold.